Spring smallies on the mississippi

[feeninfishing11]

I have been doing a lot of smallie fishing on mississippi pool 4 (winona area) and have not had much luck. Water temp is good but i just dont know where to find them. I have been using spinnerbaits, jerkbaits, and tubes. any tips on location, baits, and water depth would be awesome. thanks

[Cecil]

Pool 4 is Red Wing Lake City area. Are you there or in Winona?

[feeninfishing11]

in winona

[CAMAN]

Pool 4 is above the dam, 5 is below. If you're in 5 hit up the backwaters on the WI side but be sure to stay on this side of the RR tracks.

Jigs, tubes, wacky rigged Senkos in the wood and rocks. Never really had luck with fast moving lures this time of year down there unless your in search of big pike. I like darker colors like blues, blacks and purples.

[feeninfishing11]

sounds good... ill give that a try all through the weekend. thanks alot

[popriveter]

Went shore fishing on pool 2 with my brother-in-law last week. He caught a real nice (3 lb range) smallie on a jig tipped w/gulp. It was pretty feisty for a colder-water fish. After seeing that fish, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are currently plenty of active bass to be caught in the river.

[TonkaBass]

Almost 20 pounds for 5, all smallies, won in the full throttle! They're there!

[Superduty]

4 or 5? See ya down there next week!

[feeninfishing11]

ill be in 5... let me know how you do

[SStracker]

I use to fish pool 5 and 6 almost daily when I went to WSU. Back waters are great! The RR tracks as mentioned are good (dark slough along 61, just north of Minnesota City). You can try fishing different current breaks that the river offers. Later in the year wacky rig senko on weed edges in 6-10 FOW is hard to beat. I've also done well fishing around the 43 bridge/ old duke rd bridge/ train bridge.

Carolina Rig, Chatter bait, Finesse Jig, Swim Jig, Spinning rod with a 4/0 hook (wacky, t-rig, tube, ect...), and Frog are all great options for the river. I don't throw a lot of cranks personally, but I fished with a lot of guys that did and had great success (jerk bait and lipless cranks mainly). Black/blue, White/red, and Green pumpkin red flake are the main colors I threw depending on the water clarity.

You can find a lot of honey holes on the river with the right amount of time invested. This is why I graduated in 5 years instead of 4.

Number one bait I caught river smallies on……… wacky rigged pink senko.

Good Luck!

[feeninfishing11]

Hey thanks thats all really good to know. Ill be here all summer so ill definitely be investing that time.. if your still around we should hit the water sometime

[ikeslayer]

23lbs in a tourney on sunday for five - don't know if they were smallies though but if i had to guess i would say yes.

[Cecil]

Had to be

[tgruenke]

Popriveter- what type of Gulp were you using how did you rig it to the jig?

[TonkaBass]

was that further down though?

[Cecil]

Those do sounds like LaCrosse weights. Not that they aren't possible in 4 or 5.