After a very very long fall and winter I finally got the chance to head back to the mighty river. Being the first time back this year I didn’t have my hopes set to high, but what I was greeted with was a very nice treat!! Being that I didn’t have a handle on what the river was currently like I relied on my past experiences to help guide me in the right direction. Looking at factors such as stage, flow and water temp gave me some indications of where some fish may be at. Keeping good records from the past paid off big time in this case.
Being in the very early stages of pre-spawn I focused most of my efforts on areas that I would consider staging or resting areas. These locations tend to be out of the major current areas and can be sand flats, rock shorelines, or the inside bend of the river channel just to name a few. While targeting these areas covering water can be key due to there not be large numbers of fish around yet. My go to tactic for cover water this past weekend, and most anytime for that mater, was a blade bait. If I located a school of fish I would also follow it up by pitching some type of plastic.
With cloud cover and “clean” water the majority of my trip I focused on natural or dark colors. My best blade bait color for the weekend would have had to be black. A very slow retrieve and very short “hops” of the blade seem to be key, more than likely due to the water temperature being under 32 degrees. Due to the cold water temperature I focused my plastic efforts on baits that could be fished SLOW but yet have a lot of action. That led me to the new Moxie’s. Anything in the natural color pattern seemed to be the best choice.
I got to spend quite a bit of time over the 3 days I was fishing using the Minn-Kota I-pilot, about 16 hours worth. It turned out to be the biggest back saver of the trip. While fishing a large sand flat or long stretch of shoreline I was able to position, re-position, and anchor all at the touch of a button. I wanted to cover all depths of a given area but didn’t want to deal with dropping and pulling the anchor numerous times in the day. With the I-pilot I was able to anchor, fish a spot for a while than reposition to the next spot with just the touch of a few buttons. It was truly a back saver and time saver for me this weekend.
I am looking forward to what is to come on the mighty river this year, and hope to see many old friends and meet some new ones along the way.
Until than, good fishing!!!!!!!!!