Mississippi River Pool 4 and 5 FLW Yeti College Series

FLW Yeti College Fishing Report: Mississippi River, Wabasha - July 19, 2019

FLW Yeti College series went to pool 4 and 5 on July 19.

There are two ways that I have learned how to fish this powerful body of water. The first way is to fish current with rocks and target smallmouth. Early in the morning I started out in a spot where water comes from 30 feet up to one foot of water. This spot has heavy current and is very hard to hold the boat in this spot, but I knew that I could get my first five quick and early.

I threw a 4/0 hook with a half-ounce Tokyo rig using a Reaction Innovations Hill Billy special, which is a black and blue type of beaver. The reason for the 4/0 hook is because smallies are known to short bite so I think the hook up percentage is substantially higher. I also threw a half ounce finesse jig with a black and blue strike king rage menace as a trailer.

I caught most of my keepers on a drop-shot with VMC Neko 1/0 hook with a 5/16-cylinder shape drop shot weight. I was throwing the Exo Stick 5” but I took off the first four segments and the last three to match the hatch. There was a recent shad spawn on the lake. Every-time you pitched the drop-shot into the spot, shad would pop out of the water. I was sitting about 10 to 15 feet away from the point and flipping my drop shot right off the point but where the water doesn’t have current.

I caught all five of my fish for 10 pounds and 15 ounces within the first 5 hours. Then I went shallow and started fishing for big large mouth.

We junk fished for the rest of the day with frogs and a Tokyo rig flipping weeds and shade. We needed a kicker to make it to nationals. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get them going at the end of the day. In fishing there’s winning and learning, and this tournament was a learning day on the water.