Again: Miss with Pete and Greg.

Thursday July 31st

As discussed we were able to get out on the Mississippi again with Greg Jones of Mid-West Outdoors TV & Magazine. Originally we were going to meet him at 6PM but that got kicked back to after 7PM. On this night we would launch by Royalton which is a pretty good distance up river from where we launched on Monday. I ended up recognizing this stretch of the river from fishing it last year.

We started out drifting right from the launch on the East side of the river and I was throwing my white/chart Spinnerbait. It didn't take long and Gregg was hooked up on a Smithwick Devils Horse topwater. Greg got another fish and so I switched up to a purple Berkley Frenzy Popper. The popper didn't produce any fish and Greg got another couple on the Devil's Horse, so when we ended our drift and headed up river I asked Greg if he had a Rapala Skitter Prop and he did in kind of a lime green color and he put a feathered Mustad Triple Grip on the back.

We ran up a little ways close to where we started on last year. It was not long into the next drift when I had a good strike on the Skitter Prop. I was hooked up until the fish jumped and sent the lure flying back right at us and into the boat just missing me and Pete. A little farther down river I had a hit and miss, hit and miss, hit and miss, but the 4th time was the charm and I landed this nice smallie.


On one cast the Skitter Prop was just annihilated by this smallmouth, it was awesome:


As we were rolling down river Pete and Greg got into an argument about where Pete should be making his casts. Greg made a suggestion and Pete was having none of it. While they were sniping at one another Pete landed an 18 inch smallie which was the big one of the night. Pete also caught a 22+ inch pike that he insisted go in the livewell over my and Greg's protests.

The fishing wasn't fast but we were getting bit and the average size was a quality fish around 15.5 inches. As it got dark I put on a bullfrog Frenzy Popper and we got in a hot stretch of water and I pulled my last to fish of the night. It was dark enough that I really couldn't see the bite, I would just hear and feel it.

For the night I had 7 to 9 fish caught total which isn't bad for about an hour and a half of fishing.