|
Hi, I'm Cade Laufenberg. I'm 14 years old from La Crosse, Wisconsin. Some on here may know me from the In-depthangling bass forum, but for those that don't know me, I would like to introduce myself. I fish the Mississippi River; pool 8, as often as possible, targeting largemouth and smallmouth bass with an extreme passion. I bought a boat at age 12 because I was so desperate to spend more time on the water doing what I love to do. This post is entitled to share with you, the things that I experienced while on the water for 2006.
Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I would give this year a 9. It was really a great year of fishing for me, and the only reason I would take a point away is because of the slump I had this fall season. Fish were real tight lipped and I believe it has a lot to do with the abnormally cold October that we had. The fish were really in for a cruel punishment and they were shying away from most anything I threw at them. But the year started with a bang.
April- I caught my first bass of the year on the second and proceeded to hammer prespawn fish as often as I could get out on the water. April 17th will go in the book as one of my most memorable day on the water of my life. While I only caught 11 fish the entire day, They were all keepers with several over 2-1/2 lbs and one that went 5 lbs. The 5 lber was a smallmouth and so were a couple of the 3 lbers that I caught. These fish were caught throwing a rattle trap but I had plenty of success throwing finesse worms around prespawn areas as well.
May-June: Once the spawn finished up, Fish were on the move again and I found some nice fish on swim jigs and plastics. The finesse worm was still producing good numbers of fish but the swim jig was my staple bait to throw. I was throwing Brovarney jigs, and anything resembling a bluegill would slay 3lber after another. I credit the BC's gill pattern for many fish, including 2 over 20" on the same night. The month of June was absolutely incredible. I caught many fish that bumped the 20" mark and even more that went from 17-19" long. My main pattern was fishing eelgrass with current running over the top in 2-5 feet of water again with gill colored swim jigs. I found that there is no need for my 5 dollar booyah spinnerbaits, thanks to brovarney swim jigs. They really are an incredibly versitile bait.
July-August-The early parts of July continued to remain phenomenal for continuous sacks over 11 lbs. Due to football weight training through all the summer months, It was hard to find time to fish for 7-8 hours at a time like I did on weekends, but I usually squeaked in 3-4 hours at least after weightlifting. I did this nearly every single day.![Big Smile [:D]](/WisconsinBassFederationNation/emoticons/emotion-2.gif) Even with limited time, It was still very simple to catch more than 7 keepers per outing. I had a very good milkrun of spots that were all less than a mile a part where I could consistantly pull fish from. I caught numerous fish on swim jigs in eel grass, but found some days to be difficult to find fish hitting the swim jig and resorted to a black neon brush hog to continue to pull nice limits with. Once the dog days came in the later parts of July, It was pretty tough to get fish in real shallow water. Instead I fished near deeper breaks with similar techniques as June and July to catch my fish. The brush hog had a lot more grunt work to do than the swim jig, because the fish were sluggish at times and the brush hog would be all I would throw for extensive periods of time. After a couple weeks of off fishing, it got good again. By the 10th of August, Fish were back in the grassy areas I had been used to fishing for so long and I could catch good fish on any swim jig resembling a shad. There were so many gizzard shad, and big ones too, around the goose island area on pool 8. I didn't see any shad anywhere else on pool 8 that were as big as these ones, and I believe that may have contributed to the finding of larger bass in the area. With the moving shad in the area, I found a very hot topwater bite, and bass began to crush spooks and poppers. You could fish these baits over eel grass points with current, sand flats, and a fun one: wingdams for smallies. By the end of August, fishing was better than ever and I logged yet another day that is on the list for one of the best days of fishing ever. In 3-1/2 hours, I was able to produce A five fish limit that went 16-1/2 lbs, my biggest (recorded) sack ever. It was truely incredible.
September-November: September produced some pretty good fishing action for me on pool 8. The early parts were just as good as late august. I found fish hitting well on swim jigs, flukes, rattle traps and senkos. It was tough to establish a pattern other than finding big shad and "going with the flow" so to speak. But I made it work and still caught a limit pretty much every time out. In mid to late september, fish were showing signs of putting on the feedbag, but too many little ones were coming to the boat to count. Wingdams were hit or miss and shallow backwaters seemed to be a bust. I used deep water breaks with rock to find some willing fish, and the best bet was a jointed shad rap or a big carolina rigged worm. October was a different story compared to September. The early parts of october brought some extremely cold weather which seemed to shut the fish down. It warmed back up a little towards the end of october, but not enough to REALLY get them going again. The fall "frenzy" really was mediocre for me this year. If I had countless hours to spend on the water like I did in summer, I might have found a nack for it, but It just wasn't working with the 4-8 hours I was getting in per week. I only fished a couple days into November and It really wasn't good. With deer season opening next weekend, I don't see myself targeting bass until there is 2 inches of ice on the river, when I can pick them up with a 24 inch rod.
Like I said at the top, I had an overall, great year. I wish it would have ended with a bang, but maybe we can revise this to a 9.5 after I get on hard water and whack some nice largemouth. Now that I purchased an aqua-vu camera, I am ready to locate where the bass really are this time of year and hopefully use this information for many years to come. I will post many pics in this thread as soon as I can find out how to post the pictures. If anyone could drop me a hint, that would be appreciated.
Thank you very much for reading my post. Hope to see you on the water!
-Cade Laufenberg
|