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Submitted by Ned Kehde - August 30, 2000
Some say Minnesota has the finest
smallmouth bass fishing in the country
Little Falls, Minn. -- Little Falls, Minn. -- A small
cadre of knowledgeable anglers hereabouts contends that some
sections of the Mississippi River that course through Crow Wing,
Morrison, Benton, Stearns, Sherburne and Wright counties in central
Minnesota contain the finest smallmouth bass fishing in the world.
One reason for that, according to Matt Straw of Brainerd,
Minn., is that many
miles of the river are virtually inaccessible to most anglers.
So during the
spring and summer, when these fish are spread far and wide along
this sublime and fertile waterway, anglers can't harass them,
and that's because the
river's many boulder-laden riffles are too difficult -- even
perilous -- to
navigate.
Then when the smallmouth migrate and eventually congregate
in the more
accessible areas of the river in the fall, the fishing pressure
is slight.
Therefore, many of these bronze creatures can live all of
their days without
being bedeviled by fishermen.
Straw says during a period of drought in the late 1980s, the
smallmouths in
several segments of the river had an extremely fruitful spawn.
And through a
spell of uncommonly warm winters of the late 1990s, those bass
grew to grand portions. Now there are oodles of four-pound smallmouths
-- some even broach six pounds -- lurking around the boulders,
weeds, and assorted obstacles that break the river's relentless
current.
Straw knows quite a lot about smallmouth bass and how to catch
them. For the past 10 years he worked for In-Fisherman magazine,
which has allowed him to watch, work and talk with the nation's
best smallmouth fishermen. From those encounters, he has penned
thousands of words that describe the ways of the smallmouth bass
and the anglers who pursue them.
Over the past few years, Straw has entered several smallmouth
bass
tournaments and competed against a lot of the experts that he
has written
about. At these events, he fared well. In fact, he and a partner
won the
Sturgeon Bay Open, the world's largest smallmouth bass tournament,
in 1998.
Then last month, he and his partner, Rick Hammer of Cross
Lake, Minn.,
finished second, losing by an ounce, at a tournament on the Mississippi
River
near Sartell, Minn.
The winners at the Mississippi River competition fished the
impounded waters immediately above the small dam at Sartell.
In contrast, Straw and Hammer ventured many miles upstream,
traversing scores of hazardous areas.
As they fished their way downstream, they worked the rocks
and boulders in
six to eight feet of water, using such topwater lures as the
Rapala Skitter
Pop and crayfish-colored Bomber 5A crankbaits. And they tangled
with scads of smallmouths, catching and releasing many more than
the winners caught in the easy-to-traverse and heavily fished
waters above the dam
A good part of Straw and Hammer's method for conquering the
river and
catching a plethora of its smallmouths lies with the boat that
they employed.
That marvelous machine is a recent creation of Kevin Turner of
Hillsboro,
Mo., and proprietor of Turner Marine.
Turner's River Pro jet-propelled boat allowed Straw and Hammer
to quickly
journey upstream to spots that other anglers couldn't reach with
conventional
boats or even other makes of jet-propelled boats. And those anglers
who
attempted to keep pace with the Turner craft by venturing upstream
tore much
of their equipment asunder.
Thanks to Turner's genius and craftsmanship, the river is
no longer such a
daunting and impenetrable environment. Now Straw has designs
on uncovering more of the habits of the Mississippi's smallmouths,
and perhaps his insights will be published in future issues of
In-Fisherman.
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