“Hard to catch them, Spike, with all the grass floating down the River,” was the comment from my fishing partner, JD Knight, over this past weekend at Bellevue, IA. JD’s folks have a camper at Riverview and we agreed to meet for a weekend of River fishing this fall. We hooked up last Friday late afternoon and hit the River in JD’s Tracker Targa. We started by casting hair jigs toward the old button factory and caught two bass. We moved over to the east side of the dam, casting for whatever would bite and we were rewarded with some nice stripers! Saturday morning found us back at the Dam but pulling double Rapala floaters just outside of all the anglers jigging one spot. We caught one 20 1/2 inch walleye along with some nice saugers. We moved down River and checked out some other spots with no success (too much grass) and headed back in mid-afternoon. JD and I went out one more time Sunday morning and did the same routine catching one sauger and nothing else for the morning. We ventured downstream and checked out a closing dam in the backwater area–the water was cleaner but no fish. “This water needs to finish dropping and stabilize before the grass goes away,” JD commented as we put the Targa back on his trailer for the ride home. I then winterized our camper at Riverview but hope we can come back a couple more times in November to fish Pool 13. Thank you, JD, for the time on the water!!
