Category Archives: Fun Fishing

How to find early spring bass on rivers

Bass fishing rivers like the upper Mississippi River can be intimidating to many anglers especially in the early spring. In reality, river fishing can be more predictable than lake or reservoir fishing once you understand that current really drives bass in rivers.

A recent fishing trip on Pool 4 of the Mississippi river really got me thinking about this topic, here is a video of my trip if you are more of a visual video learner instead of a reader. Either way, I am going to share some basic tips & lures that will shorten the learning curve for you when it comes to early spring bass fishing on rivers.

Early Spring Bass Fishing in April near Wabasha, MN

There are two main strategies or paths to find bass on rivers in the spring. You can either figure out where they winter and start looking close to there and follow them out or you can figure out where they spawn and back out from those areas until you collide with them.

Understanding wintering areas can be a little trickier to nail down on some rivers, but spawning areas are usually a little easier to identify from my perspective.

Smallmouth Bass like to have a little current and some hard bottom where they spawn, they typically avoid dead water for their spawning on rivers.

Super K Klakken Bass

Chunky Largemouth that fell for a Fire Craw Bladed Jig

On the other hand, Largemouth are much more apt to find completely slack or no current areas with firm bottom for their reproductive cycle. For largies, I like to look for dead-end backwaters and sloughs with good cover, like wood, grass and some firm bottom or stumps to target as spawning areas.

Once the water temperature gets above 50 degrees, those fish won’t be too far away from where they plan to spawn. River fish are also pretty dependable biters in the spring. I love covering water with 1/4oz Super K Swim jigs and 3/8oz Bladed style jigs (Chatterbaits). Black and blue always seems to be a solid choice on rivers around me in the spring. Keep on the move until you run into a few fish and where there is a few, there is often a bunch not too far away.

If you are interested in checking out Super K swim jigs, use Code HELLABASS15 on their site to save 15% off!

Also, below is a list of other great products for catching bass in the early spring on river across the country. Tight lines!

Super K Swim Jigs – http://bit.ly/SuperKSJs
Strike King Menace Grub – http://bit.ly/2y22Zzt
SuperK Klakken – http://bit.ly/Klakken
Arsenal Tactical Minnow – http://bit.ly/TactMin
Zman Jackhammer Chatterbait – http://bit.ly/2nSdTpD
Strike King Thunder Cricket – http://bit.ly/ThundCrick

Need more help about how to fish chatterbaits vs Swim jigs and when to throw each one, check out this video below

Swim Jigs vs Bladed Jigs

How to recycle used BAITS to make soft plastics

What was once old is new again! This old saying could not be more true when it comes to remelting your old used soft plastic fishing lures and turning them into brand new fish-catching baits! Keep reading & watching for a great Make Your Own Lure DIY.

Remelted Soft Plastic Lures
Examples of the many recycled lures I have produced from remelting my used baits

Let’s start with the reasons why you would want to do this:
1. Reduce littering, please never intentionally throw old or used soft plastic baits back into the water. These plastic baits do not dissolve or decompose in the water, never a good idea. Plus fish have been known to digest them and it is unhealthy for them to do so. So regardless, keep them in your boat & dispose of properly one way or the other.
2. If you end up recycling or remelting your baits, this ultimately ends up doing your small part to reduce the impact on landfills, so you can feel good about that.
3. It can be a lot of fun making soft plastic baits and a good way to keep busy when the weather is not conducive to go fishing, you can be in your garage making baits & doing fishing-related activities, which can help you stay sane until your next bite!
4. In the long run, lure making can save you a fair amount of money. Most decent soft plastics cost between $3-7 per pack. So if you buy a cheap mold for $30, you only need to make 5-10 packs of new worms, craws or swimbaits to be money ahead.
5. Lastly, there is great satisfaction in catching your favorite fish on a bait that you made yourself!

Learn to Make Your Own Soft Plastic Baits

If you are interested where to find all the tools needed to get started in remelting your old, here is a list below:
Cheap Senko Molds – https://ebay.to/2WPm1Xt
Misc Cheap Lure & Bait Molds – https://ebay.to/2WOZ5Yd
Soft Plastic Injectors – https://ebay.to/2vVcZNs
Glass Pyrex Cups – https://amzn.to/2UMEotz
Mold Clamps – https://amzn.to/2ybntJf
Infrared Thermometer – https://amzn.to/2QPpeCj
Gloves – https://amzn.to/3ar7Awt
Hot Plate – https://amzn.to/2xvd9f2
Used Microwaves – https://ebay.to/2UGdlA1

Fun fall Bass fishing videos

To me, fall is a time of year, when many of my fellow outdoorsmen & women are lured away to deer stands, fields or blinds. That results in the boat ramps mostly empty for us willing to brave a little inclement weather.

To be honest, outside of that first couple of trips after a harsh frozen winter, this is my favorite time of the year. The great majority of my best days of fishing and most of my biggest bass weighed have come late into the fall season.

Here are a few of my latest fall fishing vids, enjoy!

Epic day of Fat Fall Smallies & Largies!
Fishing for that One Big Bite!

All that being said, I am quite okay with the ramps being quiet, so don’t feel any pressure to follow suit, you probably aren’t missing too much…..

Looking for a new Outdoor Shopping Experience, check out Omnia Fishing’s Lake & Species driven shopping experience.

Omnia Fishing
A New Way to Shop for Bass Fishing Tackle

Tight Lines…..

Fall Bass Fishing tourney recaps

The season is wrapping up and my tourney season has likely come to a close, although there is some fun fall fishing still in front of me. The year ended fairly positive but not as great as I had hoped.

My last big tournament was the TBF National Semis out of La Crosse on the Mississippi River where I was hoping to have a strong two days, cash a nice check and punch a ticket the TBF National Championship.

I really enjoyed my few days of practice as Pool 8 is a great place to bass fish and just be an outdoors person. Check out the practice video I put together from my pre-fish.

Day 1 of the tournament started off with a monstrous new PB walleye, you have to check out the video to see that river monster!! At the end of the day, I was a little short of where I wanted to be weight wise but still remained in the hunt to make Nationals. Day 1 tourney recap below.

On Day 2, I made better decisions and improved my weight. I was able to push my way in to check range but failed to be the top qualifier from MN. To learn how I caught my fish and the baits used, check out the final recap video below.

My final derby of the year was a great one, I got to fish for the first time with good buddy Sam Sobi, you may have seen him blowing up on YouTube, if not check out his channel here. And for one of the funnest day fishing this year, check out this video recap where we blasted them for the “W”

Thanks for tuning in, make sure to subscribe here or on my YouTube channel or follow on Instagram to keep up with more fishing recaps and how-to videos that will help you catch more bass & Suck Less!

Latest Bass Fishing Videos

This blog always seems to fall to a lower priority than my YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Definitely consider following me on any of those platforms to stay more plugged into my fishing activities and catch any fishing tips & nuggets that I pass on through those channels.

I am not giving up on the blog and for now, I am going to leave you with a few of my recent Bass Fishing YouTube videos. I am definitely putting more of my energy into my YouTube content as its something I really enjoy, but the downside it is time-intensive labor of love to produce high-quality original content in video format.

So here is a video recap of my trip to Alabama to fish the BASS Nation Central Regional back in April.

And topically if you live in the middle to the north part of the United States, here is a video covering my favorite bed fishing baits and tips.

Lastly, if you are into fantasy fishing like I am, please check out my YouTube bass fishing podcast series about fantasy fishing, called Fantasy Fishing Edge!

Thanks for visiting!

Classic Bass Champions Tour 2017 Mille Lacs Bass Fishing Tournament Recap – June 10, 2017

Sorry, this blog is about a month overdue.  First off, the inaugural Classic Bass Champions Tour event was AMAZING!  Classic Bass put on a great event and fishing an MLF (Major League Fishing) style tournament is a completely different kind of pressure over traditional 5 best bass style tournaments.  It was also no coincidence they chose Mille Lacs Lake which was also recently recognized the worlds Best Bass Fishing Lake for 2017 by Bassmasters Magazine!

If you have never seen an MLF event on TV or on the Web, basically every legal keeper bass you catch counts, it is weighed by an in boat judge (thanks to Prior Lake HS Bass Club) and there is a live scoreboard all day through an app on your phone.   The other really unique thing about this event, it was an invite only event, so to participate, you had to be selected.

Photo Highlights from Event

It was on honor just to be selected and I was super excited to fish against this field.  You can see the results and field list here.  I was able to get about 3 days of practice in for this event.  My strategy was to check several parts of the lake so I would be prepared to fish multiple areas since they were likely to section up the lake for our event and to prepare for the wind.  I also wanted to have baits I felt confident in so I wasn’t second guessing baits when I was looking for fish fast during the event.  Because of the high winds and rough water, I didn’t set up my GoPro during the tournament, but you can check out my practice video which is very similar to how I caught them during the actual event.

The event ended up being split into morning and afternoon sessions, where we had to fish the East side of the lake during the first 4 hours and then after lunch (Thank Rocky Reef Resort for Lunch), we fished the west side of the lake for the final 4 hours.

The split caught me a little off guard based on the wind forecast, I made a big run across the lake only to find the area I planned to fish was completely blown out, I only caught two tiny keepers before getting tired of taking waves over the bow and stern of my boat.  So I ducked into the closest protected water I could find and I hunkered down and made the best I could out of that area that I didn’t even practice.  It turned out to be pretty productive, I was able to catch like 18 or 20 fish for about 43lbs which was good enough to be 3rd out of 24 for the first half.  Here is an Instagram Video of the trip back to Rocky Reef at the end of the first half, water was a little rough.

In the second half, I got off to a slow start with only one 2lb fish in like 90 minutes.  Finally, I got into an area where I got around some fish and it was calm enough to properly fish them, I made a big surge late to make it back to 3rd after falling out of the top 6 cut.  Making the top 6 has qualified me for the Tournament of Champions where I get to fish for a Brand New Skeeter Boat in September.  Watch this post tourney interview from Classic Bass as well for details on my day.

I boated smallies on tubes, speed craws, drop shot, hair jigs, but in the end, it was a Menace Grub rigged on an 1/8oz BassTEK Tungsten Agitator head that caught about 80% of my keepers during the event.  I fished this on a Dobyns 702SF rod, 12lb Braid w/ 8lb Fluorocarbon Leader.

Smallie Candy!

On the horizon, I am fishing the MN TBF TOC on Pokegama and back to Mille Lacs for the Minnesota BASS Nation TOC, so stay tuned for more posts and videos.

Rich

Fall Bass Fishing Collaboration Beat Down with Bass Utopia

Hey all,

Been a long winter, but I am getting the itch big time this spring.  Compared to last year, I am way ahead of the game, I actually got the boat out fishing on the Mississippi River on April 1st, it ran great and we caught some bass, all in all a good start.  Pictured is one of the best fish of they day.

Pre Spawn Largemouth Bass Mississippi River
Pool 2 Spring Largie

Also, I finally got the bug to do some video editing of previously recorded GoPro footage I had some some drives.  Trying out some new video editing software I just added to my new laptop.

Below is a pretty fun couple of hours of early fall bass fishing with Jason Holmer of Bass Utopia boiled down to 10 mins of highlights.  We only weighed the 3 biggest fish, but the best 5 easily topped 25lbs.

All our fish were caught on flipping jigs and vibrating jigs, my jig of choice was a BassTEK 3/8oz Okeechobee Craw with various trailers.  I also caught several fish later in the day on a Black Blue chatterbait style vibrating bladed jig.

My goal is to produce a lot more video content this year, leave a comment on this blog or on video, let me know what  you want to see.  Maybe even subscribe so you don’t miss any new videos!

Tight Lines – Rich
HellaBass on Twitter
HellaBass on Instagram

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MN Bass Opener 2014

Well the Minnesota Bass Opener is almost 10 days ago now, so I should probably throw a quick blog up, now or never.   Went out in the morning on Crystal Lake with my buddy Bill on Crystal Lake to do a little catching and scouting for a small Bass Pursuit tourney that was on Sunday.

photo 2 (1)

We started out on some deeper drops, but quickly ruled that out with just a few bites and one small fish on a 1/2oz BassTEK Tungsten Football jig.  Next step was to hit some points leading into shallower bays as staging areas.  On the 2nd point, I quickly caught 4 fish on 4 casts with a ring fry on a mojo rig.

From there, we went into some shallower bays and that is where the fish were and coming in as we fished.  It was quite obvious that love was going to be in the air real soon!

photo 4

We went on to catch a whole bunch of fish on weightless ring frys and BassTEK resticks rigged weightless and wacky style, including a couple fish over 5lbs.

Also, check out my video montage of the first 3 hours of fishing….

DOBYNSNEWLOGO

Fall Fishing Udpate 2013

I have actually been doing a fair amount of fishing since the last BFL tournament, but clearly I have not been doing much blogging here.  Although, I have been doing a little writing at the KrugerFarms.com blog and the From the Dock Blog at NBC Sports.

So this weekend, I finally stayed home, albeit reluctantly, so I though I may as well do quick blog update on my fun fall fishing happenings.

In late September to early October the shallow jig bite was rock solid, I was able to get out a few times and stick both quantity and quality largemouth putting my 3/8oz BassTEK Tungsten Flipping Jigs in and around any shallow visible cover I could find.  Check out the following video, I put together from one said outing.

Late October the shallow bite became very hit and miss and for me, the more dependable bite was fishing remaining weed clumps in the 8-10′ range on most of the lakes I visited.  A handful of baits produced good fish, including the new SoulJerk 115 from Evolve, but my best combo was threading a Pumpkin Oil Kompak Craw onto a 3/8oz Tungsten Finesse Flipping Jig.

Smallmouth fishing on Mille Lacs and the St. Croix River has been pretty decent as well, again for me the Kompak Craw has been the ticket.  On a recent trip, it out fished the ever faithful Tube Jig 13 smallies to 1 on the tube.  Basically in water less then 15 feet, I fish the Kompak Craw on a 1/8oz to 3/16oz EWG Shakey Football Head and in deeper water out to 30ft, I rig the craw on 1/2oz – 3/4oz BassTEK Tungsten Football jigs.  Unlike summer when I like a craw with a good flap or kick on my football jig, when the water gets below 50, the subtleness of the Kompak Craw is what the fish seem to prefer.
 

I hope to get the boat wet a time or two yet before the rivers freeze.  In past years, I have had luck plucking smallmouth down to about 35 degree water temperatures on football jigs.

 

Good things from a small package

Hey all, just wanted to share with you a bait that is quickly becoming a go to bait for me.  It is something that I picked up last year to be a punching bait and now is proving to be more versatile then I could’ve hoped.  The bait is the Kompak Craw from Evolve Baits.  If you don’t want to read the whole blog post and have a short attention span like me, just watch the quick video.  I show several rigging techniques in this video.


For those that want every detail, keep reading!

Last summer, I had excellent results using the Kompak craw behind 3/4 – 1oz flipping milfoil on lakes like Minnetonka and others, honestly kind of what I expected based on first glance of the bait.  Then in September, I was looking for a follow up to my sweet beavers down in La Crosse to go back through areas and show the fish something new.  My eyes were opened to the potential of this dimunitive craw when I went through an area after going back and forth twice with a beaver only to catch 3 bass including a 4lbr on the Kompak craw on my 3rd pass and my partner not getting a bite on his offerings.  This gave me confidence to keep flipping this craw on lighter 3/8oz weights to wood, cut banks, etc and caught both smallmouth and largemouth.

Fast forward to November and December last year, where a buddy an I found deep schools of smallmouth on a river in 25-25ft of water.  Football jigs worked deep with just about any trailer worked until the water temps dropped into the 30s.  I then rummaged through my options to find a subtle trailer, after trying a couple, the Kompak craw became the deal on the back of a 1/2oz football hair jig.  I continued catching nice smallies and occasional walleye on the Kompak craw through the winter on a different winter location, by presenting them on 3/16oz EWG Football Shakey heads.

Fast forward again to this spring, fishing pool 2, getting a few bites but not what I was hoping or expecting.  After scouring a harbor with my usual offerings, I pick up a Kompak craw rigged on a Jika Rig and catch a 4lb fish plus several other bass in water that I and another boat just fished pretty hard.  Fishing the Kompak craw on the Jika rig and small texas rigs has been in a regular mix for me so for this year, catching bass on little lakes in MN, the Mississippi river from Minneapolis to La Crosse and all the way over to Lake Winneabgo.

There are a lot of good plastics and baits on the market and most of them have a time and place, but I think the Kompak craw is something for you to try, it is quite the versatile bait and the bass just seem to eat it!  Don’t take my word for it, just ask the fish!

Rich