Fly Fishing the Mississippi River

Yesterday I went to the Mississippi River to fish for pike and smallmouth bass. Since it was my first trip for smallies the pressure was on to catch one. The first run that we fished was pretty slow. My dad was able to get a few test grabs but no%u201Cserious%u201D takes. We decided to make a move up stream to a little bit slower water. The new water was a lot deeper and a much better holding spot for the smallies. My dad and I waded out to our waist and started fishing. The fist smallmouth that I picked up was at the very end of my retrieve in the shallowest of the water that I was fishing. After some time I broke off on the trees behind me and had to re-rigging. As I observed the river I saw that a small hatch was coming off and a few fish were eating the small mayflies in the shallows. I started walking the shore in and casting in about four feet of water. On my fourth or fifth cast I had a vicious grab and landed my second smallmouth. I continued doing this for the remainder of the day and managed to catch one more smallmouth, a pike, and had many more grabs from fish. It was a blast and I can%u2019t wait to go back for more.

Here are a few pictures of our day on the Mississippi.

The Mississippi River. Very cool!!!

My first ever smallmouth bass.

A small pike...but a pike is a pike!

Different from the trout rivers I am use to in Colorado but this is awesome.

A couple smallmouth.