On Thursday and Friday, June 4th and 5th, I took the time to do some pre-fishing for a WTC tournament coming up on June 13th. The tournament waters include the Mississippi River Pools 3 and 4, as well as the St. Croix River.
Home base for the tournament is Evert's Fishing Resort . I arrived at Evert's Thursday morning, and as usual, the bait shop was already open, and resort manager Dean Marshall was a wealth of knowledge. Dean highly recommended downsizing baits for the tough bite due to the low water conditions.
Thursday my tournament partner Steve Crotteau fished with me until 2 pm - we checked 20+ waypoints from previous years, as well as several new areas. Dean was 100% accurate with his assessment of downsizing baits! I continued fishing until 9pm and checked a lot of new areas. I caught a majority of my fish on 1/4 ounce Super K swim jigs as well as 1/4 ounce bucktail hair jigs I picked up from Dean at Evert's. Pictured is a 20" largemouth caught on a "Kizewgill" colored Super K swim jig.
On Friday I was on the water a little after 5 am and fished until a little after 2 pm. I tried to build off of some of the things I learned on Thursday. I covered a lot of water and worked on developing a game plan for tournament day. Pools 3 and 4 as well as the St. Croix River are all extremely low on water and flow, and I don't see that changing much before June 13th.
If you have a chance to get out to the river, be sure to stop at Evert's - Dean is an amazing host, and will get you up to speed on the latest baits, techniques and colors. They do have cabins at the resort along with everything else you need!