Final Bass World Sports Event on Pool 10

Once again I was asked by Kevin Christensen to team up him one last time this year to complete his season fishing the Bass World Sports Team series.  There are six events throughout the year and I was able to fish one earlier in the year with him too.  It is always great to fish with Kevin, as he has been biggest reason for me getting into this sport of bass fishing way back in high school.  Well, that a "few" years ago but I still look forward to spending any time in a boat with Kevin.
Kevin and I spent quite a few hours the weekend before this event scouting things out on Pool 9 of the Mississippi.  We found a few areas that were had bait and plenty of bass, but most were not the right size that we were looking for.  We knew things were not going to be easy, especially with the river slowly dropping all week long.
We met up Friday night after work and made our plan on what we found the week before.  Our plan to lock up to pool 9 was delayed by a barge already in the lock when we got there.  So we tried a few main river places as did the other 10 boats waiting for the barge to come through.  I boated a keeper smallmouth to keep our moods slightly positive and then it was time to get up to pool 9 to see if our areas were still holding some bass.  We fished as hard as we could and covered a lot of water tossing a variety of baits.  Kevin caught a nice largemouth on  swimjig covering a weebed, but things were slow for us.  We just kept trying and with only 30 minutes or so left before we had to get back to the lock Kevin set the hook on something good.  A beautiful smallmouth came aboard which weighed 3.78 pounds.  The next cast, another one, but smaller.  We worked this area over and cast after cast smallmouth came aboard.  It was a nice school of fish which loaded our boat fast and changed our attitudes about this tournament.  It was one of those things you always hope for when you fish the river, but it rarely happens.  The big key to catching these fish was to drag a Hot Rod Baits tube or Big Craw until one of the smallies attacked it.  The Black/Red Big Craw was working for Kevin well and the Christmas Tree and River Minnow Tube were top colors for me.  With time running short we continued to make cast after cast hoping for the bigger ones to bite.  On one of my last casts I boated another nice one just under 18 inches...but time was up.  A barge was coming and we had to get back through the lock.  We ended up with 12.81 pounds for 7th place.  It was a good bag of fish, but that day a lot of teams seemed to find the smallmouth biting on Pool 10 and 9.  Who knows what would have happened if we found that school earlier in the day, or if we had more time to fish the area longer...but that is fishing and that is why we are both addicted and can't wait to go after the bass again!

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