This week we are at our last stop of the 2016 regular season in La Crosse, Wis., on the upper Mississippi River. It has been a very up-and-down season for me up to this point. Two really bad finishes earlier in the season really hurt me in AOY points, and going into this tournament I’m sitting in 68th place. I know I’ll have to have a pretty outstanding performance here this week to have a chance to make it to the AOY championship next week, but I’ve had my back against the wall before and I won’t let that slow me down. I’m going to catch every one I can catch and let the chips fall where they may.
As I’m writing this practice is already over, and we are getting ready for our rules meeting. I’m really looking forward to getting this one under way. It’s not every event we get to go to a place where you can catch as many fish in a day’s time as you can here. This River is absolutely full of fish and you can catch them pretty much whatever way you like. There are good ones to be caught on the main river fishing current breaks, wingdams, laydowns and points, or you can get in the backwaters and catch them on a frog or a swimjig. Healthy populations of largemouth and smallmouth both live here, and I suspect you will see both play a big role this week.
For me I’m going to split my time up. I’ve got some main river stuff that I’m pretty excited about, and I also found a couple groups of fish in some backwaters that I will explore as well. I’ll have several different MHX rods rigged up, probably 10 or so when I take off. One setup that I think everyone will probably rely on some this week is a hollow belly frog. I just built a new rod just for that purpose before I left the house to come here. It is an MHX EPS86HF. At 7-foot, 2-inch that is the perfect length to make precise casts with the frog and walk the bait the way you need to, and it also has plenty of backbone to get them out of the thick stuff. I’ll pair it up with a high speed reel, 50-pound vicious no-fade braid and hopefully I can get five big ones to eat it. One thing’s for sure, it should be a fun week.