Mississippi River - Pool 26 (Dardene Creek & Pole Star

The discussion of tonight's fishing trip started early in the day. We had to watch the radar close as there were some pretty severe storms headed towards St. Louis. At 5:00 we decided the worse portion of the storms would be south of us so we were going to try to get our fishing trip in. It was raining when we got to the harbor, but isn't that why we spend all that money on good rain gear? We put the Skeeter in at Riverside and decided to just start working the shorline right there and work our way up into Dardene Creek. There was a lot of good rip-rap to work, but spinner baits produced no bites. There were a lot of bait fish jumping, but no bass. So we decided to make a run to one of my favorite harbors, Pole Star. By now the rain had quit and the water was just glass. A 65 MPH run down to Pole Star took very little time and we were fishing again. We have heard rumors that crappie can be caught around the docks here so the plan was to work the rip-rap for bass and then as we had to move around the docks, get the crappie rigs out and work the docks, the work the rip-rap for bass again. We worked our way in, throwing spinners off the front and the back of the boat. Up on the shoreline and out just a bit. Then we setup the 10' crappie rods with jigs and Power Baits. Worked these around the edges of the dock. As we came around the backside of the first dock I got a hit. I was a bit excited, I thought I had an awesome crappie on. Instead, I had to play out a nice 15", 1lb 8oz bass. This is on a 10' crappie pole with a itty-bitty crappie real and 4lb line. It really wasn't that bad, but it was a nice fish. We contiuned with our plan, alternating between the two poles as we made our way to the back of Pole Star. Right at the sunset I was working a plastic bait up on the shore in this little hole and my line moved from one side of the boat to the other. I reeled down and felt tention so I set the hook. Pulled it out of it's mouth. Quick fix the hook and I threw it back up in there. Nothing. Again back up in there, apologizing to Matt for holding this spot, nothing. Once again, up in the same spot, working very slow. Tap, Tap, Tap... I hold on. The bait starts to move again, I reel down, feel tention on the line and set the hook. Bait comes out of the water, no fish. At this point it's getting dark. I threw in there 3 more times and didn't get another hit. Matt and I decided to call it a day and run for the house. What started as a wet nasty evening turned into a great night on the river. Got a busy weekend coming up so it'll probably be next Tuesday before we get out on the Skeeter again. - cld