Great Lakes Division set to run it back out of LaCrosse
LACROSSE, Wis. – The Great Lakes Division of the Phoenix Bass Fishing League Presented by T-H Marine is a bit of a misnomer. This is a circuit for the river rats, with the primary playing field being the Upper Mississippi River.
The mighty Mississippi hosted the first event of the 2024 season out of LaCrosse, Wisconsin on Saturday, and the river showed out. Next up, the field will return to LaCrosse to ply Pools 7, 8 and 9 on May 18.
Tournament details
Mississippi River – Pools 7, 8, 9
LaCrosse, Wis.
May 18, 2024
About the fishery
There’s a reason the Upper Mississippi has become a mainstay for tournament trails ranging from local to national. The river is chock full of both smallmouth and largemouth bass, and its habitat diversity offers anglers myriad means to catch them.
The water level is the primary dictator of how bass will be caught at any given event. If it’s high, the river’s many backwater sloughs become more easily accessible. Many an event has been won flipping, frogging or winding around the shallow grass in those backwaters. If the water is lower, expect main-river structure like wing dams, drop-offs, sand bars and grass flats to play, with smallmouth perhaps representing a larger percentage of the catch.
What to expect
Cade Laufenberg has been competing on the Upper Mississippi for more than 15 years and has notched five wins on the fishery during that time. He’s never seen tournament weights quite like this spring has produced.
On April 20, Laufenberg and teammate Jim Johnson sacked up a 23.95-pound limit out of Pool 6 in a local team tournament, weighing a mixture of largemouth and smallmouth. The following weekend, it took 23-0 for Mike Feldermann to get the win in the Great Lakes Division opener. Laufenberg, who noted that anything over 22 pounds is typically “unheard of” on the river, said there was also a near-24-pound limit caught out of Pool 5 in a recent derby.
“It’s in really good shape,” Laufenberg said of the fishery. “A lot of really big fish being caught, especially on the largemouth side of things. But smallmouth, too. Lots of really healthy fish that are close to or even over 5 pounds being caught.”
Laufenberg said the Upper Mississippi has been trending up for a few years now, and he thinks the unusually short winter lit a powder keg this spring.
“We had minimal shad die-off, so these fish have really had all winter and all spring thus far — since the ice went out in February, which is also unprecedented — they’ve had all this time to just keep eating shad,” Laufenberg explained. “They’re just growing constantly now.”
While weights will likely dip a bit as the spring progresses and fish spawn, Laufenberg expects the fishing to be strong when the Great Lakes Division returns to the river in mid-May. By that point, he expects most bass will be in postspawn mode, although there could still be a few fish on beds. He thinks finding a few big, late spawners could be key to amassing a winning total.
“If somebody finds a few rogue spawning fish on beds, you might see an 18- to 20-pound bag get weighed in,” he said. “But if it’s all postspawn, then it might only take 16 pounds to win the tournament. So, there can be a really big swing in that window of time.”
As usual, Laufenberg believes the water level will dictate where the action goes down. If it’s high, he expects to find fish in backwaters that have some current flow. If it’s low, wing dams and other main-river habitat will be key. Lake Onalaska, where Matt Stefan won the Tackle Warehouse Invitationals stop last summer, could play as well.
Regardless, Laufenberg thinks it will take a mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth to claim the trophy. With the way the river has been fishing lately, the winning bag could come from just about anywhere.
“I definitely could see it getting won on any of the three pools at this point,” he said.