During the 1800s, steamboats journeyed up the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri, to St. Paul, Minnesota, carrying passengers who were pursuing their dream of achieving success in the new frontier. Many of the pioneers disembarked at the town of La Crosse, Wisconsin, to begin a new life somewhere in the numerous river valleys or coulees that bordered the Mississippi.
During the last week of May 1998, boats were still journeying up the Mississippi River near La Crosse. This time they carried 50 anglers who were pursuing their dream of winning the Red Man All-American Bass Fishing Championship.
The fishermen zipped up the river in Ranger’s new R-81 Sport model powered by a 175-horsepower Johnson or Evinrude Ficht outboard. The 50 anglers, who were the survivors of an elimination system that included 132 divisional tournaments and 7 regional championships, found the Mississippi River an intriguing challenge.
The qualifiers could fish Pools 6, 7, 8, and 9. The area includes 80 miles of the actual Mississippi River along with parts of the Black and La Crosse rivers which join the Mississippi at La Crosse.
In addition to the rivers proper, there is an endless maze of canals running through hundreds of islands that border the Mississippi River. The plentiful backwater sloughs are full of logs and grass, which are home to plenty of chunky largemouth and smallmouth bass.
The topography surrounding the river is primarily steep, rolling, forested hills. Most of the banks are sandy with tall stands of cottonwood trees growing along them. As a result, the water clarity is usually clear, a surprise to Southern anglers who knew the river as the “Big Muddy”. The crowd at the final day weigh-in wholeheartedly agreed with ESPN commentator Tommy Sanders when he said it was the “most beautiful stretch of the greatest river in the world.”
An unseasonably warm winter and spring in the North resulted in a lot of bass being in the post-spawn cycle when the All-American began. There were, also, some bass still on the nest.
A lack of rainfall had the river unusually low with the water level falling 6-8 inches a day as the tournament began, which wrecked a lot of competitors’ backwater patterns. The low water also resulted in a sluggish current on the main river which negatively affected the normally aggressive smallmouth bass.
As the official two-day practice period ended, the competitors agreed that the conditions were making the Mississippi River bass harder to pinpoint and catch than normal. They also agreed that it was going to be a very competitive tournament. Their predictions proved to be correct.
Kim Carver of Milledgeville, Georgia, won his first Red Man tournament in 1985. Since that time, he has qualified for three All-Americans. In 1997, he learned how it felt to almost win the All-American when he finished second at Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The runner-up finish made Carver more determined than ever to win an All-American title.
After qualifying for the 1998 All-American by winning his second regional championship in two years, Carver began his attack on the title. Instead of waiting and visiting La Crosse immediately before the 30-day off-limits period began in April, like most competitors did, Carver traveled to Wisconsin in October. He reasoned that the river in the fall would likely resemble the river in late May. His prediction proved to be correct as the water level during the All-American was only a few feet different than what Carver had studied in October.
Even though he had a predetermined strategy for fishing the All-American, Carver was committed to doing everything in his power to win. So, he pulled his Ranger boat over 1,000 miles in order to fish a few days before the beginning of the All-American week. Carver fished in the pool below the off-limits water, because he knew that the patterns working on Pool 10 would also work on the upstream pools.
During the official practice, Carver decided to concentrate his tournament efforts in two sloughs running off Pool 9. He also located two channel markers and a stretch of riprap bank on Pool 8 where he hoped to catch some smallmouth bass.
During the tournament, Carver caught several limits of bass from a slough located approximately four miles below Lock and Dam Number 8. The slough had a steady current moving through it, and it contained a number of log jams in 3-4 feet of water. There were also some scattered clumps of grass that had slid into the water from sandy, undercut banks.
Carver caught most of his bass, which were a mixed creel of largemouth and smallmouth bass, by pitching Gambler’s new Guido’s Original, which is a plastic crawdad, rigged on a 5/0 hook and secured to a 3/16-ounce Gambler screw-in Florida Rig. He used 60-pound-test braided line to dunk the crawdad lure into the numerous nooks and crannies created by the log jams.
When Carver spotted a clump of grass, as he moved from log jam to log jam, he would pitch the black-and-blue colored Guido’s Original into the grass. The strategy paid off with several nice bass.
“I believe the bass were feeding on the crawfish which were hiding in the grass. I saw several crawfish holes along the banks that I was fishing,” Carver explained.
When the action would slow down, Carver would run up the Minnesota Slough and fish a similar type backwater area above New Albin landing. A massive fallen tree in a foot of water yield several hefty keepers during the tournament.
The main river smallmouth areas also delivered one important smallmouth each day which Carver used to fill out his daily 5-bass limit. The smallmouth were caught on a rapidly-moving popper type surface lure.
On his 43rd birthday, tournament veteran Kim Carver gave himself a gift-the 1998 Red Man All-American title. With a three-day total of 32 pounds, 8 ounces, Carver won the $100,000 first-place prize by less than 2 pounds.
As the crowd in the La Crosse Center cheered, a tearful Kim Carver thanked his dad for taking him fishing. He also told the crowd that he wanted to help the children in the area, and that he was going to make a donation to help build a playground at the river park.
Chris Baldwin, a 26-year-old taxidermist from Lexington, North Carolina, almost accomplished what many of his fellow competitors had said was impossible at pre-tournament press conferences. Baldwin almost won the All-American by weighing in predominantly smallmouth bass. His 14 smallmouth and 1 largemouth for three days weighed 30 pounds, 12 ounces, and earned him a paycheck of $30,000!
Baldwin, who had never been that far north before, does not get to fish for smallmouth bass very often. He knew, however, that rocks and smallmouth bass go together like frogs and lily pads. So, Baldwin spent his practice days fishing riprap banks.
“I’m scared of locks so I stayed in the La Crosse Pool. The area that I ended up fishing was the south end of the pool close to the dam,” Baldwin said.
During practice, Baldwin was fishing a floating worm down a section of riprap bank along the railroad tracks near Route 35 when he hooked a 3-pound smallmouth. As he was unhooking it, Baldwin noticed an orange-colored crawfish in the fish’s gullet. The observation caused him to switch to a plastic crawdad, and it proved to be the right decision.
Baldwin pitched a green-pumpkin-with-orange-claws crawdad to the riprap with two different outfits. One was a baitcasting reel and flipping stick equipped with 20-pound-test Stren Sensor line, and the other was a spinning rod and reel strung up with 10-pound-test line.
“I had trouble landing the smallmouth on the spinning outfit. So, I switched to the flipping stick,” Baldwin said.
The heavier outfit helped him once he hooked a smallmouth, but there were times when he would fish a section of riprap without a strike using the flipping stick. Then, he would pick up the spinning outfit and re-fish the bank. Several times, the change-up would result in a nice smallmouth.
Baldwin coupled the plastic crawdad with an unpegged, 1/4-ounce slip sinker and initially used a 5/0 hook. By the end of the tournament, however, he had switched to a 2/0 hook, because the smallmouth were able to inhale the lure better, which resulted in solid hook-ups.
“I would also drown the crawdad in B.A.N.G. scent. It definitely made a difference. Several times I missed a bass, and I would immediately spray the lure and cast back to the spot and hook the fish,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin also caught some smallmouth bass on a Daiwa TD Minnow fished on a 10-pound-test Stren Magnathin line, and on the last day, he caught one of his heaviest bass on a Pop-R.
Fishing the same stretch of riprap every day, Baldwin, a 1997 regional champion, lost 4 smallmouth over 3 pounds during the tournament. While he was thrilled with his runner-up finish, Baldwin will always wonder what would have happened if he could have landed only one of those hefty brown bass.
Curtis Samo of Creston, Illinois, was the only “Mississippi River rat” to make the top five. Samo, who was fishing in his fourth consecutive All-American, regularly fishes the Mississippi River. In fact, he won a Red Man tournament on the Mississippi River at Savanna, Illinois, just two weeks before the All-American.
“Because of the warm spring, the bass had spawned early. So, I decided to fish for largemouth bass that were guarding fry,” Samo explained.
Using his extensive knowledge of the river, Samo found two backwater sloughs near Lake Winneshiek on Pool 9 where his post-spawn pattern worked successfully. At the end of the two-day practice period, Samo knew that he had a shot at the title. His wife, Tina, said that she had never seen him so nervous before a tournament. His two young daughters prepared signs to cheer him on at the weigh-in.
In the backwater sloughs, there was plenty of milfoil. Samo would cruise along the edge of a grass line looking for thicker clumps of milfoil where newly-hatched bass fry were swarming. When he spotted a cloud of fry, Samo would cast a top-water lure with propellers on both ends past the grass clump and bring the lure toward the fry with short twitches of his rod tip. Under each cloud of fry was, often, a guardian bass that would attack the intruding surface lure.
Out of the three limits of exclusively largemouth bass that Samo weighed in, 11 of those bass were taken on the prop bait.
Four other crucial bass were caught on an unweighted Gambler’s Dion’s Classic in the green-gord color. The plastic lure was rigged on a 3/0 hook and cast on 20-pound-test line. Samo used it to catch bass that were still guarding a nest.
Unfortunately for Samo, his patterns were geared toward catching the smaller male bass, and he could never get that kicker bite from a heavyweight female bass that would have allowed him to win. His 29 pounds, 4 ounces captured third and rewarded him with a check for $15,000.
The area around La Crosse is called “God’s Country” by the hospitable residents, who are proud to live in an area where you simply cannot ignore the beauty of nature. They love fishing, and WKTY-580, a La Crosse radio station, had a three-day live broadcast of the All-American featuring color commentary by some past All-American qualifiers.
In addition to the All-American title, three anglers competed in the Citgo Points Challenge Championship. James Stricklin, Terry Thomas, and Jim Tutt were the only three divisional point champions to survive the regional competition. As a result, they were the only three anglers eligible to win the $10,000 prize for the highest finishing point champion in the All-American.
Terry Thomas captured the 1998 title by finishing 29th with 7 pounds, 8 ounces, after two days of competition. The highly-respected tournament angler was a major winner, thanks to Citgo’s special program.
Since the 1800s, the Mississippi River has changed drastically. It is still a place, however, where a person can chase a dream and catch it. Just ask Kim Carver. BF