Quillback On A Sassy Shad

When it is reaching nearly 50 degrees this late in November, and you live in northeast Iowa, you get outside and try some fishing. Not the trout fishing – we’ll be catching them all winter as long as the air temperatures are near freezing. My brother and I thought we would try catching some smallmouth bass from a small river not far from where I live.

The water was very cold, very clear, and very shallow. Jigs started producing a few light hits, but all I could wrestle from the bottoms was a quillback carpsucker. A neat looking creature, though not known for it’s table quality. It felt very healthy in this cold water, and put up a halfway decent bout for it’s size.

I was able to find the stretches of river where the smallmouths were holed up at, but they weren’t having anything to do with my offerings. I think next time I’ll float a crawler through the holes. Pretty sure that’ll get ‘em. Worth a try, anyway.

I’ll be putting up some posts of recent outings here shortly, a little “catch up.”

Take care -

Casey