The Labor Day holiday afforded me a chance to get away for my September kickoff of what I view as the home stretch of the 2024 fishing year. Read on for the results and stay tuned for plenty more fishing on an expanded collection of waters over the next couple of months.
8:20am – Top Bass at 1-14 (15.5″) on a buzzbait
Stats
Date: September 2
Location: Hennepin Canal (2 pools)
Time: 6:55am-11:05am
Totals: 13 bass
Weather: Sunny/breezy, 52-72F
Lures: 3.8” Keitech Swing Impact Fat Swimbait (electric blue and chartreuse) with a Twist Lock Flashy Swimmer jighead – 5 bass, Booyah Buzz Buzzbait (snow white shad) – 4 bass, Spro Flappin Frog 65 (natural red) – 3 bass, War Eagle Spinnerbait (white/chartreuse) – 1 bass
Top 5 Weight: 7-8 (1-14,1-11,1-7,1-4,1-4)
Winning lures
Notes and Nonsense
Taking Notes – I encountered two other boats with three total anglers as I rowed around this morning. A pair in one boat reported less than double digit catches and no quality fish. In contrast, a lone angler that I spoke with around 7:30am stated that he had landed and released his five bass “limit. He added that all were between fifteen and eighteen inches and all on a buzzbait. By the end of my morning, I finished somewhere in between the two reports but I must say it was encouraging to hear of quality bass in the pools.
A decent “one that got away” just left me with a pile of weeds at the boat
Two That Got Away – Not long after I spoke with the angler who had his limit, I got my best bite of the morning on a buzzbait. I was unable to keep the bass out of the subsurface weeds but got it to the boat along with a mass of weeds as I observed it still thrashing under its accompanying vegetation. Unfortunately, one of the thrashes was the bass coming unbuttoned as all I wound up with was a buzzbait and several pounds of salad. Later, I had a heavy hookup on a swimbait but never got a look at the fish before it let go of the lure.
A new Species as it looks like someone emptied the fish bowl in The Canal
New Trick – Once the sun gets above the tree line in the morning, the topwater bite typically subsides and on this morning, it wasn’t really fierce anyway. Limping along to the home stretch, I had eight bass in three hours. For a change of pace, I decided to try my luck with a swimbait, as I have long thought that I needed to invest more time on the presentation. As an added wrinkle, I had recently picked up a swimbait jighead that featured an underspin spinner. Much of The Canal that I have fished this year features murky water so I figured that the extra flash could hold added appeal. I was pleased with the results as I landed five bass in just under an hour.
9:41am – Top Bass Runner-Up at 1-11 on a frog
Top 5 Update – One of the pools that I fished already had a Top 5 weight of 10-2 so my primary aim was to boost the 9-5 Top 5 Weight from the second pool. My two Top Bass of the day weighing in at 1-14 and 1-11 did the trick in pushing my weight for the pool to 10-3.
Decent numbers, just enough quality bites to hit my Top 5 goal, and positive feedback from a fellow angler all made for a successful outing on The Canal. September always raises those first thoughts that time is running out on another year of fishing. While I try to push into November, these next couple of months just seem to speed by and limited daylight after the workday ends also get me anxious to get in as many casts as I can. Time to invest in a few vacation days to supplement the weekends. Stay tuned and talk to you later. Troy