For this outing, I put one aspect of the ten-pound Top 5 Canal quest on hold. Rather than trying to fill in the blanks on the few remaining pools that lacked weight, I opted to visit a spot that had already hit the mark. The aim was to find some bites to give that total a boost. The approach would also be entirely different as the water conditions featured abundant surface vegetation unlike the other spots I’d recently been visiting.
7:16am – Top Bass Runner-Up weighing 2-11 (17.5″) on a Whopper Plopper
Stats
Date: September 7
Location: Hennepin Canal
Time: 7:10am-10:40am
Totals: 3 bass
Weather: Sunny/calm, 64-74F
Water temperature: Not available
Lures: Spro Flappin Frog 65 (nasty shad) – 2 bass, Whopper Plopper 110 (bone) – 1 bass
Top Bass: 3-0 (Frog)
Top 3 Weight (only three bass at 12″ or better): 7-4 (3-0,2-11,1-9)
Winnng lures
Notes and Nonsense
Data and Goals – The spot that I chose had a personal starting Top 5 Weight of 10-7 (2-8,2-2,2-1,1-15,1-13). Therefore, it had already been checked off my list but resided in the low end of overall weights in falling between ten and eleven pounds. The goal on this trip was to boot the pair of one pounders to have all members of the Top 5 at two pounds or better. As an added note, Julie held the Top Bass record for the pool with a bass weighing 2-10 caught on June 14, 2024. My brother, Brent, posted a 2-5 on June 27 this year to also contribute to the combined Top 5. With those bass added, the combined angler Top 5 Weight sat at 11-10.
Sleuthing – I dig finding fishing reports online for places that I fish, such as The Canal, Lake Storey, the Knox County public strip pits, and more. While I certainly admire the catches, more important to me is any additional information that the report provides. One such aspect would be the lures/presentations that fooled the fish. Another of my favorite bits of detective work is scouring the backdrop of any photos for clues. The latter part of my sleuthing was the primary reason that I chose my destination for this outing. I’d seen a recent post reporting a batch of quality catches that revealed the technique along with a weedy background and some visual clues in one of the photos. And just like that, I knew where I was headed the next time that I found myself pondering where to go.
Starting lineup
Conditions and Presentations – The abundance of surface vegetation, shallow, clear water, and scattered open channels through the weeds screamed topwater tactics. The lone factor that was lacking was that I wished I’d had some better cloud cover to keep the fish less spooky. There were occasionally scattered clouds that moved through and a fair amount of shade before the sun cleared the tree line but predominantly full sun. I ran a Whopper Plopper or a buzzbait through open water focusing on paralleling weed edges whenever possible. The frog was cast over and around surface mats and twitched/buzzed along edges and across open area within the mats.
8:34am – Top Bass weighing 3-0 (18″) on a frog
The Results – Three bass in just over three hours was far from knocking them dead. However, two of the bites were the two largest bass that I had ever landed on the pool and the third was a solid “keeper” as well. The top two bass of the morning tipped the scales at 3-0 and 2-11, respectively. As a result, my personal Top 5 Weight on the pool received a significant boost from 10-7 to 12-6. For the combined weight with other angler’s catches (Julie and Brent) the mark now stands at 13-11.
Bonus pics of angler catches that are part of the combined Top 5 for this pool
June 14, 2024 – Julie with Top Bass #3 weighing 2-10 (18″) on a Whopper Plopper
June 27, 2026 – Brent with Top Bass #5 weighing 2-5 (17″) on a chatterbait
Once again, The Canal provided some surprises. Looking back to the first two times that I ever fished this section back in the summer of 2022, I left wondering if there were any decent bass in the pool. The water level was low, weeds were abundant, and I could see bottom on nearly the entire length of the pool. Those two outings produced only three small “keepers” in three hours of casting. In the meantime, I’ve come to learn that there are quality bites all along the old waterway and this outing further confirmed that one should not pass judgment based on first (or second, or third…) impressions. Talk to you later. Troy