We had the chance to fish Lake Wappapello in Southeast Missouri a couple times this past week. With water temperatures reaching close to 90 degrees and hot humid heartland air temperatures to match it, we expected to find fish close to the creek channels with a few scattered along the shallow shorelines.

Concentrating our efforts up in the river area, we fished from Chiaona Landing to the Greenville Bridge. Starting with Topwater Baits we couldn’t buy a bite. We tried throwing some crankbaits along the shoreline and it started to look like we were in for a long slow day.

Switching to Jigs and Texas Rigged worms we started to get a few bites on some deeper structure, we continued to work the old river channel and deeper feeding areas adjacent to the channel with moderate success.

Saturday found us as boat 33 of 81 taking off from The Redman Park boat ramp for the Wappapello Bass Circuit.

Going with what we had found a few days earlier we concentrated on the old river channel, switching between Jigs and Texas Rigged Worms. With the increased pressure of both tournament and recreational fisherman along with small cold front dropping water temperatures 5 degrees it was a tough bite, with bass and crappie fisherman all over the lake. We picked a couple of spots to try to rotate back and forth between spending a couple of hours at each spot.

We managed to squeak in with a ninth-place finish and cashed a check on a tough day where almost half the field didn’t weigh in.