Goldfish for BIG cats!
I hope you're gonna be in a big boat, Jim.... That pool is miserable on weekends with all the large pleasure boats and barge traffic AND jet skiers. I went there once with my Nitro 180 and decided "never again". With all the rain we've gotten in the last week or so, the water is likely to be quite high and muddy as well..... Of course, that may prove to be to your advantage by eliminating some of the pleasure baots and water fleas..... Please be very careful of floating debris.....
The only pool on the Mississippi I have ever tried to fish for bass is 25 - between Winfield and Clarksville. I would go back into the side channels where there were lots of laydowns. About all I ever used was spinnerbaits so that I wouldn't get hung up as easily; soft plastics produced too many junk fish. I never had much luck; only a few small bass in all the times I tried. They are there; I just couldn't catch them. And I had more fun with the cats anyway!
The Illinois River feeds into pool 26; I have heard that there is good bass fishing up in there.
me!