3/31-4/1 Report

This last weekend was my first trip back to Red Wing in a few years. A combination of working on the road and having my but handed to me on my last couple of trips in 2013 & 2014 have kept me away. I usually only make 1) 2-3 day trip a year because of my drive distance. It was nice to be back. I live away from the big river now but I was raised on Pool 13 and just feel at home on the Mississippi. I ran into and finally met in person the infamous Brian Klawitter as I arrived at Evert’s Friday afternoon. Nice to meet you in person Brian.

I hit the water about 4:30 pm Friday with bright sun, light winds, and air temp around 52. First stop was a sand bank that has produced before and I started with a size 6 Rippin Rap (that I have never thrown for spring walleyes before but been wanting to try). About 15 minutes in and bam, a nice healthy 22″ female pre-spawn walleye and I thought”ohboy here we go.”But that was the one and only fish on the rippon rap for these two days.

After a couple of hours of pitching various blade baits and plastics without anymore success I headed up towards the dam. I started dragging ring worms on a 3/8 oz. jig head and immediately started hitting fish. Mostly saugers but a few short walleyes as well. Probably caught around 15 fish from 8″ to 18″ only 3 that were fish I would consider keeping. I was dragging upstream and verticle jigging back down while keeping my jig as still as possible about 6″ off the bottom. Chartreuse/Orange core seemed to be the dominating color. I found the fish to be very aggressive but their feeding times seemed to be pretty short for both days.

I did pitch blade baits after the sun went down with only a few bites but a couple decent fish. The biggest was my fishing partner’s 26″ walleye just shy of 8 pounds. The areas I was fishing had me casting to the bank in 1 foot of water and retrieving back to the boat in 8′-12′ of water. I continued the same pitching pattern Saturday morning and managed a limit of fish to take home. I didn’t catch any tankers that I come here to catch this time of year but I did have one on that felt awfully good. I know,”the one that got away”

I didn’t catch any females that had let go of their eggs yet or milting males. Water temps were in the low 40’s and the next 5-7 days should be prime time to try and catch one of those big girls. I did not fish any water deeper than 13 feet and actually almost all of the walleyes were caught in under 5 feet of water.
Also, I would note that other than a little dragging up by the dam, I did not fish close to any other boats for these two days.
Saturday morning was insane! A couple of things about all that fishing pressure and number of boats. 1)That’s a lot of commotion. That amount of disturbance is going to negatively effect the fish. 2) It’s not real enjoyable being packed in like that. 3) There are fish all over that river. Too me, it’s so enjoyable to find a new spot and catch fish where people aren’t. Don’t be afraid to venture out and fish away from the crowds. It’s much more rewarding and more times than not you’re going to have better fishing. Lastly, to the post of “Where did all the walleyes go?” All fisheries go up and down in quality and quantity. Pool 4 is no different. I opinion is that it is very healthy.

Thanks for the report! Going to go down this weekend, I don’t usually fish that shallow but will give it a try.

Lol! Good meeting you too! I’m glad you had a good time. That wasn’t really a lot of boats…there’s been more out there.

Thanks for not mentioning what I was buying in the bait shop. I didn’t get to fish anyway.

Don’t make your next trip so far in the future and thanks for the report!

I did end up finding where they went and it was very rewarding! Caught some beautiful females, full of eggs, all around the 20″ mark. Also found jumbo perch that were insanely fun to catch.

All of my walleyes were in less than 6 fow and not even close to the dam.

Nice work. I’ve run into the perch before too but it’s been a while. Nice job.