Roughly 15-20 years ago I was working for a fella at a bait shop on Pool 4. It was fall and the bite was picking up…then for about 2 weeks ANY one that put a hook down could catch walleyes if not limit out. The gut pails in the fish cleaning house were filled each and every night and sometimes emptied twice a day.
Then the bite stopped. I asked what happened? I was told when there’s that many people fishing and taking out that many fish, well, it’s fished out (referring to the dam area).
I was concerned so I called the Lake City DNR office and talked to a fella that did the netting and trapping on Pool 4. Certainly he had his finger on the pulse of the river. He surprised me. “The fishery is just as good as it was 20 years ago” he said. How can this be? Limits for pretty much everyone, then very few fish coming in?
It wasn’t until I dropped a camera down in the dam area I learned what an awesome fish hatchery Pool 4 (the river really was). There were without exaggerating hundreds of thousands of reflective eyes down there. From the depths of near the dam to the backside of wing dam #3. It was truly amazing.
So now that I knew the fish were still there, I came to the conclusion the reason they weren’t biting was because of the fabled “lock jaw”. I don’t know, water temp dropped or rose, flow picked up or decreased, maybe the level was changing or they just didn’t like the color of baits they were seeing. I really don’t know.
Where am I going with this? This might not be a “managed” fishery, but (mostly) our MN DNR spends a crap load of time watching trends in population of not only walleyes, but our beloved whiskered fish and white bass as well.
Now if the WI DNR could just get all the way on the band wagon…
