Miss. up north

Anyone been out on the mississippi around aitkin this year yet? Hopeing to get a few trips in up there next week. Heard the water is pretty low right now.

Hey Mike,
We were just up at our property north of Aitkin last week. The water is EXTREMELY low, probably 3-5 feet lower than normal. The fishing was also as slow as the water was low. Not good news. Hopefully we’ll get some rain to bring up the water level. At any rate, good luck fishing. Any other time, the fishing would be great.

Thanks for the heads up. Still going to give it a try next week. The fishing is usually real good up there. Cant believe it would stay slow for to long. Do you ever get up by the willow and fish?

I was just up at the cabin on the Miss near Palisade last weekend. Like everyone said the water is low (looks like late july). I was able to hook a few eyes trolling Rap shallow runners and the smallies are around. Good luck.

K9. Are you up river or down rinver from Palisade? We have not used the ramp in town there yet. Keep using the one on 169 and spend most of time north of there. We made it as far as a couple of mile north of where the willow comes in last year. there are some good bends in the rinver up that way.

Put in at the landing in Aitkin last night and had a few hours to fish some spots norht of there. Trolling shallow running crankbaits managed to pick up a half dozen walleyes and a couple of small mouth.
The river around aitkin is a differentriver than where I am used to fishing up towards palisade. Every turn is a deep hole up to 40′ and the runs between them average 10 to15′. Im at a loss so far as to where to look for walleyes. Last night we found them on a shallow bar on a out side turn that had lots of current and logs on it.
Good luck to you guys this weekend.

Mike W, I am approx 2-3 miles up stream from the palisade landing. Here’s the deal. The fishing right now is funny, the walleyes are scattered and there is no easy way to tell where they may be, but if you just kick back and troll you will do fine. If you decide to put in at Palisade remember about .5 miles up it is very very shallow . then averages about 8-9 ft.

We found a few more walleyes on our second trip out last week also. Managed to troll up a few running the usual pattern of crankbaits in the shallow water. Picked up a few more working live bait. Last year we spent a little time dragging jigs and bait with some fair luck. Starting to think we might need to spend a little more time on this presentation. Atleast when the pulling cranks is not working.

What would you guys recommend on where to target the bass and would work best? Like the post above mentioned it looks like tehre is deeper water everywhere.
Thanks
Dan

If you are looking for smallies target any rock piles and bars. They are easy to find due to the very low water levels. either troll upstream near a rock bar or drift by and cast all around the rock bar. small rattle raps and jig with ringworms (slow retrieve with the jigs) worked for me. Also be prepared for lots of pike in the same areas.