WOW, right now the fishing has been very slow for me on 5A and 6.
With very few post lately are many of you experiencing the same or are your arms to sore from reeling in the biggons to type?
I have been working wingdams with tubes and cranks. This is producing a few, mostly shorts, but few and far between.
Anyone found the magic?
No magic found on pool 7 either. If you want to use live bait, you can catch lots of nice fish.
Magic? If anyone finds it…let me know. 
I’m guessing they’re in the slop, cause I haven’t found them anywhere else. 
Know that we’ve established the fishing is slow…..does anyone have any insight or suggestions. I’ve been fishing the very obviousy and the very unobvious spots hoping to establish a pattern and haven’t. Is this the calm before
the fall feeding storm or is this something new????? Am I wrong or does Sept. 10th usually mean the feedbag is already strapped on by now!!!!!!!!!!!
PUZZLED!!!!
Chris
My best guess is the cold weather summer we’ve had. Typically when the water heats up, the fish move out to the channel or to areas where fresh and cooler water is available. we haven’t had much for warm weather, and fish haven’t had to migrate like they normally do. All of my go-to wingdams this year are busts. This time last year I was doing very well on wingdams catching both LM and SM Bass. Right now, I can’t find one decent wingdam that’s producing anything over 2lbs. Even then, there isn’t many of them. I was out last night for a couple of hours and couldn’t wait to get off the water. For me, it’s just too frustrating especially since pool 7 flows past my house. 
I just have not been seeing the shad as in past years. Every so often I find some, but for the most part it has been tough finding the bait. If I do, it is usually on the graph and not seeing fish busting the surface.
I know the minnows we saw last night getting chased by stripers were very small in comparison to previous years. I can’t remember seeing any 3″ shad jumping out of the water this year.
I guess I should take my Dad’s advice and dig out the cane poles and fish sunfish for the rest of the year. 
At least that way, I can enjoy a beer while fishing.
It seems like when you do find an area of busting shad, it’s even tough to get a fish to bite no matter what kind of bait you throw at them. We found that out last night.
Two things have just recently happened…full moon with clear skys at night…and walleye, northern all slowed down.(we’ve already had that discussion),second especially the emerald shiners,(Or Ron Benjamin says that they are three kinds of shiners), and somewhat the Shad haven’t made a big move yet. I’m sure most of you know that the shiners spawn twice a year and when they move up on the Wd’s and into the channel bays to spawn all of us will be very busy. Normally the cold has to set in and even at Lake of the Woods it is usually at least this late.
I actually am catching nice fish, but they are spread out and almost all on sand points, and running slough lumber. I believe the weather,(temp),is actually running above normal for most of the last several weeks and will be above normal for for at least the next week.
Regardless the main run for me usually starts somewhere around Oct. 1st and then ends just about thanksgiving.
i fished pool 18 today im preperation for a tourney we caught 10 bass but like you all say very bad for soem reason the water isnt clean like it should maybe thats the heavy south wind and lack of current
but the bait is not related to cover or shade like normal and are all pulled off every thing the river is acting like a lake when they pull off the bank sit there and watch you throw over the top and under them and laugh predict the feed bag up north should start soon
i also agree with blue with out the hot weather this summer i tend to believe alot of the fish never left the back waters where we cant get a boat to them
We are definately in the transition.As stated earlier when you find shad busting they are not takers. For the next few weeks it will be scattered fish sorta like lake fishing to a degree. 2 WEEKS and you will be busting schools again. In the mean time keep finding the ones and two fish spots, and cover a lot of ground. Another option for some is to hit some inland lakes, some great fishing going on right now. If I lived closer to Winona, I would definately be focusing on the big cruisers in Lake Winona-one hell of a fishery!
Last year was slow right now also. This is the 2 week period of the Ace Tourney and last year it was horrible , too.
I have been fishing pool 3 and up into the St.Croix the past two weekends, we where fishing wingdams,main channel points and on the St. Croix shoreline structure main river points at no time did we hit a fish with-in 300 yards of each other.Talking to anglers on the two bodys of water it seemed everyone was haveing a hard time.
Suddenly noticed in the end of all this that discussion that I was back in the middle of the bite. Oh well hopefully the lull is over.
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