Clear Lake

I am heading over to Clear Lake this Friday (weather permitting), as the Mississippi is too high to fish right now. I am hoping the slightly warmer weather will make for some decent fishing.

There will be a heck of a crowd at Clear this weekend its the Clear Lake Classic tournement over weekend.

Don’t let talk of high water on the river scare you away. The river is in better shape than you might think. While the water is up it is very fishable and relatively clean. The walleye bite here on pool 12 has been very good to excellent over the past 3 weeks and I have done well every time out. With the higher current I have been fishing wingdams that are somewhat protected from the heaviest current. The river isn’t all that high and according to the Corps web site should begin falling today. We had like 6 days in a row with rain but none of it was heavy rain and had little or no effect on the river. I doubt if we received more than a half inch of rain total in the past week. The water is not muddy nor is there a great deal of debris floating down. I fished Tuesday night from around 5:15 until 6:45 with a friend and I had 3 legal walleyes with 2 over 19″. We would have stayed out longer but we had a nasty little rain storm chase us off the water before 7. Just don’t let the high water talk scare you. The river is very fishable and the fish have been cooperating.

Eyehunter

I know about the walleye tournament so are the yellow bass going yet? I’m thinking of coming up Saturday. Where is the tournament launching from? I’ll want to avoid that ramp.

Thanks for the tips. I don’t plan on being in Clear Lake this Saturday or Sunday regardless of the tournament, which I didn’t know about. On Friday, the tourney guys themselves will be out scout-fishing, but Clear Lake is big enough (and not really a “structure” fishery), so it shouldn’t matter–I have fished around walleye tournaments on other waters this size without incident.

As for the Mississippi, I am free until June 6, so rather than fish the very high water on my “home” Pools 5a and 6, I can wait until it comes down a little, and is more manageable. In the meantime, I am going to scratch my lake-fishing itch.

I’m heading up tomorrow for some yellows. I’ll try to post tommorow night. I wouldn’t worry about the tourmy guys if you are fishing yellows you won’t realy be fishing the same spots as them anyway and most will be trolling.

On 5-6 the yellows were biting ok. I cleaned 16 all but two were males that were milking. I was fishing on Billy’s Reef drifting across the top with a minnow or cut bait. I’m not sure if the yellows have spawned out yet if they haven’t try the north shore around rocky shorelines very close to shore.

I fished Clear Lake yesterday for about six hours. I got some small walleye (none legal-sized), some yellow bass, and, of course, some bullhead. What fish I got were favoring orange Wally Divers trolled from around the island to the west side of that point (Dodge’s?). I heard the yellows were hitting well in very shallow water on jigs and minnows, according to the waders around the island. I did see a boat trolling near me lose what they said was at least a 48″ muskie that hit a walleye crank on 6 lb. test.

Friday and sat. the yellows were going crazy, You just had to decide how many you wanted to clean. I was getting bit on almost every cast in some places.

Thats what we want to hear. Thank You..