Need sauger advice

I’m a catfish guy, don’t know a thing about saugers. I have a good sauger fishery right out my back door and want to try targeting a new species (for me) this year. Here’s the situation; the tri-county canal in south-central Nebraska is normally less than 50 yards wide, and the average depth is 10′-12′ deep with occasional small scour holes that are 30′-35’deep. There’s always a current of several mph. I know where our game and parks nets saugers at the end of March for eggs/milt (immediately below one of the numerous check dams) and I want to target these fish prior to then. I have a boat, sonar. Can I assume they’re in pre-spawn right now? Drag jigs tipped with crawlers on the bottom of the deep holes? Slip bobber the eddies? Doll flies along the rip-rap? Any advice/thoughts/suggestions would be great!

Mike-touch base with IDO reporter Brian Robinson (B Rob). He’s a NE guy and pretty much knows his stuff about fishing the canals. I’m thinking he’s busy this week-end but he’s got a wealth of info on the whys and where fors. jerr

I’ve caught a few saugers on pool4 we use jigs big enough to get down to the botttom for the current flow and minnows,I’ll usually run a stinger hook or you can get short hit alot,setting hook and loosing half your minnow or just stripping the back half up. I hope this helps a little.
Stan

Fished behind a Dam its hard to beat the standard jig n minnow combo, even in the deeper holes it will work, hang a jig and minnow there long enuff and they will bite!

First, I would start by reading many of the Mississippi River reports in the report forum. Lots and lots of great info from IDO staff members. Also, check out this forum and the Mississippi River forum. Lots and lots of great info.

I would also get some of the Custom Jigs BFishin line of plastics.

B Fishin’ Plastics

You can bounce jigs back to the boat from an anchored position by current seams. You can vertical jig with the current, the key is to keep your line as vertical as possible. You can drag jigs both up and downstream, keeping your line at a 45, much like trolling bottom bouncers.

Lastly, if you are catching fish in water deeper than 25 feet, plan to keep them. The deeper fish will blow their air bladders on the way up. Even though they swim away, they are ultimately dead. It’s not uncommon to see the deeper scour holes loaded with smallish fish.

Lastly, reaching out to Brian Robinson and Ben Garver here on IDO would help you out. They are both NE fisherman who can probably give you even more local knowledge.

Remember to practice selective harvest.

John

All you need is a jig head (painted or unpainted) and a minnow or minnow imitation (sassy shad, 3″ grub, zoom tiny fluke, anything like that). Usually 1/8-3/8 oz jig heads, whatever the lightest jig you have that will maintain bottom contact.

Dont over-think it, I’ve caught more sauger on 1/8 oz unpainted jig head with 1/2 nightcrawler or fathead minnow than anything else. Sometimes unpainted outfishes the fancy $2 jigs.

This time of year, they are in those deep holes up by the dams on the downstream side. Once the water starts to warm back up, they will move out and go shallow to spawn. They typically spawn in 6-10′ of water and sand bottoms on the edge of the current.

My guess is that the DNR nets them below the dam when they are all up there before they start to spread out to spawn.

Make sure there is no season on them, sometimes they have seasons to protect them until the DNR can net them.