Small River Crankbait Bite

I ended up taking a short river canoe trip this past weekend with the family, and am always impressed with the fishing and scenery every-time I do it. Not that we fished seriously. Heck, we didn’t even fish the same water twice, just floating our way down, casting and trolling where applicable, in whatever cover and water that looked good at the time. Due to the canoe chaos and general danger involved with smart phones near water, please excuse the fact that this will be a fish-picture-free post.

August is small rivers month in my book. The Root, Cannon, Zumbro and a whole pile of others right now have good bites on them. For the most part, water is lower this time of the year compared to any other, and fish are in much more concentrated locations. The best part? They always seem willing to eat; in this instance, mid-day no-less!

This was the kind of fishing I did alot of in my youth and years previous. Back then, we used the old Rebel crawfish cranks. Not a bad little bait, but it was pretty limited to the shallower stuff, and definitely preferred by the smallies over the walleyes. That and they tended to blow out in faster currents after banging off cover so their usage was limited to casting. Black jigs and plastics were another favorite of mine, but again, more difficult to fish deep in the places we wanted to target eyes and sauger.

Speaking-of, most of our dozen and a half walleyes and sauger came while trolling that smaller #4 Shad Rap behind the canoe just below rapids/riffles. The beauty of that bait was that it dove into the 6-8 foot pools, while you were able to keep your rod high to avoid snagging in rocks when you went over shallow areas. I lost a handful of #5’s and #7’s before finally switching over to the #4’s exclusively. That, and the slightly smaller profile on these baits is something alot of these river fish seem to be more attracted to. Not surprisingly, Red Craw was the pattern we had the most success with. Perhaps more-so because of the stained water than the crayfish pattern itself, but I didn’t care “why” as long as they were eating it.

Casting was far less effective, as many of the walleyes we caught were nose-upstream at the bottom of these riffles rather than up towards the edges of shore. A few smallmouth were caught, even a dogfish and a sheepie. No matter what the fish, this is some seriously simple and fun fishing. Grab a spinning rod with a few cranks and head out for a float downriver.

Joel

You’re really making me want to pencil in a little canoe trip down the Rum in the near future..

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You’re really making me want to pencil in a little canoe trip down the Rum in the near future..

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Now is the time! Just got a PM from another member asking about shore-fishing spots. That can be really good right now too. This year is a bit weird with water levels the way they have been, but some Augusts are literally “fish-in-a-barrel” type stuff in SE MN anyway.

Never spent much time on the Rum, though I know the smallie fishing can be nothing short of incredible. What do you throw?

Joel

Lol, I would probably be targeting ‘under utilized fish’ like redhorse, etc. Us cat guys don’t keep too many cranks in our tackle bags!

Just picturing a leisurely float down the smaller rivers exploring different kinds of structure sure sounds like a good time right now!

You caught eyes/saugers? Boy. I guess I gotta get out more! My son just got a canoe and he and I have been exploring around SE MN. Bass, sure. But haven’t snagged an eye yet! Great post. Thanks for sharing.

There are untold miles of great walleye fishing on rivers in MN. Many of these rivers, I have no doubt, recieve only a few hours of angling pressure per mile per YEAR.

We had a great opening day on one such river in 2011. Kind of a spur of the moment thing, but we fished only a a few hours, got nice walleyes and in the process we never saw anyone else fishing and there was one other car at the ramp. On opening day.

Grouse

I haven’t done it in a while but canoeing and fishing those smaller bodies of water is not only fun, but the surroundings make it so relaxing.

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You caught eyes/saugers? Boy. I guess I gotta get out more! My son just got a canoe and he and I have been exploring around SE MN. Bass, sure. But haven’t snagged an eye yet! Great post. Thanks for sharing.

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The key to getting the mid-summer eyes in any of these systems is to fish deep. Shorelines provide all the juicy looking cover and some decent current breaks to fish, but they primarily hold smallmouth. Cold-water tribs, and really any area that’s scoured out by current, yet starts to slow down in terms of flow is where you’ll find them nose-up into the low-flow current at the bottom. Pulling down-river right at them is key as well. Even if you can keep your crank moving when retrieving a down-river cast, rarely will you get bit.

Bait can be a good option, but the frustrating thing here is all of the non-target species. In the past when using spinners (in-line and snelled), and any other kind of bait setup, you’re just as likely to get bit by catfish, mooneye, sheephead, sucker, etc. It’s a blast, and I won’t complain, but if your target is otherwise, it’s tough to get to them.

Crankbaits in various sizes are usually the ticket for most of the fishing we do, and Shad Raps are standard fare for much of the year. I was really impressed with that #4 in terms of being in the “sweet-spot” for depth and size. You need to be on bottom, or extremely close, but too deep, especially near the riffles, and you’re snagged and snapped before you could ever turn around.

Jigs aren’t bad either, but there’s so much variation in what you fish, it’s difficult to select a size that keeps you on bottom in the deeper pools, while still being fish-able in the shallow areas.

Most of these systems have alot of canoe, tuber, and pleasure traffic on mid-summer weekends. Go on a weekday if at all possible, and fish stretches further from landings than everyone else. Use electronics if you can. Your ice-fishing flasher will work, so will that Showdown handheld. There was alot of seemingly featureless water that was deep! It held walleyes, and our biggest fish in these areas was about a 19″ sauger.

Joel

Love the read and report.

On my way tomorrow to my first river kayak trip down the Wi River this year, from the Dells about 10 miles. Great smallmouth fishing, and the occasional eye, crappie and so on. I bring my retired father with, and set him up with a simple, safe option of a 1/8th oz jig (1/4 if we can stick above a hole for a little bit) and a three inch white triple cut twister tale.

The twister tales are tough to beat as everything seems to find them attractive, but as you posted, working a crank bait is the best. In a kayak, current, trashing fish, and a couple treble hooks creates nervous moments that I still don’t like. Last year, while paddling my butt off up river to get to an area I wanted to fish, I trolled two flicker shads… size dependent on the water depth. Took me forever to get up river as I kept getting bit (good thing), and would loose a lot of ground setting the paddle down. Then tail snagged a upper 30″ musky… and was so glad it didn’t eat the bait as it would have been scary dealing with that where it happened (not a bit of musky handling experience). Heck of a fight, but got it to the kayak and was able to pull my crank off and send it off in great shape.

Hard to beat a nice slow float… no one around, catching fish, and doing it in the most simple, back to the basic sort of way.

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You’re really making me want to pencil in a little canoe trip down the Rum in the near future..

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I grew up near the Rum DFresh. Can I go with youi? DIRTBALL2

The rum river is nuts right about now…

If you can handle the deer flies!

Going to fish another river in a few hours….stay tuned!

Joel

Joel, I wanted to follow up on a comment from above:

“Pulling down-river right at them is key as well. Even if you can keep your crank moving when retrieving a down-river cast, rarely will you get bit.”

So if I’m understanding correctly, you’re facing and casting upstream and then working the crankbait back down toward you?

If that’s the case, is it a problem getting the crankbait down to any depth? I’m envisioning small rivers with a fairly strong current, so I’m wondering how to make surethe crankbait is getting down?

Another observation I’ve been wondering about: Has anyone else fished a river where twister tails/jigs seem NEVER to work? Honestly, I’ve put in days of fishing on a classic peat-stained river in northern MN. It just looks terrific, like one of those fast-flowing Canadian walleye river where they are just stacked in there in certain places.

And we can’t even buy a walleye on a twister tail/jig rig. Crankbaits? Check. Live bait rigs. Check. Slip bobber. Check. So the ‘eyes are there, but they won’t seem to bite a twister for love or money.

The ONLY reason I can think of is that this river is rather infetile and there may be a real lack of bottom-dwelling forage like crayfish, etc. Essentially, the fish are always looking up into the top of the water column for food, minnows, frogs, etc.

Has anyone else encounted a case like this where small river walleye won’t seem to bite the bottom bouncer stuff?

Grouse

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Joel, I wanted to follow up on a comment from above:

“Pulling down-river right at them is key as well. Even if you can keep your crank moving when retrieving a down-river cast, rarely will you get bit.”

So if I’m understanding correctly, you’re facing and casting upstream and then working the crankbait back down toward you?

If that’s the case, is it a problem getting the crankbait down to any depth? I’m envisioning small rivers with a fairly strong current, so I’m wondering how to make sure the crankbait is getting down?

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So much depends on the day and the flow, but I tend to do alot of trolling/casting back behind the craft and pulling down-river for those eyes, especially earlier in the year when flows aren’t peak, but they’re not dog-days-August-like. It’s funny, you’d think that casting downstream and pulling back up the current would work best, but that’s typically only true in very slow current areas when you’re stationary, like parked on shore. When you’re in a canoe, it’s moving faster than the current at depth, keeping your bait moving at a good clip and in the zone. Again, with extremely high flows or extremely low flows, this isn’t always the case. However, for eyes in a deep pool at the bottom of a riffle, this is what I’ve found in the rivers I fish. That said, there are some pools that are straight, deep, and lazy. These are the ones where it doesn’t seem to matter as much because the current doesn’t glue these fish nose up behind a current break as much. These can be great areas provided they get deep enough, like greater than 6 feet. Basically, my rule of thumb is that as long as current/conditions allow, I’d rather pull downstream in these small rivers when in a boat, right into their face than back up.

Joel

Joel

That sound like a blast. It has been so long since I have been able to do such an adventure on a small river but like you in my youth we used to love floating down the small rivers where we would find concentrations of fish in the summer time in the deeper holes. It is not about always catching big fish it is about the adventure and having fun doing it.

Paul Delaney
http://www.lateeyessportfishing.com

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Joel

That sound like a blast. It has been so long since I have been able to do such an adventure on a small river but like you in my youth we used to love floating down the small rivers where we would find concentrations of fish in the summer time in the deeper holes. It is not about always catching big fish it is about the adventure and having fun doing it.

Paul Delaney
http://www.lateeyessportfishing.com

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Thanks Paul, you’re welcome in my neck of the woods anytime. If you’re down our way, let me know and we’ll fish!

Joel

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And we can’t even buy a walleye on a twister tail/jig rig. Crankbaits? Check. Live bait rigs. Check. Slip bobber. Check. So the ‘eyes are there, but they won’t seem to bite a twister for love or money.

The ONLY reason I can think of is that this river is rather infetile and there may be a real lack of bottom-dwelling forage like crayfish, etc. Essentially, the fish are always looking up into the top of the water column for food, minnows, frogs, etc.

Has anyone else encounted a case like this where small river walleye won’t seem to bite the bottom bouncer stuff?

Grouse

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Finally getting back to this, sorry about the delay.

Most of the times when we’ve tried, the bulk of the plastic can ride the jig higher in the current, taking it away from fish. You can switch to heavier sizes, but as you well-know, not all of these pools and fish locations are exactly the same depths, leaving you too heavy or too light….to often. If you could park in each hole or anchor effectively to fish them, it’s a different story, but most of the eyes we catch on jig/plastics are flukes anyway.

For smallies, now that’s a different story. It’s probably one of my favorite ways to catch them in small rivers.

Joel

Good stuff Joel.

You never know where a walleye will pop up. Years ago I fished a scour hole in the Whitewater River right next to highway 74 just downstream from Beaver about a mile. I was throwing a rapala into the rapids at the bottom of the pool and cranking upstream. Bang. Not a troutski…. Walleye.

I learned a long time ago that if a river or creek empties into the Mississippi River, expect the unexpected.

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Good stuff Joel.

You never know where a walleye will pop up. Years ago I fished a scour hole in the Whitewater River right next to highway 74 just downstream from Beaver about a mile. I was throwing a rapala into the rapids at the bottom of the pool and cranking upstream. Bang. Not a troutski…. Walleye.

I learned a long time ago that if a river or creek empties into the Mississippi River, expect the unexpected.

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Completely agreed Tom, and I think that adds to the excitement. Heck, last year we chased around a “live” bobber that had a fish on the end of it. Apparently whatever it was snapped off the owner. We finally caught up with it, and it was the biggest mooneye I’d ever seen!

Regarding small rivers, I fished another with Chuck Nordahl lately, this time for smallies.

Joel

Hey Adam, I’m planning to hit the Rum for smallies this weekend. Any tips on what they’re going crazy on right now, depth and preferred cover/structure?

I have several go-to spots and patterns, but I’m always looking for new patterns to try!