Good 2019 Year Class for Walleye and Sauger on the Mississippi?

I know all this high water on the Mississippi is causing a lot of problems for some people and keeping a lot of anglers off the water, but on the bright side, I believe sustained high water during the spawn correlates to a good year class.

The Upper Mississippi river level forecast shows it increasing for the next week or so, and the weather forecast calls for air temperatures in the mid to upper 60s, so hopefully we’ll have the right combination of high water and warming water temperatures to enable a great 2019 year class of walleye and sauger.

There are a lot of variables to having top-notch year classes and spawns for sauger and walleye, but 2019 sure seems to have many of them lined up.

Water temps and levels are looking to be great for a successful spawn. Angler pressure is not nearly the factor that temps and levels are, but I’d have to imagine the total number of harvested fish pre-spawn will be lower this year than an average year due to the flood stage waters as well. The water is going to be high well through the 40 and 50 degree temps and probably until it hits 60. The forecast seems to be drying up for the next 8-10 days and will start cranking up water temps.

I don’t fight the crowds for the March and Early April pre-spawn bite very often (2-3 times at most), and focus more on the post-spawn and early summer bite on Pool 4. For those that enjoy the post-spawn willows bite and pulling fish off nearby flats, it’s looking like it could be a great year.

I’m just hoping mother nature doesn’t send a soaker of a system through the area in the next 2-3 weeks. Area fields, streams, rivers, etc. could use some early summer heat and high skies.

Boone, I agree with you. I just know from Pool 2 that we had some amazing year classes in the river from 2004-2011. These were adult fish over 24 inches. There was a few years in there were you couldn’t catch them under 22 inches. You did but it was not many compared to the number if fish over 22. We had high water in 97 and 2001. I don’t know if these large year classes came from those high water years but sure hoping so!!