Got to fish for a few hours Saturday morning on pool 2. Plan was to meet up with Joel at the diner for a quick breakfast and discuss where to try and find fish in these still high water levels. Had my feelings we where going to be in for some decent fishing but in these conditions you never know. It might just be a high water boat ride to.
Getting out on the water the currents where still blowing down river very fast. Even noticed that the day marker across the river had been swept away at sometime during the flood. Still a few sticks and logs to watch out for on the main channel but not terrible conditions. Down river we went.
Plans for the day was to go looking for shoreline current seams and back water areas with less flow. Didnt take long on the first spot we checked for Joel to hook up with our 1st walleyes. We had decided to long line troll some cranks through this spot that wasn’t much more than a seam that sets up across the opening to a back water channel. Through in a few rocks in the area for fish to hide behind and a pocket of slack water where the main current hit the shore and you got a high water spot. Few more fish here and it was time to go looking for the next area.
Next spot was just a nice good sized seam that sets up on a rip rap shoreline. Perfect for pitching jigs with bait or hair jigs. Here again Joel decided to show me the fish where there with boating 3 or 4 nice walleyes. I get asked every now and again about pitching in these higher flows and get funny looks when telling them 1/4 ounce most of the time. Once in a while a little bigger than that. For the most part these spots we are looking at have pockets of very low flowing water. So far so good. Two spots down and fish on both.
Our third and 4th spots of the morning and about all we had time to fish for that day where both back water areas. One was just a shallower spot with harder bottom, some logs for cover and current flowing across it. The other the up river side of a little point. Way to much water flowing across the tip of the point but a very nice slack way spot had set up on the up stream side of it towards shore. These spots here again it was either long line trolling or pitching cranks for this trip. On any given day jigs might of went on these spots but just didn’t seem to work this day.
Noon was closing in and it was time to go. Pretty happy with our morning of fishing. Think we ended up with around 15 walleyes. Good thing Joel was with or I might of thought the bite was a little off. River walleyes do bite in high water its just a matter of looking for the right spots. It can take some time looking through the numerous current breaks and seams to locate some of these little spots but its worth the time.
Good luck to you guys that are getting out in these high water conditions.
