Mississippi River Walleyes

The Walleye bite over the weekend is still going very good on the Mississippi river. Water levels continue to drop every day and a few of our spots from a week ago have dried up all ready. Its just a matter of following the fish as the keep moving with the ever changing water conditions.

Getting a few more fish pitching Jig/crawlers now as compared to last week but the hair jig bite is still going very strong. Gary stuck to pitching crank baits Saturday morning doing very well and ended up with the biggest walleye. a nice 28″er.

Areas we are targeting are lots of current seams and areas with less flow. These higher water conditions are fantastic for pushing bait into these spots. With bait there the fish are not far behind. A dead give away to some of these spots is just look for the minnows to scatter when pitching a bait in there.

Looks like water levels are not going to drop as fast this week. Maybe just a few inches every day. Im glad to see this. These higher flow conditions are fantastic for the bite. Lions levee and 494 ramps are now open again on pool 2 also.

And some photos. We did very well on the saugers and walleyes with boating about 25 Saturday morning. Had a little mixed bag going to with a nice pike and small mouth showing up to.

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And Garys big fish for the morning. 28″. Not the pertyest looking fish I have ever seen but she hit like a freight train and put up a good fight. Thought at first he was hooked in a flat head.

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Great job, Mike! I tried Pepin with my son yesterday and other than a couple northern and some perch and small eyes, didn’t have much luck. Think I’ll head upstream out of the lake and into the River next time out.

Btw, so I noticed a ton of mayflies/bugs on the water etc. Seems earlier than usual for that, but maybe not. I assume that won’t exactly help the bite?

I was out yesterday as well on Pepin. We got out there about 9 and fished until about 3pm. We did very poor. Pulled spinners w/crawlers most of the day. We started out by the Marina in Lake city and worked our way out in front of town and up past the point. We got 1 17″ sauger and a few sheephead and 1 smally. Then headed to a bunch of points on the Wisconsin side. finally over on the backside of the Stockholm point we got a 27″ walleye. I really believe that we were too deep. We were working and marking fish from 10 – 14′. I think they were shallower than that.

shockers wrote:

Great job, Mike! I tried Pepin with my son yesterday and other than a couple northern and some perch and small eyes, didn’t have much luck. Think I’ll head upstream out of the lake and into the River next time out.

Btw, so I noticed a ton of mayflies/bugs on the water etc. Seems earlier than usual for that, but maybe not. I assume that won’t exactly help the bite?

I may have seen you yesterday. I have the Red and White Tahoe Fish & Ski.

The mayflies where going up here to. Hastings had the lights on the bridge turned of Saturday night to try to keep them away. Im sure the walleyes feed on those mayflies to some extent but also think the shad and other minnows feed on them like crazy. Have seen spots where it looks like the minnows are popping mayflies off the surface and the larger fish are right behind targeting those minnows. Feeding on mayflies or minnows it seem to put those fish in feeding mode. Atleast in the river with more current.

With a water temp of 75 degrees, I was surprised to see Mayflies at Treasure Island. Nothing but gnats at Everts and the lights have been left on over night. The gnats left us alone when on the water, but on shore….holy cow!!

I may have seen you yesterday. I have the Red and White Tahoe Fish & Ski.
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Yeah! I think I do remember seeing you. I did try across on the Wisconsin side briefly. Guess I should have tried more given your luck with the lunker.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

With a water temp of 75 degrees, I was surprised to see Mayflies at Treasure Island. Nothing but gnats at Everts and the lights have been left on over night. The gnats left us alone when on the water, but on shore….holy cow!!

Was just enough wind Sunday to keep most gnats away. I noted in an earlier post what a life saver that bug netting has been for me this year. I stopped by Fleet Farm Saturday to pick up an extra one and the guy said they’ve been sold out for some time.

shockers wrote:

I may have seen you yesterday. I have the Red and White Tahoe Fish & Ski.

Yeah! I think I do remember seeing you. I did try across on the Wisconsin side briefly. Guess I should have tried more given your luck with the lunker.

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I was just that, Luck. My friend was retying one of his rods and set the other on in the rod holder for a couple of minutes. The fish hit it and a couple of minutes later we had it in the boat. It was a fluke thing but it still counts. We got a couple of pics and sent her on her way.

You darn right it counts! Congrats.

Water levels continue to drop on the river. Yesterdays bite seemed to have dropped off with them as compared to what we have been finding. Still found a few nice fish pitching jigs. Big fish for the trip was this nice 26″ that hit a flicker shad trolled on a current seam.

Lets try this fish.

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Gettin back out tomorrow night again after a few days off. Can’t wait!

Caught 4 nice ones this afternoon, largest being 24″ and smallest was 19″. Trolling #7 flickers up stream near wing dams is what we were doing.

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Good to here they are still biting. Should be out again this afternoon.

I saw this post pop up under the ‘Today’s Topics’ and read through the reports and got all excited…was just getting ready to take the day off and head down there…but then I saw the dates of the 14th &16th..haha.

Nice fish Mike! Hoping to take Friday off and head down there and see if I can piece a bite together somewhere.

How is the Crankbait bite after sundown and into the darkness on Pool 4?