P2 Wingdam first-timer

I’ve been doing pretty well trolling cranks on the upper part of pool 2 lately, but thought maybe I’d go pitch some jigs or cast cranks at wing dams tomorrow morning. Looking at Navionics I see dozens if not hundreds marked from Holman Field all the way down to the Hastings Dam. If you were launching from 494, would you start working north or south? Can I trust the locations marked on Navionics? I know to proceed with caution and to read the water. To be safe I figured I’d start by anchoring upstream from a wingdam and fan-casting; maybe tumble some moxies off the face and back toward the boat?

Any other advice for a wingdam newb? I know the water level is down a lot from earlier this year so I’m a little nervous.

Water level is down but the flow is still good, well it was last weekend. I did find a couple, very few fish (walleyes) on wingdams on the 4th. If you can read the river on a calmer day you will be able to see the wing dams. Yes anchor above and pitch back to the dam with your favorite bait. Some wing dams are “sticky” and you will loose some jigs and some wing dams are silted in, you should get bit quickly if there are fish on that particular wing dam. If nothing in 10-15 minutes….move along the wing dam or move to another wing dam all together.

South of 494 has a lot more dams, than north. Heads up…..there are several cans missing along the river channel. Keep an eye on the GPS/chip!

Good Luck

Crank baits are generally a better option than jigs right now. #7 shad baits and similar sized bass cranks get the nod. The fish are pretty scattered – be ready to run and gun for them. And if you’re not hitting rocks on your cast, you’re either fishing too deep or throwing a bait that doesn’t dive deep enough. Good luck!

Thank you both the the tips! I’ll report back if I find the fish!

Walleyes are freaking awesome, don’t get me wrong man. But channels are on the chew right now. Had em smacking jig and worm right on hitting water by riprap for the evening. Just pulled up to log jam and 2 in 10min. Been in a eye slump myself up over Northside, just remembered why I love catting.

Just thought I’d mention it. My kids love this, hope I can get em out tomorrow.

nhamm wrote:

Walleyes are freaking awesome, don’t get me wrong man. But channels are on the chew right now. Had em smacking jig and worm right on hitting water by riprap for the evening. Just pulled up to log jam and 2 in 10min. Been in a eye slump myself up over Northside, just remembered why I love catting.

Just thought I’d mention it. My kids love this, hope I can get em out tomorrow.

I know, I know. I have almost zero experience with the slime balls. I did catch a little one earlier this summer by the Ford dam, drop shot with a floating jig and a crawler 18″ off the bottom. I’m never mad at anything alive on the end of my line, just don’t have the tackle to be targeting anything giant. I’ll figure it out on the fly if I get into one though

The kids are going to join me mid-morning tomorrow, can’t wait.

Well I fished 4-5 wingies this morning and nothing to show for it. Interest is piqued because I marked plenty of fish but they didn’t seem too hungry. Cranks, plastics, rippin rap, Jigging rap. I definitely have work to do on my pitching technique.

Picked up the kids at hidden falls around lunch and we did the picnic/beach/swim thing all afternoon. Sometimes the rods gotta wait!

try pitching live bait this time of year. 2″ piece of crawler on a h2o jig can work well. sometimes beefing up the jigs and hoping them down the face of the dams can help trigger fish. there can also be a decent early morning bite on dams that go dead later.

Mike W wrote:

try pitching live bait this time of year. 2″ piece of crawler on a h2o jig can work well. sometimes beefing up the jigs and hoping them down the face of the dams can help trigger fish. there can also be a decent early morning bite on dams that go dead later.

Thanks Mike. I was definitely not on the early side, always seem to be about 90 minutes behind where I wanna be.

Curious, how far upstream from the face of the dam do you recommend anchoring up, and how heavy are you going with the jig? I only had 1/4 oz h2os and I was having a tough time feeling the dam or bottom. I switched to 1/2 oz balls but I lost two to snags pretty quickly.

Mike W wrote:

try pitching live bait this time of year. 2″ piece of crawler on a h2o jig can work well. sometimes beefing up the jigs and hoping them down the face of the dams can help trigger fish. there can also be a decent early morning bite on dams that go dead later.

And if you hold the rod between your knees and crack open a beer, you might catch a 27 inch Walleye. Right Mike?

SR

as flows drop a full cast up from the dam. like to work those jigs down the face and sometimes right back to the boat just hoping them along. heavier jigs let you know right away when hitting bottom. weight depends on the flow on the dam. 1/4s are pretty common.

thats some advanced walleye fishing you are talking about steve.

Pool2Fool I believe I saw you out there Saturday. We weren’t hitting wingdams specifically but casting raps and trolling up and down stream with decent success. If you weren’t bouncing the rap off the bottom you weren’t catching fish. It had to be a small rap otherwise they weren’t hitting it.

realtreeap10 wrote:

Pool2Fool I believe I saw you out there Saturday. We weren’t hitting wingdams specifically but casting raps and trolling up and down stream with decent success. If you weren’t bouncing the rap off the bottom you weren’t catching fish. It had to be a small rap otherwise they weren’t hitting it.

Come say hi next time, always good to meet fellow anglers on the river. Most of my smaller lures — flickr shads, husky jerks, floating raps, etc — don’t dive deep enough to get to bottom so I was using larger flickr shads and reef runners. #7’s I think.

Mike W wrote:

as flows drop a full cast up from the dam. like to work those jigs down the face and sometimes right back to the boat just hoping them along. heavier jigs let you know right away when hitting bottom. weight depends on the flow on the dam. 1/4s are pretty common.

Thanks again for the thoughts Mike.

How deep were you trying to go? We stayed in the 8-12ft range using small raps with good success. They weren’t jumping in the boat like when the water levels are up but every a few minutes we would reel something in. Blue and white or blue and chrome were the hot colors with a rattle. Seems like everything else you’d only catch one or so fish on.

realtreeap10 wrote:

How deep were you trying to go? We stayed in the 8-12ft range using small raps with good success. They weren’t jumping in the boat like when the water levels are up but every a few minutes we would reel something in. Blue and white or blue and chrome were the hot colors with a rattle. Seems like everything else you’d only catch one or so fish on.

I was more in the 15-20 ft range. I’m a total newbie to the technique and structure. I was south of 494 and north of the refinery. I just used Navionics to find the wingdams — went over top of them slowly and watched my depth finder go deep, shallow, deep to confirm the location and depths. A couple of the slack water areas were almost 25-30 feet deep just a cast upstream from the face of the dam, I passed those by for the 15-20 feet depths but I guess I should be looking even shallower.

I was throwing firetiger, clown, shiny gold stuff mostly; I’ve had good luck trolling those colors in the similarly stained water upstream. Instead of changing colors on the cranks I was switching to jigs/plastics and then moving on. About 20 minutes on each at each dam, 4-5 different dams.

Next time out I’m going to 1.) Launch at 494 instead of wasting my time and gas running down from home turf; 2.) Target some shallower spots with smaller cranks in a variety of sizes; and 3.) Try the jigs with crawler pieces instead of plastics.

Another quick question — when you’re trolling in those areas that have wingdams galore, some of which are only 3 feet or so under the surface, are you trolling right over top of the dams and bouncing right off the top, or are you out in the main channel clear of the tips of the dams?

pool2fool, bring a lot of crawlers next time down there. Use 3/16 and 1/4 oz when learning these dams. If you cannot hit the dam with a 1/4 oz the current is just too fast for this. The trick with the dams is finding the right ones. Some are better than others period… Just remember that most the dams on p2 are in large series.. The first couple dams will be much faster than the 3rd, 4th, ect…. The outside/tips of the dams are going to have the fastest water. If you fish those front dams in these series and it is too fast you can always work you way in towards the shore to find the slower/right speed of water.

Practice finding the dams and learning how to keep the jigs on top or the face of the dam and slowly work the jig down to the base. They can be anywhere but if fish are using a dam they will for sure be on the front face and base of that dam. If you don’t get them there move to another. If you do find them there then you can play with different areas in front of the dam or around that area of the dam. You will get bit quick if fish are on that dam!!

Crank baits are a great search tool and also help you locate the dam quicker. Jigs will out fish crank baits most days though if you are on fish..

When your trying to find the right dam look for something unique.. There are some dams that are all alone and not in a series. This is unique in itself. Also look for bends, flat shelves, long flat tops in dams, high spots or cutouts in dams.. It can be anything. If you find something unique remember that spot. It may not be going that day but should at one point when water conditions are right. The dams on p2 are very friendly to the boat also.. Not may are prop wreckers.. You should be able to drive around them and scan a few first before going back up and fishing them.

Start small. Pick a specific area (1/2 to 1 mile stretch) and learn it well before moving to the next area. I could tell you right were to start but that would not help you at all. Learning these dams individually may not help that day but will pay of big time down the road.

buschman wrote:

pool2fool, bring a lot of crawlers next time down there. Use 3/16 and 1/4 oz when learning these dams. If you cannot hit the dam with a 1/4 oz the current is just too fast for this. The trick with the dams is finding the right ones. Some are better than others period… Just remember that most the dams on p2 are in large series.. The first couple dams will be much faster than the 3rd, 4th, ect…

Thanks buschman! Appreciate the advice and definitely do not want to be told “go to this dam at this time and do this” — figuring it out is part of the fun for me and I know that takes time, repetition, experimenting, etc.

One question — when you reference dams in a series and say the “first couple” will be faster — just to clarify, you mean the dams furthest upstream in that series will have faster water, correct? So as you move downstream through the series of dams the current will decrease?

Yes, most times the very upstream dam will be the fastest but not all the times. in some of these series the 1st dam is shorter than the second leaving a lot of flow on the end of the second or 3rd dam. Also the 1st few dams will have less silt on it and offers more structure/rocks than the ones down stream.