lansing, iowa area

will be staying at Desota,WS this fri and sat. would like to be a hero for my 9 & 6 yr. old boys. (wife too!!) would any of you all mind pointing me towards some gills and crappies? plan on taking wax worms, and leaf worms as well as lots of twister tails with 1/16 and 1/32 oz. jigs. i have never fished farther N. than Harpers Ferry. THANKS!!!

I’ve done pretty good on the ‘gills right at the mouth of Desoto Bay during low pool. Herb is the real expert when it comes to turning anyone into a pool 9 hero.

Thanks Gianni, but no expert here by any means. I’ll try to help ya trapper anyhow. Gianni is right on about the mouth of the Bay. Good starting point. Start right down at the mouth where the current from the channel sweeps over to the riprap. From there, slowwwwwwwwwwwwww troll up along the rock dragging any sort of 3-way you can rig up. Normally, I’ll just rig a 1/4oz. splitshot about 20inches above a #6 red bait hook or #6 gold light wire hook. Start out with a whole crawler hooked through the nose and drag it. The whole crawler is the locator. If the fish are there, they’ll steal it which is fine. Once that happens, go to the leaf worms or waxies or a chunk of crawler and enjoy the ride.
If the fish aren’t down at the mouth, head up to the boat house area and don’t forget about the pads across from there. Bobber time here.
Let us know how you do please.

My brother and I were up there just this last weekend. Don’t know about the gills but we got into some very nice crappies. We were fishing the east side of Winneshiek Slough down from the bridge. Most of the fish were around 11+” and we had a bunch that exceeded the 12” mark. I snapped my long rod trying to lift one in the boat, that was pretty stupid and my brother forgot his so we ended up mostly just doing the bobber thing. Most of the fish came out of about 10 feet of water and were from mid depth down. I don’t do much crappie fishing but that was a blast and I was really impressed with the size of the fish.

thanks very much for the replies guys. really appreciate the help. all i have to go on is my river charts. is De Soto the first shoot on the far E. side just north of the town of De Soto? the one that hugs the RR tracks? also should i go into Winneshiek from the very head just south of De Soto or should i take the tube just South of the Big Lake daymarker that goes in straight East about half way between the start and the bridge?? Also I have a Minn. family license if there is something farther North. THANKS!!

It sounds like you’ve got Desoto Bay down right. If your map shows mile marks it’s pretty much directly east of 668 and then goes up from there. RR Tracks, rock bank, hard to miss. The downstream island point comes out a ways so just don’t go to 668 and turn east because that would a problem. When I was fishing Winneshiek we just put in by the bridge and never went up. With the water levels it’s a safe guess that the only way in from the main channel is the entrance at marker 667, there’s a closing dam there and you’ll no doubt see that. Good luck!