Pool 2 Report (2020)

Good job Abe, what was the hot crank bait?? We did pretty good last weekend on live bait.. I never fish live bait but my buddy had some 5 inch suckers to use up and that we did

Abe, I think you guys were launching. When I was getting my buddy. I was in the Reata parked there on shore.

We had the same outcome – walleyes on cranks in current. A mixed bag on the colors but jointed shads in firetiger or purpledescent produced the most. A mix of trolling and pitching. Water has actually cooled from last week a few degrees so I would expect this bite to get even better. We’d find pods of fish and try live bite but not a sniff on fatheads.

Our biggest was 24.5″ with a nice handful in the low 20’s. Water sure is low and slow.

Matt, when you are trolling those in current I assume it’s just straight behind the boat and you aren’t worried about getting them down more than 6′ or whatever they go….or are you guys running snap weights?

Cody Meyers wrote:

Matt, when you are trolling those in current I assume it’s just straight behind the boat and you aren’t worried about getting them down more than 6′ or whatever they go….or are you guys running snap weights?

I’m usually never trolling in more than 10-12′ so I just change cranks to account for depth. Bottom contact is paramount so I just run a crank I know will be banging bottom.

90% of the time I’m running a 5,6,7 sized Flicked Shad or Shad Rap.

If I am deep (like 20′) it’s winter or very cold water and I’m running floating raps on a 3 way very slowly. Once the water hits about 50 I switch over to the program mentioned above.

I was thrown Black Gold Sunset Flicker Shad in size 7. Most of the bites were after slight pausing after bumping into structure.

Matt Moen wrote:

Abe, I think you guys were launching. When I was getting my buddy. I was in the Reata parked there on shore.

We had the same outcome – walleyes on cranks in current. A mixed bag on the colors but jointed shads in firetiger or purpledescent produced the most. A mix of trolling and pitching. Water has actually cooled from last week a few degrees so I would expect this bite to get even better. We’d find pods of fish and try live bite but not a sniff on fatheads.

Our biggest was 24.5″ with a nice handful in the low 20’s. Water sure is low and slow.

Matt, I was in an awful hurry to get on the water! Next time you see me, give me a holler.

Ok day out there for me today. Took awhile to get it dialed but once I did I got some decent fish in the boat.

All fish on cranks either pitched or trolled. Up and downstream worked. Biggest fish was on a jointed rap pitched on a dam. Trolling was #5 flicker shads in 8 to 10 feet.

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Matt Moen wrote:

Ok day out there for me today. Took awhile to get it dialed but once I did I got some decent fish in the boat.

All fish on cranks either pitched or trolled. Up and downstream worked. Biggest fish was on a jointed rap pitched on a dam. Trolling was #5 flicker shads in 8 to 10 feet.

Nice ‘eye! I wish I made it out there today.

I was out Friday afternoon. It sure was nice out there, even if the fish weren’t cooperating for me. We never found any fish on a wing dam. Trolling along the rocks produced exactly one Walleye, one feisty little Smallmouth, and several Sheephead. One of those Sheephead was a drag pulling tank of a fish so that was fun. I still feel like I’m struggling every time I go down there, it’s always a challenge.

SR

Those big sheepies can be a riot in the current.

I’ve picked up a few pike recently and missed and absolute tank yesterday. He knocked about 6 feet of slack into the line. I was able to reel down on him and get a hookset but lost him behind the boat. Just saw him once but he may have been an upper 30” type of fish.

You never know what you’re gonna tangle with out there!

Nice fish Matt way to stay on ‘em.
I was out Friday AM and found a few fish in current seams.

Water coming up again…

Yeah, a little higher water will be good but my guess is it gets a little tougher as it comes up. Might hit the Croix this week.

I did see a group of guys beach a 19’ inboard. He’d never been on the river and hit the mud just north of the barge channel going about 40. I was waiving and honking to get him to stop and he hit it going about 40. Luckily no one was hurt but it took me and another guy close to an hour to get them unstuck. He ran it up to about 6” of water.

Out again today with a gimpy boat. Had a bad TM battery so had to find spots I could use the talon on. Launched from hidden falls and anything south of the little pike island channel was like pea soup from the rain washing down the Minnesota.

Found a few spots to pitch cranks in current seams…5 to 6 feet of water and just put a hurting on them. Caught about 40 in 3 hours or so but no real size. Average was probably 13” with the biggest 20”. Caught a few on jig and crawler too.

40? Jeez Matt, you really know how to hurt a guy

I’m going out this afternoon and see if I can find something other than Sheephead.

SR

We watched two guys at the dam last night put a hurting on the small fish with just jig and minnows, pretty much every cast. Those fish wanted nothing to do with plastics thats forsure.

I find that this time of year it’s hard to get much for size on the upper end but you can sure get into numbers. Once the water clears it’ll be time to move back downstream but it sure is fun to get into a mess of them. Even when they are small they smash those crankbaits. Sure would’ve been a good fish fry!

Matt Moen wrote:

I did see a group of guys beach a 19’ inboard. He’d never been on the river and hit the mud just north of the barge channel going about 40. I was waiving and honking to get him to stop and he hit it going about 40. Luckily no one was hurt but it took me and another guy close to an hour to get them unstuck. He ran it up to about 6” of water.

Exactly where was the mud that he grounded on? I want to see if it shows up on my Navionics App. That app served me really well on Lake Vermilion, showing tons of detail that the physical charts don’t. Is it a good option for keeping me in the safe areas of pool 2? Are there any paper charts of pool 2 that people would recommend?

We got our pontoon settled into its slip at watergate on Monday and took it out for the first time last night. I realized this was my first time operating a power boat on a river despite over 30 years of boating experience.
Went up to Minnehaha Creek and then down to just past 35E. Dodged some sticks and one big log on the way. Can’t wait to start fishing.

Housenosis wrote:

Exactly where was the mud that he grounded on? I want to see if it shows up on my Navionics App.

Once you get outside of the cans (dredged channel) all bets are off IMO. I would not trust a map or chip. River changes every day.

Take your time, keep an eye on your depth finder and learn how to read current.

-J.

Watch the birds too. If you see a Heron or Egret standing there up to his ankles, you know something is going on.

SR

As Jimmy Buffet says to Alan Jackson, “Keep it between the navigational beacons.” There aren’t any of those on the upper stretch, but there isn’t really anything you can hit north of Lilydale unless you’re really close to shore. Only exception that comes to mind is the big point that comes out between the MN and Miss at the confluence which is pretty obvious. South of downtown St. Paul the beacon rule applies for sure.

Jakob wrote:

. Those fish wanted nothing to do with plastics thats forsure.

I’ve been fishing the SAF pool and same thing, really hard to get any fish on plastics this spring. All jig and minnow which is weird.

Anyone with a half brain would’ve known this was not a good spot to be. These guys were 100 yards from the red channel marker. Here’s the spot….if you aren’t familiar that’s the 494 bridge on the south.

This water was too shallow for even the birds!!

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Well……it’s a muddy mess down river. It came up quite a bit and is really dirty. I worked hard for ***ONE*** hit. I was pitching a #5 Flicker Shad and almost had the rod yanked away from me. I was thinking “personal best Walleye” but after a long fight, I landed a big old Flathead. Man those things can pull. Add in a vicious southern wind and I ended up going home early.

SR

I hear you Steve. It is a muddy mess. I was down there Tuesday for a couple hours and had about 1.5 inches of visibility in the water. Add in the grass, leaves and garbage it was tough to get a line back without debris on it. I would not have been able to troll if I wanted to.

Nice to see the water cresting. This one hit a rippin rap last weekend.

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Was out today and the bite was slower for me. I was surprised at how dirty the water still is. I have been getting into some nice pods of saug-dogs in that dirty fast water though. I love the mottling on these fish!

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Anyone have a report on the clarity south of 494? Heading out tomorrow and need to make a decision where to head. I would assume it’s cleaned up by now.

We fished the MN on Wednesday evening out of Shakopee. It is on the drop now and water clarity wasn’t bad by MN river standards. I haven’t been south of the confluence, but I would guess it’s pretty close to back to normal. There was very little debris coming down even after the t-storms Tuesday evening.

Excellent….if the MN is clearing up we should be in good shape.

Matt Moen wrote:

Anyone have a report on the clarity south of 494? Heading out tomorrow and need to make a decision where to head. I would assume it’s cleaned up by now.

Matt, I’ll see you out there today! Launching at 6:30 @ 494…coin flip whether we go north or south. Haven’t been to the river for awhile, raps or jigs?