Pool 2 Report (2021)

Jon Jordan wrote:

Yes, that is Mike and Rootski.

-J.

Getting a compliment from Marianne about their great sportsmanship by staying out of her area. Good job Mike!

tomr wrote:

I have been watching and I am convinced now that I could be a pro fisherman too as I can go down to Pool 2 in the summer and not catch a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye with the best of them . I am disappointed a little though 32 miles of river and everyone is fishing spots we all know about other than Brett King. I thought someone would come up with a new spot or two. I wonder who tipped off Huskey on the “hole” while looks interesting on map really difficult to get to this time of year and most I would think wouldn’t risk their prop and skeg getting in there without some strong encouragement. Interested in your report Mike on how the trip in is, wish I could have gotten off and joined you. I really am surprised especially with Brett where he is fishing that when dinkfest starts he does not immediately start trolling a flicker shad along shorelines as the wingdams have been beaten to death. There has been to me at least a surprising lack of trolling in this event with most casting or pitching. Lakich seems to put odds in his favor by just the sheer number of casts and water he covers. Okada spot didn’t fire and I would not have had the patience to sit there as long as he did. I would have moved on when not catching and probably missed the bite windows the previous two days and really never discovered how good that spot could be. Makes me think to give good looking spots a little more time than a few casts into and move on.
I am going fishing this weekend and was going to go to pool 4 but now maybe go poke around pool 2 as my interest has been piqued. I will set the timer to 5 hours and see if I can catch a fish. Is using leeches cheating?

You cannot use any live bait. If that was allowed I believe it would be a whole different tourney.

I was originally thinking this tourney would turn it into a zoo down there just like when IDO posted that episode dragging jigs by the airport. BUT, after 5 days of very tough fishing it seems like there won’t be hoardes of people running down there.

The question is would all of you done given the conditions?

I would have had some imitation live bait…gulp or something like that. There are a few spots I haven’t seen anyone on that surprised me. Trolling a couple of the can lines as well.

Trolling the upper end would’ve been an option but a lot of dinks and you waste a lot of time idling through St. Paul.

They are all pretty much pitching cranks right now. But if you watch closely Marianne is doing something nobody else is doing. Most of the guys are just reeling and reeling and reeling… Trying to get in as many casts as possible because they are jacked up and nervous.

Marianne varies the speed of her retrieve a LOT. Pausing, pumping, jerking and then reeling, repeat. Not saying that is why she is fishing for the win, but when the fish are that negative you have to work to trigger the strike sometimes. You’re not just trying to mimic a baitfish, you’re trying to mimic a wounded baitfish.

Prior to dinkfest I would have spend an hour in the morning pitching dams then trolled cranks on rip rap near deeper water. It might not produce big numbers, but it should have gotten a few 2-5lbers.

I guess nobody wanted to target sauger either, there are a lot of 2-3 lb fish and they might have been more willing to bite.

There are two spots that I know of on the upper end that might have been worth the time (20″ plus fish) , but that would have been a gamble.

My buddy talked to Max and he said the night bite is lights out, but trying to get something going in the high sun was tough.

Mike and Rootski are stars!

LOL, look at the these knuckleheads that made it on camera….How was the bite Mike W. and Steve?

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Mike, just seen ya scoot past Joe on the live feed, assuming you in the Lowe with the 70 tiller. Did you outfish them boys and girls yet?

Great photo of those 2! Maybe they’ll interview them at the end of the show to here what their tactics were

Looks like Mike W is trolling…..FOR SPONSORS! “Your ad could be here”

Somebody text mike and tell him that slabs are hitting cranks in hog lake!

That was a lot of fun today. Started out by Marianne. Since she was in a small area I asked her right away how much of it was she fishing. Next stop was by Isaac. Was interesting to find Jared and Mike on dams right next to each other. Stopped in a spot no one had been fishing and lost our only small walleye of the day. Then as seen in the photo vertical jigged the edge of the main channel past Joe and drifted off down river into the back channel.

It was fun to watch these guy do what they do. I also enjoyed the fishing we did to see if we could find anything better. We didn’t. I give these guys credit putting together what they did this week on a tough bite. The H2H team to for making this very entertaining to watch.

Agree, made the week fly by!

Congrats to Marianne!

-J.

Evan Pheneger wrote:

LOL, look at the these knuckleheads that made it on camera….How was the bite Mike W. and Steve?

Should send that pic in for a future casting of a Grumpy Old Men remake! They’ll need to Scandihovian up the last names a bit, and wipe those smiles off though. Looks like a great day to be on the water guys!

The bite sure died in the last 2 weeks. Fished upper pool 2 yesterday ended up with 3 eyes 15-17 inch fish (crawlers and jigs). First time up there this year been fishing the southern section all year but wanted to avoid the pros. Did notice they finally got the road from the P&Y club to the lillydale launch open after a year++. Fun to watch the shows hopefully they come back I would like to be a marshal the pros all seemed nice from the coverage. Nice picture on the coverage guys.

For all you Pool 2 guys and gals who want to fish a tourney, don’t forget about the Pool 2 Hog Haul the first Saturday in October. Catch, Photo and Release format. Lion Levee Park.

-J.

I know this is a walleye thread but since the P2 walleyes are on hunger strike I thought I would use the time to hone my P2 crappie skills. When people think crappies they usually think early spring and late fall but if you can find them in summer they are usually pretty aggressive. Fatheads under a float, fatheads on a prop jig, and #4 rippin raps have all produced a few fish here and there, mostly in the trees.

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JasonP wrote:

Trying to get in as many casts as possible because they are jacked up and nervous.

Marianne varies the speed of her retrieve a LOT. Pausing, pumping, jerking and then reeling, repeat. Not saying that is why she is fishing for the win, but when the fish are that negative you have to work to trigger the strike sometimes.

I agree 100%.. I was saying the same thing watching this event.

I didn’t watch much of the event, but I never saw or heard of anyone trolling cranks on rip rap or wing dams. As a couple of others have mentioned, it seems like this would have been a good option, especially when fish under two pounds could be counted. It just seems like by trolling you can cover so much more new water than you can by casting that it just increases the odds of triggering a strike.

Say you’re trolling at 2.5 mph. In the five hours they had to fish, they could cover 12.5 miles. Trolling at 3.0 mph and you cover 15 miles in the five hours. Now I know one’s not going to actually cover 12.5 or 15 miles. When trolling wing dams one wouldn’t be anywhere near that distance. I would think covering so much water just increases your odds when the fish don’t seem to be concentrated.

boone wrote:

I didn’t watch much of the event, but I never saw or heard of anyone trolling cranks on rip rap or wing dams. As a couple of others have mentioned, it seems like this would have been a good option, especially when fish under two pounds could be counted. It just seems like by trolling you can cover so much more new water than you can by casting that it just increases the odds of triggering a strike.

Say you’re trolling at 2.5 mph. In the five hours they had to fish, they could cover 12.5 miles. Trolling at 3.0 mph and you cover 15 miles in the five hours. Now I know one’s not going to actually cover 12.5 or 15 miles. When trolling wing dams one wouldn’t be anywhere near that distance. I would think covering so much water just increases your odds when the fish don’t seem to be concentrated.

More than covering ground, for me it’s about maximizing the time the lure spends in the water at the target depth. Every time they pull the lure out of the water and re-cast is potentially wasted time. Once they start the retrieve, again it takes time for the bait to get to the desired depth. And at a certain point in the retrieve, the line has shortened up to the point it’s again out of the target range. Seems minimal but multiply it over hundreds of casts in a tourney day and to me it’s meaningful.

I could have never gotten to the final round when sub-two pounders were allowed, but if I had I’d like to think I could have posted some interesting results using a tactic and area that was pretty much completely ignored by everyone.

dirtywater wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>boone wrote:</div>
I didn’t watch much of the event, but I never saw or heard of anyone trolling cranks on rip rap or wing dams. As a couple of others have mentioned, it seems like this would have been a good option, especially when fish under two pounds could be counted. It just seems like by trolling you can cover so much more new water than you can by casting that it just increases the odds of triggering a strike.

Say you’re trolling at 2.5 mph. In the five hours they had to fish, they could cover 12.5 miles. Trolling at 3.0 mph and you cover 15 miles in the five hours. Now I know one’s not going to actually cover 12.5 or 15 miles. When trolling wing dams one wouldn’t be anywhere near that distance. I would think covering so much water just increases your odds when the fish don’t seem to be concentrated.

More than covering ground, for me it’s about maximizing the time the lure spends in the water at the target depth. Every time they pull the lure out of the water and re-cast is potentially wasted time. Once they start the retrieve, again it takes time for the bait to get to the desired depth. And at a certain point in the retrieve, the line has shortened up to the point it’s again out of the target range. Seems minimal but multiply it over hundreds of casts in a tourney day and to me it’s meaningful.

I could have never gotten to the final round when sub-two pounders were allowed, but if I had I’d like to think I could have posted some interesting results using a tactic and area that was pretty much completely ignored by everyone.

A couple things here….a lot of guys were trolling main channel and wing dams in practice. I have to assume they weren’t catching fish or they were all shorts. If you noticed a couple of guys started trolling when dinkfest started and one of the guys was trolling south of 494 on the last day. Maybe it would’ve been a better tactic because the numbers were so low….cover water and hope for overs.

What surprised me were the amount of guys pulling up casts short with cranks. A lot of the decent fish we’ve caught recently were chasing cranks back to the boat and hitting as the bait was coming up. To the point made….they weren’t maximizing casts well.

Guys were also right on top of the dams in many places. My experience recently is the fish aren’t sitting on the tops. I think a lot of guys fishing the dams simply weren’t on the fish.

Yep. Not crazy to figure eight a cranksbait boat side this time of year. Also casting cranks parallel to the dams or even from down river a bit.

Buddy that marshalled said there were quite a few guys trolling cranks along the main channel and ends of the dams.Also said he was with a guy that was trolling the faces of the dams.

JasonP wrote:

I know this is a <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>walleye thread but since the P2 walleyes are on hunger strike I thought I would use the time to hone my P2 crappie skills. When people think crappies they usually think early spring and late fall but if you can find them in summer they are usually pretty aggressive. Fatheads under a float, fatheads on a prop jig, and #4 rippin raps have all produced a few fish here and there, mostly in the trees.

That’s a nice Crappie!

There are some real slabs in P2.

I’m shooting for a 16″+ this year.

Two of us fished out of Lilydale Wednesday AM. Lots of 10-13” walleyes, had one about 15”, 2 sheepshead and a catfish. Was a beautiful, peaceful morning on the river.

Trying again this evening. Maybe a little flow from the rain will help.

Anyone been on P2 the last few days and got a water temp? Wondering how much it cooled with the rains…

…a rise sure would be nice, too.

On the lower end it was 79.5 in the main and over 81 in some side channels yesterday.

Matt Moen wrote:

Anyone been on P2 the last few days and got a water temp? Wondering how much it cooled with the rains…

…a rise sure would be nice, too.

Alagnak Pete wrote:

On the lower end it was 79.5 in the main and over 81 in some side channels yesterday.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Matt Moen wrote:</div>
Anyone been on P2 the last few days and got a water temp? Wondering how much it cooled with the rains…

…a rise sure would be nice, too.

Thanks…sure was hoping she was cooler.