Pool 2 Report (2021)

Made it out to pool 2 yesterday in the afternoon for a bit. I don’t fish from the confluence up as I’m typically from 494 south. Fished a couple spots and really struggled. Caught 4 total but felt like there was a ton of garbage in all the spots I wanted to fish. That north wind was tough as well. Water was 55.2 and the river is movin, it’s not high but it’s flowing. Gonna head south this weekend. Good luck gents.

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Hey affliction- I hear if you put one of those lifestyles on a jig with a crawler it’ll keep the “rough” fish off…

Omg…didn’t realize I dropped those lol. I hadn’t seen those in that pic. That’s hilarious.

Fished out of the 494 access this AM. Caught 4 walleyes, none over 17”. Trolled Berkeley Flicker Shads. Did pitch a jig/plastic a little bit. 2 other trailers in the parking lot when I came in about noon. Very little debris in the water.

Not sure about walleye but I did get into a mess of crappie last weekend. Caught around 20 and kept 3 for the HOB (hot oil bath).

Some were pushing 14″.

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Nice fish! Got into a few decent fish earlier this week. Few big crappies and some nice walleyes. Kept a few for the HOB, too!!

Couple crappies close to 14” and a 28.5” walleye.

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Thought I’d share this from a flight this morning. This is pool 2. To orient the photo, the bottom right is spring lake. Center of the photo is the mosaic plant. Upper left is Moers lake.

Thought it was a cool perspective!

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Well done guys! I got out last night after work with a buddy, we only caught a few shorts pulling raps, but one was a nice 19″. Water temp was 58. Beautiful night, it paired very well with that sweet, sweet dog food aroma.

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Awesome photo, Matt, but I think you forgot to mark where you caught that 28.5″

I think he caught it right in the corner of the mouth

And yeah gotta love the stench down there!

I was down on P2 Saturday.. I will say this is the lowest I can remember seeing the river this time of year. There is no water in there and fishing was miserable. We caught fish but was all crawlers and jigs. We could not get them going on crank baits. They were also very spread out. Not my favorite fishing this time of year. I really like high water with big pods of walleyes stuck in areas.. Oh well.. Hopefully we get rain soon.

anybody gettin’ out tonight or this wknd?

Was out yesterday. Current is back, but the water levels aren’t up much at all. Fish were pretty scattered.

I got out last night finally for about 4 hrs. I was able to find some larger pods of active fish. They were where I’ve been finding them ever since the fall-back… side channels and cuts. I cruise around until I find the bait. I snapped a few photos of the bait balls on the SI last night and maybe I’ll post them once I get them off the head, but basically I’m looking for large schools of shiners/shad tucked up into the shoreline particularly in the slack water behind wood or rocks. Once I find them I just move to the nearest current seam and troll or pitch. Got quite a few last night and a few nice crappies too. Largest eye was 25. Here’s a photo of the shiners that got snagged on my crankbait a couple times while trolling through these areas. Sometimes the fish are puking them out when they get in the boat.

jp

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Nice snag, Jason! I don’t see nearly as many spottails(pictured) as I do emerald shiners. Thanks for sharing the pic and your info!

Do any of you ever capture those minnows and use them for bait? Indigenous minnows can be super productive. I have tremendous luck with them on my river up north. Sometimes feels like cheating.

suzuki wrote:

Do any of you ever capture those minnows and use them for bait? Indigenous minnows can be super productive. I have tremendous luck with them on my river up north. Sometimes feels like cheating.

Yep. Almost always when I’m shore fishing pool 2, I’ll net emeralds with a folding trout net and use them. Under a slip bobber, by itself or added to a jig and plastic. Catch everything with em. Can’t get any fresher or more natural.

Fish candy

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That looks like a pretty decent crappie unless that’s an ice cream pail.

Got out last night for the tuna boat parade and the fish were going good. Got them mostly on cranks but also jigs/leeches. Largest was 25. Haven’t seen a big one in a few weeks. If anyone wants to get out after work some night shoot me a PM.

J

Probably going out tomorrow. Not sure if Hidden Falls or 494 makes more sense right now.

Jason- not an ice cream pail. 5 gallon bucket. Wasn’t all that big tho- maybe 10”? I know you know there’s plenty of bigger ones in there… That one went back when none of his friends wanted to accompany him to dinner. I’ve only kept a handful of pies from p2 a couple times, but they aren’t bad!

Decent night on the river, 10 eyes, couple drum and bass and pike mixed in on the upper end. 20″ was the biggest.

FYI, LOTS of cotton was sitting on the water. When this happens, I troll directly behind the boat and that helps a little. Also, faster water will have less of a mess. Temps in the 70s.

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DaveB wrote:

FYI, LOTS of cotton was sitting on the water. When this happens, I troll directly behind the boat and that helps a little. Also, faster water will have less of a mess.

I haven’t tried it, but I’ve heard if you put a little split shot up the line it will catch most of that before it fouls your bait.

I’ll run a swivel up the line and leave the tag ends of the line long to catch it.
DT

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>DaveB wrote:</div>
FYI, LOTS of cotton was sitting on the water. When this happens, I troll directly behind the boat and that helps a little. Also, faster water will have less of a mess.

I haven’t tried it, but I’ve heard if you put a little split shot up the line it will catch most of that before it fouls your bait.

split shot works, I like the swivel idea too. either way, you gather some, just not as much. when the split shot looks like a baseball!!!

I was out last night for just a few hours. Fish seem to be moving out of the backwater areas and (presumably) into the main channel. June should be a good month for pitching wingdams and other main channel structure. We got ten last night mostly on jig and leech. Biggest was 21. LOTS of cotton. Also got our first flathead of the season.

Out today in the afternoon. Didn’t realize how low the water would be. Main channel trolling runs didn’t produce…thought they would be there.

Finally found fish in heavy current areas. Depth didn’t seem to matter. When I found them, they were stacked up. Nothing real big but good average size.

Tried a new technique today that worked. Rip jigged plastics on heavy current seams. I don’t have a lot of confidence in the tactic yet but it produced a few fish and they mashed the jigs. Otherwise, live bait was key. I was surprised I couldn’t get fish to hit cranks.

Wear sunscreen….drink water.

Couple interesting SI pics from the last few weeks. The one on the right is a backwater slough I was fishing in May. Along the left shoreline are all the bright returns which were the shiners in the slack water behind logs, wood, and brush. Every pull up this seam produced at least one or two fish despite the fact that I can’t actually make out any larger fish in the image.

The pic on the left is from Saturday and is out on the main channel. You can see the anchor from a channel buoy and the cable tethering it 50ft to the right of the boat. Another 25-50ft to the right of the can are at least three dozen nice sized fish. I made several passes through that area with the cranks and not even a sniff. Like Matt said it pays to try a few different presentations when you find fish. They don’t always want what’s tied to your line I guess. I also noticed that when I made passes through that area I wouldn’t mark any of those fish on the 2-D. They didn’t like the boat passing right over their heads and would move away while I was trolling.

Its also kinda cool how those channel buoy cables run along the bottom then just kinda pop almost straight up below the can. You can see the cable and its shadow pretty well in the image.

jp

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Those are some cool shots! There’s no doubt the fish in this whole system are eating well…