Pool 2 Weekend Report.

Good weekend to be out on the river. Sure felt like fall out there. Water temps dropped about 10 degrees this past week. Sitting in the low 60s today. Flow is still up pretty good for this time of year. The walleye bite is not to bad. Have seen better. Have seen worse. Not finding many fish on the dams right now. Having better luck closer to the shorelines. Got a feeling they should start setting up on the dams pretty soon or Im just not finding the right spots yet.

Did find the walleyes hitting a variety of baits this weekend. Crank baits, hair jigs, jig with crawlers and jigs with plastics. Not even a sniff on the willow cats this weekend. It sure was fun to feel those fish pop the hair jigs. Most so to feel them crush moxies and pulsars. Going to be a lot of that to look forward to in the next few months.

Wasn’t just the walleyes biting this weekend. Very good to feel those white bass getting active again. Always a fantastic fighting fish. Managed to find a wing dam full of crappies this afternoon also. Nice sized ones and where hitting H20 jigs with crawlers and hair jigs.

Managed to get a nice photo of Drew’s big walleye for the afternoon. Think it was upper 26″. Got myself a nice 26.5″ on Saturday on the first cast of the day. Pair of 24″ers on the next spot I stopped.

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It was a great weekend to be on the river! Glad to see you had a little more luck than my boat.

We got out for a few hours on Sunday morning and I spent to much time on the wing dams…. Like you said Mike there just was not much happening on them. Walleyes came on hair jigs and cranks, I was surprised nothing was taking a jig/crawler. I had water temps of 61 degrees though.

Tight lines,

Sam

I was also able to sneak out for a bit on Sunday morning. Trolling was the best option for us. We had a variety of fish, walleye, sauger, white bass, smallmouth, sheephead, and crappie all while trolling cranks. Smash shads was the bait of choice trolling against the current.

Thanks for inviting me to hop in your boat. As always, it was a great learning experience! The feeling of a walleye crushing a plastic NEVER gets old!

-Drew

Nice looking fish there, Drew!

-J.

Most years I wouldnt even be thinking about throwing plastics until the early or middle part of Oct. Then again it felt like Oct out there over the weekend. After that 1st one cracked the Moxie it was time to give them what they wanted. Fun fishing.

Nice fish! I ran into a few big white bass and nice crappies a couple weekends back nice to get something different in the mix now and then.Last week I tried a couple wing dams with cranks and a jig/minnow or jig/crawler,I caught a lot of sheepies and one crappie then abandoned the livebait and went to trolling

Nice work Mike! Good to see your still stretching some string! Kurt

Nice report Mike and great fish Drew…I also thought the wingdam fishing was tough considering the nice flows. We were out on Saturday and did our best trolling smash shads upstream. Our biggest fish for the day was a nice 26″er we caught less than 2 minutes after we started fishing in the morning.

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I was out on Pool 3 both Saturday and Sunday with my dad and uncle primarily working Dubuque rigs on the wingdams. We caught lots of walleye and saugers both days but the size was lacking. We probably had about 30 walleye and sauger in the two days but only about 5 over 15″. The biggest was 26″ Got a 31″ northern that hit the dropper jig. The 26″ hit a big sucker minnow on the trailer hook. Early this summer I was catching a bunch of small walleyes and sauger on Pool 3 but there was always some nice ones in the mix. We also tried trolling some shorelines in areas of reduced current but still only found small walleyes. In addition to the walleyes and saugers, we had a bunch of medium-sized white bass, small smallies, and some sheepies so we stayed pretty busy but the lack of nice sized fish has me puzzled. I have no doubts there are decent numbers of 15″ – 20″ walleyes in Pool 3 but I just could find them this past weekend. The water temperature below Prescott was about 64 F. Maybe we should have pulled the plug on Pool 3 and went up into the St. Croix, or gave up on the wing dams earlier and concentrated on trolling shorelines and current seams. Hopefully all these small walleyes bodes well for the next few years.

Here are a few photos from yesterday. Was fun to find some fish hitting plastics all ready. Dont usually get going on fishing plastics until Oct but if the fish want them who am I to argue. Caught a few nice ones slowly retrieving a 3/16th H20 jig and Pulsar off the face of the wingdams. Seems to me with this current if you work those Pulsars to fast the tail flattens out and does not give much action. A very slow retrieve and letting the current work the tail was it and the fish let me know when I got it right. They just smashed those baits.

Caught a few on hair jigs and crank baits as well yesterday. Even found one nice 13″ pie that decided to tackle a full Pulsar.

Sure wish I was back down there again today.

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Was able to get out again for a while on Saturday. Bite was kinda slow on some spots and going pretty well on others. Almost all of out fish came on crank baits that day. Big fish for the day was a nice 27″er we got right away in the morning.

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