Pool 4 (5/18 and 5/20)

Haven’t seen many Pool 4 reports so figured I’d offer my meager update.

Fished Friday and Sunday out of Roschen. Not many boats in lot there. And Hoksila seemd relatively quiet too. Friday was maybe a bit busier than Sunday but not by much. I’m assuming more action at head of lake up by Red Wing, but not sure.

I pulled bottom bouncers and spinners with crawlers. My buddy and I ended up with 6 decent walleye/sauger Friday. Monday was pretty slow – just one fish (released). Plenty of sheepshead, so if you’re into that, you won’t be disappointed.

Fish were pretty spread out for me. No real “hot” spot anywhere. Most guys were pulling cranks I saw and they seemed to be pulling them in here and there. Caught fish in 6 feet up to 15 feet.

Water temp ranged from 62 to 67, at least on my finder. First time using it so not quite sure how accurate it is. Water clarity was pretty good.

Still some debris (as in giant logs) in the water here and there, so be careful.

I was out last week on Thursday and Saturday (5/17 and 5/19). We had water temps from about 65-67 degrees. There is definitely still debris in the lake floating around, so use caution and pay attention when running on-plane.

We caught a lot of short fish, especially on Thursday evening in a 3 hour outing. We didn’t keep any fish, but out of maybe 15 eyes only 3 or so would have been legal. We did have one solid 25″ fish that was extremely fat by post-spawn standards. The fish made some of those Mille Lacs and other northern lake fish look starved.

On Saturday, it was much the same story. Kept 2 – 15″ers and a half dozen crappies in about 3 hours. We mainly pulled cranks in anywhere from 8-15′ of water. We stopped to throw jigs and plastics on a few spots that have put fish in the boat in the past. Only a few whities were interested though. There were a decent number of boats out Saturday, with nobody really on a boatload of fish from what I could see. We did try to steer away from other boats (as in 1/4 mile or better)

A little late, but spent Memorial Day weekend sweltering on southern part of Pepin, but the bite was pretty good for multiple species including perch, pike, bass, wallys, white bass, cats, carp and the un-elusive drum. Tons of smallies on the rocks, biggest around 19. Got 15 one evening on a black and blue bucktail. Couldn’t keep them off it. Hung it over the side with a couple feet of line while netting my son’s fish, I turned and had another one on. Northerns caught on everything sporadically. Biggest was 30″. Crawler/spinner bite was good for wally’s, especially around the Willows. Biggest were 21 and 22″(still swimming). Silver blade baits caught lots of different species in shallows around Deer Lake, despite the weeds. All in all, some really good fishing despite having to spend too much time off the lake in AC.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_8748.jpg
   

I was down Sunday in the wind. The bite was great. We were pulling plugs and got a lot of fish. We weeded through them and kept a limit of good eaters between 17-19″. With the wind the way it was we got most of our fish on the Minnesota side between Lake city and Hanson’s harbor. Released four fish over 20″. Also got 4 notherns and a couple of large mouth. We boated about 30 fish total.

I fished last Friday (6/1) and again today (6/5).

On Friday we fished the tail end of Lake Pepin for a few hours and had relative success. We pulled cranks to locate fish and then worked the most productive areas rigging crawlers. There were lots of boats in many of the community areas from Pepin southward. Although we pulled some fish from the crowded areas near the willows and LaCupolis, we did significantly better away from the crowds. I do not enjoy fishing within a few hundred yards of the nearest boats. I ended up sending my 2 guests home with 6 fish total from 15-18”, and threw back 4 or 5 more legals and a handful of shorts.

Fast forward to Tuesday, and the same community areas were still fairly busy. I talked with a few people who “heard they were really hitting here, but haven’t caught a thing” as I motored by slowly. We were able to find solid action above Maple Springs again away from any other boats in 8-10’ of water pulling cranks and pitching cranks to the rocks in productive areas. All eyes and saugers went back today with maybe 6 or 7 legal fish and 8-10 shorts. We did run into a few schools of perch and ended up icing 10 of them for dinner that were 10-12” long.

Please be extremely careful out there. The word on the street is that another boater drowned on Monday. The older gentleman reportedly went overboard and was recovered by anglers, but did not ever revive after being taken to one of the area hospitals.