Pool 4 Report 3-14

FBRM I appreciate the report a lot. I’ll be headed down this weekend! There’s always people who aren’t catching fish. On the flip side, someone is always catching fish. So I really appreciate you sharing your success story to keep moral high!

Local lake near me is known for having good walleye but it’s never consistent. There’s an older guy who has a trolling motor mounted on an old speedboat that used to go out every day and catch a limit of walleye. No one else could do that but he caught his limit every time he fished out there. I didn’t get mad at the guy for catching fish, I was impressed and talked to him and tried to learn from him. To get mad at someone for catching fish is ridiculous.

I’ve never fished Red wing, this weekend will be my first time. But I’ll write a report on how I do. Like any body of water, mob mentality doesn’t always (or even occasionally) work. Trust your electronics and don’t sit on a spot all day that’s not producing fish. It’s a big system. The fish are biting somewhere.

Good luck to everyone getting out this weekend. Holler if you see me out there.

Someone is ALWAYS on em somewhere , doing something ! All too often, all of us get in a rut fishing memories instead of what is currently happening !

Ripjiggen wrote:

This thread is cracking me up already and it’s only mid March.
FBRM could just as well not post and share his knowledge and tactics and we could just read the reports there not biting. I appreciate the OP posting his personal experience and the rest as well. Thanks. I also appreciate FBRM posting his.

x2

FBRM-keep your reports coming,allways interesting to read along with something to learn!40° water temps down there,barely touching 35° on Pool 2 yesterday,however they were still biting pretty good.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Everybody want an ice cream cone to feel better?

30 boats x2 guys = 60 ppl.
4 minute observation = 2 man hours fishing

FBRM,

That would be 4 man hours of fishing.

It’s interesting when most people struggle on a given day but a few do great, especially when fishing the same time of day. I can see when most boats get 1-2 fish but some get 6-8 that than can simply be random probability (a.k.a. Luck). But if you got 32 and Crawdaddy got 64, there’s no chance that’s luck. You obviously figured out the bite. Thanks for sharing some insights.

There’s been many times down at Pool 4 when I’ve struggled only to get back to the ramp and the boat pulling out behind me did really well. To some that can be disheartening and no doubt it can be for me too. But I try to take it as a learning experience… I learned how and where I fished wasn’t working but somewhere not too far away, something was working.

boone wrote:

That would be 4 man hours of fishing.

Omg that’s really embarrassing

Is Lake Pepin still iced over or is it open? Don’t live in the area to know. Thanks

Catching them or not at least you guys are out there. My early season fishing is going to be next to nothing this year so just be happy to be out!

mbear wrote:

Is Lake Pepin still iced over or is it open? Don’t live in the area to know. Thanks

Upper few miles are open.

Dean Marshall wrote:

Someone is ALWAYS on em somewhere , doing something ! All too often, all of us get in a rut fishing memories instead of what is currently happening !

I like living in the past. Everyone knows me there!

Rough couple days on pool 4 for us. Caught fish but didn’t see a lot caught at all. Best thing we found was a 1/16th ounce jig in 25′ right on the inside edge of a current seam or shallow dead sticking a 1/16th ounce jig with just a fathead.

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I’m with Jason and if we have a choice of flavors I’d like a swirl cone please. I used to use the number and size of the fish I caught as the determining factors of how much fun I had. Now I’d rather meet new people and have a bunch of 2 minute conversations as your boats pass. Laugh a little, talk a little smack, and who know, perhaps make some new friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather catch fish than not catch fish but that’s no longer a requirement. Now for a report. I’ve been down there every weekend since the beginning of February. I got schooled on the finer points of catching for quite a while. Did a little experimenting and changing things up a touch and there you go, fish started coming over the side of the boat. As was mentioned by Ripjiggen things change on the river and what worked yesterday (or an hour ago) won’t necessarily work now. What worked for me the last time out was dragging a dubuque at .4 -.5 upstream and about .2 faster than the current downstream. I’ve been using green B-Fishn paddle tails, moxi’s and flukes. Depths were anywhere from 12′ down to 28′. I had my best success just holding the bait still 95% of the time only dropping the rod tip back to locate bottom. Little changes can make a big difference so if something’s not working and you’re marking fish change things up a little before you start up the big motor and run to the next group of boats.

Pretty tough bite at the pool 7 tailwaters yesterday. The parking lot at the lock & dam was so full people were parking on the lower road to Hungry Point. The wall was nearly shoulder to shoulder. Lots of people must be out of work?

I was out Friday 3/19. Slow and small is the key. Nice day. Finished strong after only one keeper fish in first two hours. Let go some very pregnant saugers. Unfortunately, they’ll liklely to be kept by others if they didn’t learn to avoid a jig.

3/18 2 of us kept 3 walleyes and released a 21” using blade baits. Also snagged some perch. We saw fish being caught here and there. Friday I was solo and snagged 2 suckers and a carp with a blade bait. 😒 Didn’t see many fish fry caught. Had what I think were 3 walleyes on using a blade bait but they came unbuttoned. No problems Thursday.

Any thoughts on why I was losing them? Maybe snagged them?

Report from the weekend on pool 4.

Fished Saturday morning without much luck. Tried lots of spots using lots of different presentations. Then we loaded the boat up and went and grabbed a late lunch. Got back on the water around 4 and went back to a spot I’d marked a bunch of fish on. Tried jigging but keeping the boat going down stream at the same rate as the current flowed. This let us keep 3.25 inch authentx plastics with a 3/8 oz jig vertical. This was the ticket. Once I got it dialed in it was 1 rod in each hand jiggin up sauger after sauger.

Ended Saturday at dark with about 25 fish boated. Kept 2 limits and called it at dark. Went back this morning to a spot a couple 100 yards down the river channel and did the same thing. With presentations dialed in we were able to really pick up more fish today. Ended with about 35 boated this morning. The windy areas seemed to hold much more aggressive fish. For the most part, the fish would pin the plastic to the bottom and get hooked in the bottom of the mouth.

My fiance even picked up a bonus sturgeon that was 37″ long.

My hands were a little sore on the drive home tonight! 😉

Big thanks to FBRM for reports and tips. It was a successful first trip down there!

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Nice report!

RJtheHunter

Thank you for the report. Must have felt good to dial them in. Going at the same speed of the current, how did you get movement on your plastic’s tail?

Were you giving it a quick lift?

Bumping this up to the top for others looking into Pool 4 fishing. Lots of good info in here.

Sprinkles!

walleyefanatic wrote:

I had my best success just holding the bait still 95% of the time only dropping the rod tip back to locate bottom.

And THAT^ is the biggest difference between lakes and river!

In the river, the current imparts action in your baits. On a lake, your rod movement does. Just holding steady and letting the water move past your bait adds the wiggle.

As a once famous fishing instructor always said “less is more” on the river.
That should help with your questions @itsawalleye

Yes, exactly Brian.

It’s a hard lesson for everyone I bring fishing…DO NOT JIG.

The only movement is from finding bottom, then hold.

FishBlood&RiverMud wrote:

Yes, exactly Brian.

It’s a hard lesson for everyone I bring fishing…DO NOT JIG.

The only movement is from finding bottom, then hold.

Fished pool 4 a couple weeks ago, and we wacked them again. Brought a buddy fishing I haven’t fished with for a few years and he was excited as could be since we were the only boat consistently boating fish. First spot we fished, only 2 other boats, and a limit of good keepers in 1.5 hours. First Cut was the spot. Secret was the plastic and the lack of jigging. Occasionally I would give a slow lift 4-6 inches off of bottom, then drop back down and drag. No one believed us that we had a box full of fish when we were looking for big ones later in the day.

We ran up to the dam to show my buddy who had never fished there how ridiculous it was. We watched for 10 mins, there had to be 150 boats between the dam and the entrance to the lock. Didn’t see a single walleye/sauger caught. The mob mentality down there is insane. After our first 10 fish at first cut, the number of boats tripled. By the time we left an hour later, there had to be 15 boats. Only a handful of other fish caught that wasn’t in my boat.

Once we got back to Covill to load the boat up, a couple other rigs asked how we did. I told them we did really good and kept 2 limits. The one guy laughed and said okay. Pulled the boat out, parked next to them to put the cover on the boat and put the fish in a bucket. As I pulled them from the livewell, he just stared and then went and told his partner to look. THEN he came over and asked how I was catching them. So I laughed and told him plastics.

The hate received from being the one catching fish can be crazy at times. Even on the water. I’m making passes at .3 to .4 mph on a break. Other boats 30 yards away. We are catching them. Then they move over and spot lock right in the middle. Irritating.

No matter what day it is or what the conditions are, someone will always be catching fish. Follow any tournament series. Someone is on them. Just because someone had a bad day of fishing doesn’t mean someone else isn’t slaying them. I’m certainly not always the one catching them, but I’m smart enough to know someone is.

Thanks everyone for the advice.
Fished solo Wednesday as the front came through. Released a 21” walleye, kept 3 saugers and released some small ones. It was slow that day, even for the guides I talked to.
The walleye hadn’t spawned and 2 of the saugers had eggs. One guide said he hadn’t caught a spawned out walleye yet.
Now if we could get some decent weather!

I have fished P4 for 35 plus years and cannot remember a spring like this, with the electronics today you need to use them! in the 80s we didn’t have this and did great. live fish and learn. Put your time in and try new ways.thanks for the positive posts,as far as tbro16 keep posting your positive posts also and prove your smarter than we read! Have a good day men and women