Pool 4 report

Little bit late on this one, haven’t had a whole lot of time to sit down after the long weekend last weekend.

Went out and fished pool 4 from Pepin to Wabasha last weekend and had some surprisingly good success considering how difficult it’s proven to put consistent walleye in the boat this summer. Trolling with boards were the primary bread winners. We were able to scrap together 10 eaters and tossed back a couple nicer ones. One being 26″ and the other was a 29″ that my father and mother boated.

Had a first this weekend with boating this cool little gar fish, and also boated over a handful of sheephead, and striper. Definitely made for a fun few days on the boat.

Hopefully with the cooling water temps, it only means the fishing will be heating up! As always. Keep the lines tight everyone!

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Mind me asking what depth you are targeting when pulling cranks? Have only fish pool 4 in May/June and have had limited success with jigs and live bait. I’ve always wanted to get in on the cranking bite, just never have been able to stumble my way down there to do it.

It was kind of all over the board. The walleye were picked up mainly in 18-23 FOW working over the dropoff’s anytime I would get up on the 10-14′ flats is when we would pick up a pike or striper. But these depths change all summer. That’s just what worked for me last weekend.

Doing better than me…I’ve been struggling lately. Hopefully will get down there this weekend depending how the Archery opener goes.

Love the gar pick!

Sorry, there are lots of walleyes caught there but actually hooking into and landing a gar is slightly more rare.

Man, you aren’t kidding. It’s not a big Gar by any means but I was super stoked to actually land one in the boat. Was honestly the highlight of my weekend!

Anyone been out this week? Going to head out Saturday I think instead of sitting in a treestand in ridiculously hot Bow opener weather. Haven’t been out for a few weeks so its probably going to be a total crap shoot.

I may try to get out tomorrow morning for a little while. Haven’t decided if I’m gonna run down to pool 4 or try somewhere up north of Eau Claire tomorrow. I’ll let you know how I end up doing if I do.

Edit.. didn’t realize that was last week you posted. Still too hot this coming weekend to be in a stand either in my opinion.

Keep us posted with a report. I feel like a stranger having not been out in 2 weeks. I’m not really sure where to look now for eyes or saugers. This is easily the time of year where I have the least experience from now through the end of October. I’d love to maybe pull cranks, but the fish had to have moved quite a bit in the last 2 weeks with the temperature roller-coaster

I’ve seen a pretty solid panfish bite at the openings to backwaters from fishing buddies.

Went out this morning from aibout 730 til 11am.. would have been a little earlier but my girlfriend decided that she wanted to sleep in a little longer..

Didn’t do horrible, managed to scrap together 4 16-18″ eaters. Not a single pike, sheep, or striper which is a little out of the norm since I’ve been getting a mixed bag.

Trolling cranks did it again on bright colors. (I’ll let you guys figure out which one) 10-16 FOW seemed to be our ticket this morning. 2.5-3 mph

Good luck to anyone going out this weekend. I’m on call for work and won’t be able to get the boat wet again til next weekend :((

thanks for the report Collin. With the heat wave moving in, I am planning on Monday morning as of right now and beat the rain. Dragging jigs and spinners is my plan but if that dont work, I will have to try the crank bite. The temps are FINALLY going down as of monday so the jigging bite should be starting up in a couple weeks…..I can only hope?

I was able to sneak out for only about 2.5 hours on Saturday. Water temperatures were anywhere from 74-76 degrees at the surface. With the warm temps, I elected to pull cranks. I caught 3 shorts, and a handful of 12″ crappies. I mainly targeted depths in and around 12′ of water.

With the flow being relatively low, I think my next trip will focus on areas with a bit more current. There was too much boat traffic to try some of the spots I hoped to on Saturday. The schools of baitfish didn’t seem as numerous as my last outing a couple of weeks ago, but when you come across them they literally fill the water column. Every hit I had was related to the clouds of baitfish.

Once the water cools back into the low 60’s and towards the 50’s, I would think that a pretty good panfish bite should start near any backwater openings. I will be sticking with pulling cranks as my primary tactic until the water gets down into the low 60s and fish start their transitions to the head of the lake and other small tributaries.

Slow for me Tuesday. I can’t catch an eye to save my life out there. I even pulled cranks for an hour or so even though it is not my preferred way to target the walleyes. Ended up catching a nice pike and a few bass while throwing plastics but that was it.
The amount of shad in the system is crazy! At times I thought it was raining but it was just the thousands and thousands of shad breaking the surface. As I cast my jigs through these massive schools in search of predators, I kept inadvertently snagging them. That there was a first for me.
Are you guys using leadcore or planer boards when you troll? I usually just let out as much line as I see fit and do it that way. Not a big fan of trolling but it’s handy when the fish are scarce.