Pool 4 report

Four of us fished from Mon afternoon through Thurs afternoon. The flow was very high and level about 11′ when we started, water temps were 43 Mon afternoon and 41 by Thurs. Most boats were jammed in the mouth of the lower Vermillion or dragging rigs along the shoreline across from Gatenbein Lake. Air temps from lows in teens to mid 30s…:(
I scanned several “community” spots with sonar and saw very few shad…probably due to the strong current…By Tues we figured the fish were tight to the shoreline. We worked riprap edges and small eddys the rest of of our trip…Most of our catch were Sauger…only 3 Walleye out of about 75 total fish caught. We kept the eater Sauger 15-17″…released three 19-20″ and a 20″ Walleye.
We caught a few on blades and plastics, but 90% hit hair jigs (no meat), dragged slowly back to the boat. Best color was purple. My fav hairjig rod is a custom St. Croix LES610 MLXF, 6# Sufix Ice Mono, Lews Tournament Pro 2000 reel.

Kudos to Everts Resort for the amazing recovery from the catastrophic flooding back in April… Cabin 2 was nice and comfy
The river should drop to “normal” levels soon and the Shad and Eyes will return!
Tight Lines!

Great report, Tom! Thanks for sharing. A buddy and I fished yesterday (Sunday) out of Red Wing. Was relatively slow overall. And I did try the ole hair jig tip, but had no luck. Switched over to jig (1/2 oz.) and minnow and finally scratched a few. Not a single keeper walleye – all decent fish were sauger. Most were in 18 to 24 feet. We tried shallower, but had no luck. Water temp was about 40 for us.

A bit nippy as they say, but sure fun when the occasional bite came! Glad you had a good trip.

We fished yesterday as well. It wasn’t great in the morning, but found a pretty darn good bite in the afternoon. Had about 40 fish I’d say all caught on dubuque rigs with plastics. We saw all the boats stacked up at the park down by the bottom side of diamond island and also the Sconny side by the dam or end of the riprap there, but didn’t want to fish in the crowd so found fish away from everyone. Ours were mainly in 16-22′. Definitely had to get out of the flow to find fish.

I fished pool 4 yesterday and had an enjoyable day on the water. Started off the day pitching plastics and hooked a few- both walleye and sauger. Then when that bite died off I landed a lot of fish pulling dubuque rigs-mainly sauger and small walleye, with plastics. Nothing large boated but the numbers were good. I couldn’t believe how high the water still is.