With all this talk about sauger, let’s not forget, those pool 4 sauger are fun…. the walleye are awesome!
Pool 4 Report 12-2-01
One word… “SMOKIN!” describes the bite right now on pool 4 near Red Wing! If big numbers of nice sauger are you’re game, now’s the time.
Nice sauger are simply stacked in the first half mile below the dam. Thick! Jig and minnow, jig and plastic, or the plain hook and 3-way rig is turning the trick on the fish. Chartreuse, orange, red, light green seemed to be the bests jig colors from what I was seeing an hearing from the other boats when I was pitching the shallows. The average size is running very nice and the most productive depth has been 18′ – 25′. These fish are so aggressive that the flying lure and the banjo minnow would work right now!!!…LOL
The best description I heard on the bite came from a passing boat the went by and hollered over “its like bluegill fishing!” A guy doesn’t need to be talented or experienced in any way to catch these fish right now, I won’t even pretend a guide is needed to get this job done if sauger are your target(!), so grab your kids and pick a fairly warm day and bring ’em on over for a fun day on the water catching saugers. All you’ll need to do is keep the bait some where near the bottom.
Fished Sunday and missed the early AM bite as I didn’t get on the water until after 8AM. Vertical jigging sauger’s “ain’t my thing” and walleye were my targets so I stuck shallow and fished shoreline rock with slightly over-sized plastics and bucktails. What an amazing difference in the outcome with such a slightly modified approach! In that same area near the dam, with 99% of the fish coming to boat being saugers, we managed ALL walleye with the majority of the fish coming to boat on purple ringworms fished on 1/16 – 1/8 ounce jigheads and a good number of these fish are on the plus side of 20″. We literally caught dozens of fish with not a single sauger making an appearance. Purple and red heads seemed to work the best and the fish were scattered along the shoreline in 2′ – 10′ of water. Work slowly and be prepared to make a quick hook set as these fish really slam these plastics but they’re also quick to spit the bait if you’re not on your game.
Smallmouth bass are STILL feeding actively…. particularly in the afternoons. We did catch one sub-legal smallmouth but the others fell in that 16″ – 18″ category and light hair jigs, untipped, were the ticket on these fish. The deep ends of wingdams and deep sandflats with little current are holding these fish right now and these fish are massively fat for the winter.
If the dusk bite is any indication, the fish are on an unbelieveable tear during low light periods. We ended the last hour of the day with 15 awesome walleye off one tiny key piece of rip rap about 6 miles south of the dam. The average size was super with good numbers of fish over 21″ and the top 3 running 22″ – 24″. Not bad for the last hour of the day! Those same ringworms worked well and we also upsized a bit further to 5″ twister tails on those same 1/8 heads and fished real shallow along a rip rap shoreline with a nice feeding shelf with immediate access to deep water nearby. Purple and smoke/glitter patterns are the ticket right now with the plastics as well as purple/white and black/blue Moosehead Lake hair jigs.
Even the crappie are bitin’!
James Holst
Moving Waters Guide Service
http://www.movingwaters.net
