February Fishing Reports!!!

Post February fishing reports here!!! My son made me this DOS EQUIS quote yesterday, he sent it to me as a text message.. it’s the best one I’ve seen yet!!! LMAO!!! Take care guys!!

Three of us went searching on the river Saturday. 2 Power Augers, 3 Vexilars, drilled 250 holes, used many different lures, caught 0 fish. We started in the hole above the Hwy 26 bridge, 2 of us drilled for about 15 minutes before we did anything else. We hole hopped for the next hour and a half with our vexilars using jigging raps, sweedish pimples, buckshot rattle spoons, live minnows, pretty much everything in our arsenal, we never marked a single fish.
Next we moved down to the main hole off of Blackhawk Island. Once again we drilled at least 50-75 holes before wetting a line. This is where we had great success last winter so I expected the outcome to be a little different. I was the only one to mark a fish, and it wasn’t the type of fish we were looking for. I was in 18 feet of water and had a very large mark 10′ down for about 20 seconds and that was it. After about an hour and a half we decided to head up to Ft. Atkinson.
We figured the mouth of the Bark River would be a good place to start. Once again we drilled a ton of holes, this time before I was done drilling both of my buddies were flagging me down that they were marking fish. EUREKA!!!! Yeah right… We decided to set up base camp for a few hours to see what we could do. We had holes drilled in the Bark River basin in 4-6′ feet of water all the way to the drop off in 9-11′ of water. We set up 6 boards all rigged about the same – 18″ 10 lb fluro leader down to a 1/4oz weight, various different colored beads, glow gama hooks, tipped with medium/large shiners. We set the boards in 5-7′ of water right on the edge of the drop off – 0 flags. The 3 of us hole hopped for about 3 hours, believe it or not we were marking fish the entire time. In almost every hole we drilled we could pull fish off the bottom sometimes up to 2′ off the bottom, but no bites, and we threw the kitchen sink at em. My first thought was CARP, but I really doubt carp would react to our jiggin raps & spoons like these fish were. Several times when I was jigging aggressively a couple feet off bottom I had fish shoot up off of bottom real quick to check out my bait, but no strikes. We were all thinking the same thing, if these were white bass, we would be catching them, unless maybe they were really small white bass, like 4-6 inchers, so out came the small stuff, we tried hailles tipped with minnow heads and with grubs, same old story, we could get their attention and pull them off the bottom, but no bites. After 3 hours of constantly switching lures and constantly watching the fish look, but not bite, we gave up. I still don’t know what they were. We are thinking maybe sheepshead but who knows, next time we are bringing a Aqua-Vu to find out. Maybe they were walleyes/saugers that just weren’t ready to feed??? If that’s the case I wish we would have stayed a little longer. I guess we can’t say that we didn’t try.. Oh one more thing, everywhere we drilled we had about 12″ of ice, except for one spot above the 26 bridge. Real tight to the east shore along the houses in the main channel there was only about 5-6″, there was quite a bit more current there as well.

Take care everyone, stay safe

Nauga

good report

Caught a few whites below 106 bridge hole a few weeks ago. Had boards and chubs out also and never had a flag. Whites were 6-9″ and we did mark a bunch of fish. Most were chasing like you guys experienced.

Extended forecast isn’t looking good for open water with temps near 0 every morning and no highs above freezing. It’s not looking like I’ll get to try my new rod & reel until well into April.

Go down to lake of Egypt with Ted peck!!! Lol

Either that or we caravan to SD and fish the Missouri River like James did on his show this weekend. Sure looked like fun to see a boat on open water! I hope he didn’t lose his boat driving back in the wake of the MN blizzard.

That’s a lot of work!!! Been wanting to do the same this winter but personal time has been very limited. Appreciate your efforts – never easy when exploring

Poked around a few hours trying for panfish in the river. I did actually catch 2 gills both nice on trees. One a bit below the groeller rd launch and 1 south of fort. What’s crazy is I had 17″ of ice out in the main river by groeller rd launch. We are going to be very lucky if any boats fish the river until early April. I personally will be shocked if the ice pulls sooner. Eyes might get a rest this year from any pre spawn pressure!

Agree, we will be very lucky if the ice is out on the lake by the time walleye league is scheduled to start mid-April. Needless to say everyone will be starting cold without any pre-fishing opportunities.

If you every want company exploring ice on the river for gills let me know. Heading to Fox Lake again this Saturday, pheasant hunting Sunday but it looks like there will definitely be ice long after that.