Pool 2 this weekend

Hi guys, I am relatively green to fishing pool 2 and I had high hopes of putting in 4 solid days on the river this weekend to really dial in my presentations before the bite really heats up. I got out last evening and the first thing I noticed was that the current is at a complete standstill, with the recent rain I was hoping to see the river flowing pretty good.

We got out to a couple of my trusty spots and hardly needed a anchor to hold us. We still managed 2 eyes, a sauger and a handfull of non-targeted species pitching the wing dams with crawlers.

With that being said, does anyone have any recommendations for what to try if this flow doesn’t pick up over the weekend. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The low flow and plenty of food in the river right now can make for a tough bite. Those walleyes seem to be able to pick and choose when, where and what they want to feed on. Days with a south wind all but stop the river flow right now.

For me its been jigs/crawlers or casting crank baits on the wingdams. Long line trolling can work to. Think this afternoons plan for me is to not spend to much time on one spot. Last weekend it was a fish or two here and there on the dams. Didnt really pay to stay any longer. Towards evening Ill be picking what I think might be the most productive ones and camping on them a little longer.

Welcome to the site.

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Hi guys, I am relatively green to fishing pool 2 and I had high hopes of putting in 4 solid days on the river this weekend to really dial in my presentations before the bite really heats up. I got out last evening and the first thing I noticed was that the current is at a complete standstill, with the recent rain I was hoping to see the river flowing pretty good.

We got out to a couple of my trusty spots and hardly needed a anchor to hold us. We still managed 2 eyes, a sauger and a handfull of non-targeted species pitching the wing dams with crawlers.

With that being said, does anyone have any recommendations for what to try if this flow doesn’t pick up over the weekend. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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You’ll want to find as much current as you can. That may mean moving out deeper, or finding different parts of the river that are moving a bit more.

As the water cools, current is a bit less important, but on the river I always try to remind myself that I am fishing current rather than a spot.

Id consider pitching ringworms, or just plastics in general. I might steer clear of the crawlers in order to avoid non targeted species. You may catch more fish, but to fine tune the skills, you should try to only get what you’re after. Good Luck!

Thanks for the info guys. I will give it a try tonight and see how we end up.

Stuck to the plan this afternoon and managed a half dozen walleyes on the tips of the wingdams. H20 jigs and crawlers took most. Only managed one on a crankbait. Best part of the afternoon was all of these fish came off of wingdams I had not fished before. Got to love finding new fish.

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Best part of the afternoon was all of these fish came off of wingdams I had not fished before. Got to love finding new fish.

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Mike, As much as you fish P2, I would have thought you’d have fished all the wing dams at some point in time over the years. I imagine with the low flow, it can be hard to “see” the dams now or does your mapping chip show them all.

Good job.

Boone

Installed a humminbird hd unit last fall with a lakemaster chip. That chip is like a new set of eyes on the river. My old lowrance lakemaster chip showed the dams but not depth contours like the humminbird chip does.

The depth contours are huge for fishing wingdams on the river. I used to think many dams ran fairly similar to what the black line showed on the chip. Not so. Many of them have small rock piles just off the tips or pan caked out tips. Other may have parts that are completely silted in but other parts that still have clean rock on them.

Even the new chip is not 100% accurate but how could any map of the river be. But it has got me relooking at dams and spots that I written off before as not much to look at. Stopped on a tip of one dam again tonight that I had trolled over once before. Targeted a little rock pile on the tip and managed to pull three walleyes off of it.

Even with 10 years fishing pool 2 there are still parts of the pool I have not even been to yet. There is just a ton of water be fished. Guess thats what keeps it interesting.

Thanks for the information. Sounds like I should get one of those units and mapping chips. I never knew there were any mapping chips that had good depth contours of the wing dams.

Does your chip also have the Pool 3 wing dams or the Pool 4 wing dams?

Thanks,

Boone

Here is a older post with a screen shot that shows the depth contours. Think James had another post to that showed a zoomed in version of this that I see if I can find.

Not sure about what it shows for pool 3 or 4. Think they are on there but I will check next time in the boat. LakeMaster Depth Contours.

We’ll we stuck to the plan this weekend and fished some new areas and tryed some new techniques. We managed to bring 9 to the net on Friday, one came trolling flicker shads and the rest came pitchin the tips of wing dams with a jig and full crawler. Saturday was a tough one, we put in 13 hours on the water and only managed 7. Two came on cranks trolling, one casting cranks on the wing dams and the rest pitchin the tips with crawlers and plastic.

We have only launched and fished the 494 bridge area, but we are planing on launching at Fort Snelling and fishing that area next time. Does anyone have any comparative reports for these areas?

Like Kilmo said nothing spectacular this weekend, but we tried some new things out and a had a great time on the water. Here are a few pics from the weekend.

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We have only launched and fished the 494 bridge area, but we are planing on launching at Fort Snelling and fishing that area next time. Does anyone have any comparative reports for these areas?

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Been a number of years since I have fished up that way this time of year. Lots of gravel and sand shorelines around the confluence and up towards the dam. Trolling crank baits in these areas used to be good. The rocky shorelines with current used to be good to.

Sooo what your saying is stick to the 494 area?

The numbers are usually better north of downtown St. Paul, while the size is usually better south of downtown. Just a general rule of thumb.