How has the bite been on pool 4 this weekend? James, you mentioned you were going to posts reports this weekend, how has the bite been? Any specific depths/areas that are producing the best results? I’m heading down tomorrow afternoon and will post how we do.
Hot off the presses… Pool 4 Report 3-23-02
Don’t let my tone in the report fool you. People are catching a bunch of fish. 99% of them being nice saugers. I’m a bit perplexed by the slow walleye bite and its starting to peeve me a bit.
One more day vertical jigging and I’m liable to go for a swim about mid-day to end the madness!!!…LOL
Let us know how you do.
Went down Saturday afternoon…did very well an hour before dark.Best color was chartruese,most effective bait was what you had in the water that was chartruese!Depth was variable,although the best seemed to be drifting from mid 40′ onto a 25′-30′ hump.We brought 8 very nice sauger home,the smallest was 14″,biggest was 18″.All the bigger ones looked like females,but look close or you will end up tossing males back.We had only one that was a female,and it was the small one(and it looked like a male).
Riveratt
Good point about all the big male saugers in the system right now. Its been pretty easy to put together a bunch of 17″ fish… and the majority are males. Get over that 18″ mark and you can about be assured its gonna be a female full to exploding with eggs. There’sa bunch of female sauger up near the dam right now… but I don’t think the masses have moved into the area and anglers are taking advantage of the incredible quantites of males that must be a little bit early in arriving.
Sounds to me like the spring walleye/sauger bite is coming up upon us. Now if the water levels go up some we shall be in fishing heaven. Thanks for the fishing report James. Its good news!!!
Its darn near April! I don’t want to tempt mother nature but we’re getting to the point where there’s darn near nothing the old girl can continue to do to hold off the warmer weather. And with that will come the little snow melt will receive this year and some much better fishing. My prediction? 10 days to the good stuff. The warm weather next week will get us back in the upper 30’s and get the ball rolling in the right direction. Early April should be top notch…
I think one of the biggest factors for the spring walleye bite is warmer nights not just the days. I have noticed that the days will be getting warmer but the nights still are quite cold. I think as soon as we see those warmer nights everything will let loose.
James, Please Please dont tempt Mother Nature. I dont know how old you are but on April 9th 1973 If you were around back then we had one of our worst blizzards ever here. And I live 4 hours drive south of you!!! Instead of counting sheep to put me to sleep at night I think of different places and things to try on pool 4. Please dont upset the old gal. Dont make her show you who’s the boss.
Thanks for the post James. I watch for them everyday. Coming that way the weekend of the 5th. Hope you are right on your prediction. Nothing happening down this way.(pools 16 and 17).
I’ll try and get a more detailed report later tonight…..BUSY. BUSY weekend…..Lots of cabins to clean!!!!! BUT….I wanted to share a little report with ya all. I just talked to a boat coming off the water. They just released two 9 lbers, two 7 lbers, and a 6 lber at my ramp. For those adding it up….thats 38 POUNDS of walleye for 5 fish! Needless to say, they were all smiles. They got some great polaroids of them. All i’m allowed to say is 12 feet……minnows…..this evening. The rest of the reports here seem about the norm…..lots of nice sauger being caught right now. Get out and enjoy the best walleye/sauger fishing in the midwest..Pool 4. Good Luck.
Sure, make me a liar! Actually, that’s the best darn news I’ve heard in about a week. Hopefully its a sign that things are going to steadily improve….. of course it is!
YEah we need these days to warm up not necessarily the nights, more or less the wind. The wind is one of our biggest problems. The cool breezes is what cools the temp down for us this time of year.
James….you’re not lying to us and actually catching a ton of piggies are you??????LOL. Hey some days you’re in the right place at the right time. Obviously everything was going right for these two today.
I have noticed the same thing fireflick. As soon as the nights start staying in the mid 30s that when things really start happening fast.
We were the last ones off the water at Everets last night. No, I wasn’t the one one with the hogs, but I’ve got a pretty good idea who was. All I can say is, if you want walleyes right now, you need to be fishing that last hour of light. Last weekend we caught 7 walleyes in the last 1/2 hour of light, biggest was 24″. Yesterday, we started in the deeper water for saugers at about 3:30 and because of the crosswind on the river we didn’t fare as well as we would have liked (6 fish over two hours). Then we moved to shallows (6 – 12′) and had a repeat of the week before. All walleyes for the last 45 minutes of light. We hit these same exact areas earlier in the day without a single fish. All of these fish are over 19″, so PLEASE everybody protect the resource and let these fish go. We didn’t get anything huge again , but we had a couple on that were big. Everything was caught on jigs w/rattle and ringworms. And for the first time this year, the walleyes were actually not hitting the ringworms as hard. We had numerous fish that seemed to be hooked on an upward jig, only to get off or let go. Steve, I know you need to be tight lipped, but were the people with the big catch fishing a wing dam? Are you going to post the pictures?
posting the pictures would make your story believable, if Holst had problems catching walleyes i would like to see some proof that someone was catching them.
Hey now…. that’s just not being very polite. I’m quite certain these guys are catching EXACTLY what they say they’re catching. I’m not fishing at night, or even that last hour of light, with customers. By that time of the day I’m back at the resort with the boat on the trailer cleaning fish and saying my good-byes for the day. During the day… no walleyes of any numbers or size from what I’m seeing and hearing. Twilight? Could be a whole different story. And all the techniques, locational/depth info seems quite accurate. Personally, I don’t doubt these guys for a second.
Besides, no matter how cruddy and slow the fishing is, for me, for everybody, SOMEBODY will find the fish. Everyday. Just look to tournaments as a good example of this in action. The bite can be horrible, with the majority of boats bringing in zero weights…. and one boat will always find the piggies.
If you put 300 boats a day on pool 4, like happened over the weekend, somebody will get them. The numbers are just in favor of it happening. When I put up a report that says fishing’s slow, you can count on SOMEBODY catching some good fish. But when I say the fishing’s slow…. 99% of the boats won’t. And I think that’s a better indication of the nature of the bite than the one boat that does catch them.
Take the MWC Tournament this past weekend. What was reported on was the winners weight of 38.18 lbs. What I didn’t mention was that there was alot of teams that blanked in the tournament. I have been out fishing and trolled right past another boat and popped a fish right in front of them and have had that happen to me too. Or talked to a buddy who fished a different time of day or area that I did and our catches were different. The fish are always biting somewhere. The trick is to be at the right place at the right time. Bill
Larson Lawyers-
I really have no reason to lie, I’m just trying to put some information out here to help people out. I beg you to go out in the next couple of nights and fish some shallow areas in the last hour of light, then call me a liar. I’m not saying that I’m hammering walleyes all day long or big walleyes for that matter. All of our walleyes, except a couple have come in the last 45 minutes of the day and they have all been in that 2 to 4-1/2 pound range, although it sounds like Steve saw some larger. I have had the same difficultly locating walleyes during the day as it sounds like others have. I have fished exact areas that I caught them in the evening, without so much as a bite. It’s funny but the last two Sunday’s I’ve counted about 3 boats out on the river during that last light period. I really hope some of you can get out and try this in the next few nights and post your results. Again, I’m not here to brag, nobody knows me from Adam, I’m just putting info out there for the everybody to help them enjoy walleye fishing. There will be many days when I won’t be able to catch a fish and I hope that others will continue to post so that I can be helped by them.
I honestly don’t know if they were at a wingdam or not. They took polaroids of the fish with their camera. I don’t have any pics. Right when I went down to the ramp to see what was going on…..they had just released the last one. All I saw was the pictures. I don’t know if they are FTR visitors. If so, maybe they could scan the pics and send them in.
its funny….. but there are few twilight and dark fisherman on pool 4… I guess the fishing is so good for the most part that they dont have to mess with it… but lots of the other pools have a signifcant dark fishing contingent… and it does work!….
i am not saying they weren’t caught i am saying it would make it a for sure that i know they were caught if there were pics. You always have to wonder on here.
What do you mean arent allowed to say where they caught the fish.I,ll bring up some of the boys from chicago PD we can make you talk! nothing beats the soap in the sock confession getter!
Now why would you waste your time with confessions? Take those Chicago boys, put ’em in a boat and just go fishin’! Secret spots are only one small part of all that needs to take place………….you still need the right fish, with the right presentation and technique. Take what y’all can gather from the friendly folks around here and start the “quest”…………you’ll learn a plenty, remember it better, have a stronger sense of accomplishment, and one less incident of violent behavior to contend with.
Now, let’s stop worrying about who’s where catching what and/or who’s full of it and get our cans off this board and on the water!!!
Any body heading south of Red Wing yet? Buddy of mine was up at the Y first and caught nothing. went south to in front of Bay Point and caught 15 fish up to 3lbs. Only 2 walleyes. The 3 was a sauger. Jig (green/chart 3/8oz) and minnow. Said he would of had a few more if he would have thrown on a stinger hook. Now that it’s time I can’t get down there because of traveling this weekend. But look out next weekend. I might have my boat back by then.
Bri bigeyes, Thanks for the post. One of my goals this year is to get off my one horse and learn some of these methods, like what you describe. I really don’t believe a walleye has the ability to think, but instead reacts instinctively to the different variables. These methods are of great interest to me and I imagine many others so don’t quit posting. Can’t wait to hear more about this shallow water method.
Old ranger LOL….I’m reading down this post just enjoying the bantering..And then Your post…What kinda Soap I hopes its not Dove!!! Shoot I gotta go pee!!!!!!!!
Bri-Bigeyes,
Thanks for the information. Now that the days are starting to get so long, maybe I can give this late bite a try after work some evening.
Do you also find a hot bite at sunrise or is it mainly just a sunset thing? Also, there is any particular type of structure you’re targeting during these evenings?
Last Saturday I spent the mid part of the day on Pool 3. I fished wingdams, deep holes behind some wingdams, sand flats, points, humps, Mileys, etc. but came up empty. I did not try in front of the boat docks at Prescott. I fished from Prescott down to Mileys. I can’t believe all the fish have moved up towards Hastings (inland water and hence a closed season) or up the Croix. Maybe they are just feeding in the late evening like Pool 4. I only saw three other boats out.
For those that are interested:
North Lake appeared to be pretty open, at least the parts I could see from Mileys. Truedale was iced-in pretty good, and the Croix by Prescott looked to be open as far north as I could see.
Boone, I have not had a chance to make it out in the morning yet, but I think as the water warms things will pick up then as well. Past experience has shown me that the morning bite typically lasts longer, but is not nearly as intense and larger fish are not as common. Although, on any given day that can be different. Typically the evening bite is fast and furious, but only lasts a short while, so have a spare rod ready. As far as bottom structure goes, it can vary from day to day. Sand/gravel seems to be producing best right now, but as the water warms and rises, many of the big fish will be moving to rip rap or rocky/gravel areas. Again, any given day things can change and you just have to fish hard to find a pattern that is working. Remember to use the lightest jig that you can to optimize your hooking ratio.
Has anybody been out the past couple of evenings?
made it out tonight from 7-10pm. The walleye were cooperating somewhat. I managed to boat a 19 incher and a 21 incher. Lost a few nice fish as well. James/Dustin and myself were the only 3 boats up there later in the evening. Those two were catching quite a few fish….(they couldn’t hide it very well, it was so quite up there everytime they had a fish hit I could hear the splashing, it’s amazing how quite it is up there). I know they had some nice fish and a fair amount of numbers too. Maybe they’ll let us in on their secrets…….The sauger bite was fair to good today. Quite a few people getting some big sauger (16-18) inches. Get out and enjoy the warm weather that is on the way. cya.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
