Pool2 Spawn

I was out on P2 this morning. I hit the same haunts I did last time plus tried three more new spots I thought would hold fish. We ended up with 11 and had a few more on that got off. The river appeared higher and definitely more murky from all the runoff I assume.
We had a few hits and caught one sauger casting. We just reeled in an eye and while my buddy was getting the fish released, I noticed some baitfish surface and scatter along the shore inside the current seam which was only in about 2-3fow. I quickly grabbed my spinning rod that had a smash shad on and made a cast, started to reel and hit some rocks, paused and reeled slower, still hitting rocks, and reeled slowly until it was deeper and “wham”, missed something. Second cast into about 2-3fow, two turns of the reel and smack…a nice sauger. I was amazed that it was up that shallow with clear skies near noon time. I guess that murky water scatters more light than one would imagine.

Using the sidescan, it was nice to make note of small, rocky areas that are not associated with any wing dam. Frequently when trolling over these rocks, we would get a hit and most fish came from this little hump in about 5-8fow and one other rock hump I found in about 9-10fow. I have these spots locked into GPS as spots to always check. I did drop the Terrova in and tried dragging over the shallower rocky spot as we were catching fish trolling over it, but for me, they still did not want the plastic. Two times now..the bite was on cranks with some casting. Plastic is just not happening for my this spring yet..

One 23″ walleye that we caught today still had eggs in her. How do I know? Eggs were left all over my boat seat! It was no too shocking as I was up on Mille Lacs last Saturday and one eye was caught still full of spawn. An eater that was caught and filleted also had spawn in her and it appeared that her body was trying to reabsorb the eggs. Talk about a jacked up spring!

Nice day, sun burn, 11 fish, 23″ the biggest..

Nice report…I have been meaning to get over to P2 this Summer but I am just so tied up with other things.

Interesting observation regarding the spawn though.

Trolling had to of been challenging today with all the cotton and other crap in the water. We only managed one walleye this afternoon but did not get to spend a lot of time chasing them. My girls had some bull heads they wanted to put to use. Christina ended up with one 30″ flat head. Emily caught our only walleye. Still a pretty good evening on the water. Very good to watch those two go right to work wrestling that cat in and netting it.

hmmmmm interesting with the spawn…Spring – Whats that?

Nice flat there, Mike!

-J.

Yes, every cast and every trolling pass you had to be a cotton-pickin cotton picker…it was a pain..

I’m sure you guys know of this but I have put a tiny upside down bullet sinker a few feet above the lure to catch crap in the water including cotton. It still requires cleaning but there’s far less on the lure.

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I’m sure you guys know of this but I have put a tiny upside down bullet sinker a few feet above the lure to catch crap in the water including cotton. It still requires cleaning but there’s far less on the lure.

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Was just going to say the same thing. 5′ above the crank put a 1/16 bullet sinker backwards. The flat end will stop the cotton there and not foul up your lure. The 1/16oz of weight hardly makes any difference on your trolling depth.

For casting, a bobber stop works great to stop the crap also, but when trolling too much builds and goes past the stop.

I assume you are talking about a pinch-on bullet weight? Or else what are you using to keep the weight from sliding down to the crank?

I didnt think about it, bu I bet an in-line barrel swivel would keep some of the cotton/surface junk from sliding all the way down to the crank…

Channel catfish love eating cotton. At least the ones I caught as a youngster would be full of it.

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I’m sure you guys know of this but I have put a tiny upside down bullet sinker a few feet above the lure to catch crap in the water including cotton. It still requires cleaning but there’s far less on the lure.

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Was just going to say the same thing. 5′ above the crank put a 1/16 bullet sinker backwards. The flat end will stop the cotton there and not foul up your lure. The 1/16oz of weight hardly makes any difference on your trolling depth.

For casting, a bobber stop works great to stop the crap also, but when trolling too much builds and goes past the stop.

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We ran a swivel on our line this past weekend. Stopped the cottonwood dead in it’s tracks and no extra weight.

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I assume you are talking about a pinch-on bullet weight? Or else what are you using to keep the weight from sliding down to the crank?

I didnt think about it, bu I bet an in-line barrel swivel would keep some of the cotton/surface junk from sliding all the way down to the crank…

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Pegged with a tooth pick or weight peg.

Got out early yesterday morning. The cotton seeds seem to be flushing out of the system pretty well. Not sure of what happened tot he bite. Ended up with 3 fish by noon. Jig and crawlers took all three in one spot. River conditions look fantastic right now so Im sure the fish will get going again pretty quick. Maybe they are all full on cotton seeds.

Well, at least you are still finding them. I will be back out this week, likely Thursday. Hopefully they will be be back on the chew again by then..

We managed 7 walleyes sunday morning pitching pulse r’s and bait on jigs. Mostly 15-22 inch fish, but I did have a big one boat side that shook loose. Couldn’t catch anything on cranks. Suprisingly, we never boated a sheepshead either. We did get a few white bass in the 10-13 inch range which was nice to see. The main channel was like chocolate milk. Looks like the Minnesota is dumping in a bunch of silt.