With this brutally cold winter, and the intense ice we see holding on to the river yet, is there validity in the argument that the fish will be migrating possibly earlier this spring. Good melting and flows typically really get them moving up, but what about this extended ice season will the eyes, and possibly other species be scooting up just to get a breath of fresh air so to speak?
As of March 10 there is no migration of fish on pool 4. 5 hours from the jugs to everts with the camera down most of the way and very little fish in the lower end of upper pool 4 
I had the Wolf river cam running most of the day on my other monitor while I’m doing paper work. Watched a few walleyes pass, couple pike, and some suckers. Could have been resident fish, who knows… But I know for fact that the Fox and Wolf rivers have walleyes migrate beneath the ice. That doesn’t mean that rush up into the marshes and cattails, however, they will stage in holes adjacent to them.
I’m not a fish biologist, but I have been documenting the patterns on the Wolf river for that past years. Though a lot of people disagree, moon phase has been a primary consistent factor to get them up the river and in the vicinity of the spawning areas. Water temps, flow, and so on has triggered the spawning activity.
The next New Moon is March 30th, and I expect to see the greatest influx of fish in the few days prior and following. The next full moon is April 15th. IF the water temps get in a suitable range, I expect to see the heavy spawning activity around the end of the first quarter to the next new moon. That is later than many other years, but I’m associating it to Moon phase and not the ice conditions.
Completely non-related, but by following the dates/moon phases I have been able to predict within a few days of when the DNR has been on the Fox River shocking walleyes in the refuges. I don’t know what formula they use, but there has been many years that I watched them busting ice and coming back over it with their equipment and scooping up many eyes.
Thinking out loud here Randy, but that seems to make sense. Over its time, to move during the darkest of nights to avoid predators and/or following them to protect its spawn makes sense to me. Use its night vision not only for an advantage over prey, but to move undetected if need be in case of spawning activity.
I don’t have the answers but I know last year James made his video late in Feb.
They were fishing below the dam and and they took some time to run there camera down. Not a lot of big eyes there at that point but there were many many eyes that had arrived. In fact, they were thick in some areas.
Just sayin 
A lot of those were wintering fish. Last winter was mild compared to this year. To echo Randy;
Biologically speaking it is a mix of factors but moon phase,
diurnal ambient light are major forces… water temps and current also come into play.
There are a lot of good fishermen out there daily and nightly and they are not seeing signs of pods of lake fish moving up yet.
Yes and majority of the fish up at the dam in pool 4 that are there now are already there in October. Could be just the fish that stay in the river year round . And yes there are a lot of fish at the dam right now so many it makes a person mad when ya can’t catch more.
To redirect back to the original ?. May not be a big factor in larger river systems, such as pool 4 with Pepin, and others that have larger pools with depth, but the smaller systems where most holes aren’t much deeper than 10-15′, and not many of them. Do those fish have any reason to leave due to low oxygen levels with the harsh winter? Most those systems aren’t going to have a good amount of weeds, or much else to contribute,a big huge bubbler like a dam may seem attractive.
Or with even the slightest flow, and the cold density of the water can sustain fish no matter how long the rivers been capped off with ice.
No, they quit there annual run just b4 the interent and the nuc plant, at least on the miss
In a small river setting I could see where fish would migrate somewhat for moving water but right now fish as in walleyes are showing up at dams and such basically because that’s were the bait is at and where they will spawn I shined a dam the other day that is max of 8 ft in the whole entire river system and there were eyes a glowing I think a river would basically have to freeze to the bottom for there to be no oxygen within the system which happened to happen right above this dam carp are in front of a city run off pipe and not looking so good
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In a small river setting I could see where fish would migrate somewhat for moving water but right now fish as in walleyes are showing up at dams and such basically because that’s were the bait is at and where they will spawn I shined a dam the other day that is max of 8 ft in the whole entire river system and there were eyes a glowing I think a river would basically have to freeze to the bottom for there to be no oxygen within the system which happened to happen right above this dam carp are in front of a city run off pipe and not looking so good
Yeah seems like a silly ? now that I think about it. As far as carp goes isn’t that pretty normal though, spring time I always find them stacked up in runoffs, any kind of discharge into the river they are stacked. Met a guy last year who had a spear going to town on them in one particular spot over NE mpls, concrete apron that extended from the pipe about 30′ into the river was filled with them, fun to watch them make a run 10′ up on it with no water. Looked like fun 
Was planning a trip to Rainy River March 25th -28th but I don’t think that is going to happen. I don’t think it will be open even down by Birchdale at that point, and that was the best we could hope for.
With that being said I hope some of the fish start showing up down by the dam. Plan “B” is a few days on pool 4. I hope over the course of the next two weeks things start to pick up.
Nick, have you had a chance to read the long P-4 study that was completed some time ago. It’s a very long read, but tells a person where the fish will be throughout the year. It’s a must read for anyone wanting to learn the river.
Next best thing to hiring a guide.
I hope the bite picks up soon too!
I’ve read every study I can find. Gets to be tricky finding them, for to have just the right wording in Google as they tend to be buried deep within the gov. or university study archives. I tend to give the long version, cliff note my question was just reading from Pelican lake, and other lakes that suffer from winter kill if there are any river situations where that may happen.
From 2001 but still as viable today as then…
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