Ohhhh what a difference 6 days can make. Not even a week, but with a system as dynamic as the Mississippi, there’s times when everything is in flux. Yesterday was a tough bite out there for the folks that decided to head to the lake.
I decided to offer up a seat Thursday to an IDO member after posting it on here, as IDO has done alot for me over the years. In return, I had someone reply within a minute of the post going live. Bobby from River Falls would hit the river with me before heading to work around noon.
We were there early enough to pitch, but there was alot of debris up against shore, and we only tussled with some roughies that way. Trolling it would be. We started off looking for fish where I last had them pegged, but it was obvious that water levels had dropped substantially since I was there last. Like 3 feet-plus substantially. All those fish pushed up against the cover, with perfect water temps, just waiting for wind to push bait into them had scattered for greener pastures.
I gave chase on the first break off of those same locations, as typically the summer leadcore program out there transitions directly from the shoreline bite to initial-break territory, anywhere from 14 – 22FOW depending on which part of the lake you pulled. Fish were there to be had, as the graph looked rather full in certain areas, but getting them to bite was a two-fold challenge. First, just keeping our baits running true wasn’t easy. Recent rains had washed plenty of junk into the lake, and it seemed no matter what substrate we trolled (we tried mud, sand flats, and rock), we were constantly fouling our baits. The water had an extra level of muddiness to it, and the second part then was getting bit. Rattling baits like the Jointed Shad Rap helped a bit with most of our walleyes coming on JSR-5’s and 7’s. Most were shorts, but we did happen to turn up a few teaser roughies which kept us hoping they were walleyes…..including this flathead. The way he peeled line off the reel, I thought it was a Lake Michigan salmon!
Moral of the story is that fish are transitioning right now, and things are in flux. I know guys were pulling lead early on the same breaks and catching fish. As water levels drop, the water clears up a bit, and mid-summer patterns emerge, those areas will fill with even more fish, making for hopefully a better bite than we saw yesterday.
I know some guys that did better up in the river in past days, and am kicking myself for not heading up there at least to give it a look. Either way, I appreciated the learning experience, and had a good time fishing with Bobby. BK will be happy to hear that it was Bobby’s first, and it was caught properly with shad-raps on trolling gear!
Joel
