I was up at 4:40 
, and almost on cue, my buddy Rod showed up at 4:45 in the dim beginnings of the prairie dawn. We loaded the truck up and patiently waited for the arrival of Larry. 
Larry is a single guy so we sometimes cut him a little slack, but not much, on these early morning expeditions. He showed up at 5:15, and by 5:20 we were off to Clayton on pool 10 to try our luck.
After the mandatory trip to Casey’s for donuts and health conscience sausage and egg sandwiches, we headed off to the ramp. We dumped the boat in around 7 and headed for an area of wingdams in the vicinity. Several were already taken, so we located one a little off the main drag. It looked good on the graph, so we anchored upstream a little ways and tried several different presentations. I landed a nice carp 
using a 5” Kalin grub, as featured in the IDA instructional video. 
Incidentally, I still think it’s a great video. 
I set Rod up with a Lindy rig tipped with a leech, and he landed a scrappy 13” smallie. I changed from plastics to cranks and nearly wet my pants with what happened next. I fished a chrome/black wally diver, casting it ahead and parallel to the break line, working it back to the boat. On the 3rd cast or so, the largest walleye I have ever seen erupted from the depths at boatside and short bit the crank just below the surface! There was no mistaking the white tipped tail, glassy eyes and flaring fins. Larry got a peek at this fish and we both agreed this fish looked to be every bit of 28”, and probably closer to 30”. The Mississippi has some monsters in it, for sure. Its not that I didn’t believe that it did, but this was right there in my face. I have seen pictures of James and Dustin with some of these fish in the upper pools, but never have I come so close to possibly catching one. I was trembling for a minute after seeing this leviathan. I tossed the ‘diver for another 15 minutes in vain, but this was surely a wise old fish, he was only going to look me in the eye once and no more this day.
But that was it for the day. We dragged jigs tipped with leeches and trolled some leadcore before getting out of the way of the power-boaters, but no other technique could get us a few eaters for the frying pan. Looks like pasta and meatballs tonight! 
Regards,
Joe Jiacinto
Seeing a fish that big leaves an impression. We’ll be back on that dam…same bat time, same bat station. 
