It has been a busy week; so much so that I had enough hours by lunchtime today to blow out early and spend some time on the water. I headed back to pool 10, but this time I left the dock with a gameplan:
1. no more than 20 minutes on a wingdam
2. primary tactic = pulling dubuque rigs/cranks along wingdams
I found that many of the wingdams marked on my navigation chart between Clayton and the mouth of the Wisconsin river had in fact been badly silted in. I am learning that if you cannot easily make out the boil line especially in these low water conditions, then the dam may be silted up.
We fished from 4-8pm. I caught 5 fish:
2-sauger
1-walleye
2-smallmouth
All fish were short and released. One sauger was almost 14″. The preferred lure was a black/chrome wally diver. I switched to a Dubuque rig, with a sassy shad on a round jighead on the drop line and a phelps floater with a leech on the long-line. No interest in the “Dubie” on several passes, so I switched back to wally diver and caught a sauger and an ‘eye to finish the night below Clayton.
I was dissapointed we did not get a few eaters, as my inlaws will be in town this weekend and I wanted to have a fish fry for them. 5 fish in 4 hours is S-L-O-W. However, I learned the value of moving from dam to dam and changing baits. Also, I got experience maneuvering my rig in front of the wingdams.
Regards,
Joe Jiacinto