Pool 11-Guttenberg Report

The last long weekend of the summer is upon us.

What better opportunity to get on the big river and try one’s luck?

Walleye: 3-way on wingdam with crawler/bluegill colored spinner

Smallie: Same

Northern: Same/take in slough channel

White Bass: crawler bits with spinner

We got a later start today and launched the boat at 7:45am in Guttenberg. I shared my boat today with my buddy from work, Jake, a newcomer to the Midwest from San Diego. My first tactic was to try sweeping wingdams with cranks. It had been nearly 3 months since I last put in at Guttenberg, and the water was way down compared to late May. I urge anyone out there to be really careful near the wingdams, some have barely a foot of water between them and a loud sucking noise emanating from your wallet.

I was careful and didn’t have any mishaps this time. After “sweeping” 2-3 dams with little luck, I tied on a 3-way with a “bluegill” spinner, 4 chart beads and a crawler harness. I hooked on a lively one and tried her again. On the first pass, near the channel edge, I pulled up a nice 17″ eater. My pool 11 curse is over. This was my first ‘eye on 11.

We kept this routine going and Jake was taken for a ride by a 17″ smallie. Not bad for a guy’s first fishing trip on the Mighty Mississippi. I hate keeping bronzebacks, as they have a special place in my heart. I used to catch a great many of them in the upper Potomac of western MD and pound for pound, there is no feistier fish. Jake wanted some meat for the table and insisted, so I reluctantly agreed.

A small slough on the IA side between the train tracks and an island caught my attention. We set to troll it and not 5 minutes into the run and my line was rocked with a savage hit. The northern cleared the water and put up a terrific fight but was unable to cut my line before reaching the net. While thrashing in the net, she managed to nip my fingers and get even with her captor. This was only my 3rd northern ever and my largest, at just a little over 5-1/2 lbs. Some of my friends have said they are fine table fare (remove y-bones) so I decided to keep it and see if I had been missing anything.

We rounded out the catch with a few white bass taken behind the wingdams.

Regards,

Joe Jiacinto

Ahh, so that’s where you hid the picture.

I’m planning on hitting 11 on Tuesday, I’ll let you know how we do. That slough channel on the Iowa side, if it’s the one I’m thinking about, is a good place to flip wood for largemouths. I don’t know if it has enough current to really hold the walleyes or saugers, especially with the low water this time of year (never really tried though, anyone else got the lowdown?)

I’ll shoot you a PM with the details of my week and we’ll talk Wed about what we can do to get out.

BTW, and all you locals probably already know this, that northern was wicked good…

I did a search on-line on how to clean ’em, there were several guys with webpages complete with diagrams on how to do it; I followed the directions on how to cut out the y-bones and was pleased with the results.

Regards,

Joe Jiacinto