Was wondering if any of you guys been out on the water lately? How is the bite? Water temp?
I have not had the time to get down there for several weeks now.
I am so looking forward to Nov 1st when I will be back down on my home waters where I love the most. Pitching hair and plastics to the wingdams spells relief to me! C’mon fall!
Steve,
Curious as to your approach of using these jigs and plastics on wingdams. Is it too early now or will they work this time of the year. Are the jigs tipped with anything? Thanks
Jake Munger
Jake,
Good question here.
First off, you can do a search on cold water plastics or wingdam walleyes, etc… and find all kinds of very good reading material. In fact you can purchase a dynamite video right here that physically shows you all the tips and tricks that we talk about here online.
As for more of a brief summary to your question, You can use them now and catch fish on them, but odds wise these plastics excel in cold water. Cold water means lots of walleyes congregated in strategic ambush areas such as wingdams. Forget the bait all together when fishing these plastics on the wingdams. I would have never believed it until I experienced it first hand myself about 4 years ago. Pitching subtle plastic to the front side of wingdams is a sure fire way to score some major big fish in a river system. Right now the water temps are a bit warm for using these plastics to their potential, (I would reccomend cranks or bait on the wingdams right now) but by mid-late October this presentation should begin its fall catching potential.
Here are a few of my last fall Pool 2 reports;
Hope this helps a bit! 
Steve,
Thanks a bunch, great info, just what I was looking for. Would love to have you take me out some time up around your area. My wife fishes with me alot, so maybe an anniversary present to her has you mixed in for November. Busy with teaching and coaching now. Thanks again, I greatly appreciate it!
Jake
Managed one 20 inch walleye two Fridays ago, also caught 5 silvers and one big sheepshead. All fish were caught trolling jointed Rapala cranks, crayfish color off of rip rap. This week-end took my son and a friend carp fishing, the water was much dirtier from last weeks rains, with a lot more “stuff” to run into. We didnt do much walleye fishing.
I haven’t been out for a while on Pool 2… but with the recent rains down south, the Minnesota River is really dumping out water. Flows on Pool 2 are around 20,000 cfs — and I’m guessing it’s quite muddy.
Let us know if anyone has an actual fish report.
I crossed the MN last Friday night, she is up a good 15 – 20 feet from the previous week, at least in Chaska. She was flowing and pumping pure mud. I’m sure the Miss below the confluence is suffering accordingly.
Tempting, but the weather sounds not so good for fishing this week 
Of course if I do make it out I’ll post results as usual.
I was out for a bit on Sunday morning (under 3 hours) above the confluence. The MN is dumping out a lot of silt right now. Flow is good, water is up 2-4′ from a few weeks ago.
I found a fairly slow bite, but I was extremely hung over from Octoberfest @ Gasthaus. One 26-28″ eye though, boatside release (I was solo and tried to land w/out a net), one nice sauger, several small smallies. Smallies came on the rock/rip rap, eye and sauger came off sand.
River was running fairly clean. Below the MN was lots of trees, not many leaves.
I came over the highway bride by Fort Snelling yesterday, and a ton of timber is coming down with the mud. Hastings it is pretty muddy as well, and should stay that way for a couple weeks depending on weather.
Tuck
It is horrible. I went out yesterday. There are whole trees coming downstream.
Yeah, I saw that last night as I was driving home. I noticed huge logs/trees floating around the 494 bridge. Yipes! 
Water conditions had not changed much this afternoon either. The mn is still spilling it guts out. The good news is that the fish dont seem to be that bothered by it. The saugers are really stacked up by the confluence now. Must of caught close to 20 saugers and a dozen eyes this afternoon. Just running the usual trolling pattern near the confluence and a few other prime spots on the way up to the dam. It was a little wet this afternoon but the fishing was good.
Mike,
How did you manage to troll? The other day, I couldn’t find any stretch that wasn’t covered with branches, leaves, etc. Trolling was out of the question, up to the hwy 5 bridge.
It wasnt one of the easyest days to troll. Had to pay pretty good attention to your lure to make sure it wasnt dragging a little peice of something. The fish being on the chew and getting to the lures before the crud did was a big help also.
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