Bite getting better

I spent several hours out on pool 12 yesterday (Sunday) fishing wingdams trying to find the walleyes. My plan was to begin fishing the first wingdams below the lock and dam at Dubuque and work my way down river. Since the moon is almost full I thought that there may be a middle of the day bite. I did not get out on the water until after 11am. I did not even so much as have a sheephead bite for the first 2-1/2 hours. I had worked downstream around 10 miles to a wingdam I haven’t fished much this year and connected with a 19″ walleye on my first pass. I ended up catching (and releasing) five legal fish off of this dam along with a couple short fish. I also missed a few that got my crawler but failed to get the hook. I tried casting and pulling cranks but there was just too-much crap floating down river to be cranking. Most of the fish took the crawler on the long line but I did pop a couple on the drop jig. I also had a nice sheephead crush my jig which gave me a couple minutes of excitement. This was the best walleye/sauger bite that I have seen in the last several trips out on the river. All of the fish came between 1:30pm and 4pm which didn’t surprise me. There always seems to be a better middle of the day bite than early morning/evening bite when there is a full moon. I took the camera with me but didn’t have anyone to snap the photos. There was still alot of pleasure boat traffic but the numbers will get less with the cooler fall weather. I won’t be getting out fishing as much in the next couple of months as I will be sitting in a tree hoping to launch an arrow at that trophy whitetail.

Good to hear it is picking up somewhere eyehunter! Hope it picks up down this way in the next week or two! Is there much of a backwater bite on pool 12? I have been thinking of expanding my horizons and working up that way. Do you have a lot of grass floating? It is terrible on 14, can’t troll 100′ without cleaning, and that is a big imrpovement over a few days ago!

Do you fish wingdams primarily, or are there some good trolling runs in pool 12 as well? Enough questions I guess, I’ll have to come up and give it a try in a couple weeks! I’ve been out for a couple times with RCL guys down on 14, need some fun fishing soon! I can only be on the water a couple hours at a time due to a bad back, but may make a run up there as the old back heals up!

Rooster,

I’m not sure if the bite is picking up but last Sunday’s outing was the best I have had in the Dubuque area for a while. I think I just happened to be in the right place at the right time. I fished for an hour and a half without so much as a nibble until I finally caught a fish. I was surprized to find more than one or two fish in the same location. That is how it has been the last month and a half. If you caught more than one fish on a spot you were lucky. They seemed to be spread out.

There are all kinds of good backwaters in pool 12. Several running sloughs many of which have closing dams and other structure. I have a couple favorite sloughs that I fish when there is enough water and current in them. One in particular has produced many 4Lb plus walleye over the years. I am primarily fish wing dams but there are miles of rip rap shorelines that also hold fish in pool 12. I am not much for pulling flats and shorelines but sometimes it is the best way to put fish in the boat. With the cooler water temps coming I will switch to plastics. I love to pitch jigs to dams and shorelines. I also do quite a bit of vertical jigging along the edges of the current flow.

There was a ton of grass and other crap floating down on Sunday. I tried casting and pulling cranks but I got tired of cleaning off the crank every cast. Most of the grass seemed to be out on the edge of the current at the ends of the wing dams right where the fish were located.

I know all about bad backs. I have a ruptured and a buldging disk from a car accident 6 years ago. It doesn’t cause me too-much pain as long as I keep my weight down and I stay in shape. I was up fishing pool 4 earlier this month and we had high winds/rough waters for 4 days straight. After bobbing and bouncing around for a couple days my back was on fire. It took a few days for the pain to go away after we came home.

If you do plan on coming up this way just let me know and maybe we can get together. Many people have stayed away from pool 12 this year. I think it is a combination of the new slot limit and all the pleasure boats that pool 12 is famous for that kept the fishermen away. Pool 12 has so many wingdams that hold fish. Very few tournaments were held on pool 12 this year because of the slot limit. I guess nobody wanted to have to deal with boats that locked through to pool 11 where there is no slot limit. That’s the only reason I could think of. There was still fishing pressure but not like there has been the past few years. I’m all for the new regulations. Especially if it means I have a better chance of catching more trophy-class fish.

Eyehunter

Eye:

The weekend pleasure boat traffic was/is a definate factor in my avoidance of the pool.

My family loves the Dubuque area, so we get up there fairly often to hike/picnic, or sightsee. I can remember several Saturdays where we hiked up to the Julien Dubuque monument, only to have the wisp of the wind shattered by the low rumble of open headers as a small squadron of cigarette racers plowed up and down-river. My boys thought they were pretty cool, anyways!

They have a right to the river, so I am not trying to bash ’em in any way. They are out there enjoying their time, so I just figured I’d stay away on the summer weekends. Its like deer firearm season. Those guys are out doin’ their thing, so me and the dog stay in and hold off bird hunting for a week or 2 til they get finished. No big deal.

Other than an odd day here and there, I usually can only get out on the weekends. Pool 12 is probably the closest pool to my home, but I did not want to have to deal with those big boys tearin’ it up. Pools 9 and 14 seemed to be less busy on the weekends. However, a line of cruisers rocked our world up in Lansing last Friday.

Now that the weather is cooler and maybe some of them have put their toys away for the season, I may try to fish the pool more. The area around Massey looked particularly interesting. I’m glad to hear to that you have had a good season on 12. I know I have said it b4, but I really appreciate your very knowledgable posts.

Thanks,

Joe Jiacinto