Quick Pool 4 Fishing Report 10/17/2004

I just got in from a day on the water and figured I would do a “quickie” report to update everyone that didn’t make it out over the weekend.

Water temps have fallen to 48 – 50 degrees but the fish aren’t acting like it’s cooled up considerably. Our most productive technique today was throwing #7 & #8 shad raps at rip rap up in the river around Red Wing. Smaller raps produced nothing. We caught 1 sauger today and the rest of the fish boated were walleye.

For the day we managed 2 fish on hair jigs… 1 – 19″ and 1 – 21″. Black head, black hair.

We caught only 1 fish on plastics despite the cooler water temps.

Our two biggest fish for the day, both caught on a firetiger #7 shad rap weighed in at 4 – 4.5 Lbs.

We fished minnows along side the hair and plastic for about an hour & a half and we never caught a fish on meat.

The most obvious pattern today was that there just weren’t going to be many biters in any one spot. Most spots yielded one fish. Our best spot kicked out a pair of 21 – 22 inchers and a 19″ in our first 10 minutes and then? Nuttin.

So… keep moving was the strategy of the day. We started at the dam first thing, took a 19″ walleye and a 17″ sauger and then started working south towards the lake.

Water clarity is still really “off.” As in dirty… for this time of year. Shad are coming through the gates up to the dam in large quantities and the gulls (walleyes n’ saugers too!) are putting on some weight.

Guys that stuck it out at the dam reported slower fishing but some limits of saugers with the occassional walleye were coming into the resort when I was loading up for the day. Average size looked to be about 15″ – 16″ inches. From the guys I talked to the sonars were the most productive bait for the guys at the dam.

How did everyone else do?

I made it out on Thursday with my Dad and son. We got out on the water at 7:45am. To start the day my son lost one of my good poles over the side of the boat. The bite was slow in the morning and got better as the day went by. The bite really took off around 3:30pm. And as luck would have it a boat pulled up next to us and caught a 19-20 inch sauger, the man in the boat asked if we had lost a blade bait. Soon to find out the blade bait was connected to the end of the pole my son lost hours before. Thanks to the kind gentalmen my 4 year old son went home happier then ever. He got my pole back and his first sauger ever caught. I would like to say thank you to that man not only for getting my pole back but also being kind enough to give the fish to my son. He has not stopped talking about it yet. As for the day we limited out twice over, with the biggest being a 4lb sauger. Most of all went back except a few eaters.

James…After I talked to you I picked up one more little sauger down by Hay creek.brought my total to three+1 sheepie.Had things to do so was off the water by noon.Next day out is wen.they will be going strong by then I predict(HOPE)Stuart

sat. we fished sun up till 6:00 jig bite was not there so we pulled 3ways and cranks ,the saugers were small but will make a meal for john and less.ended up with 7saugers 1 eye that got off at boat side, may be i should ues a net,a sheepy and a small cat.
sun fished on pool #3till 11:00,john and less had to get going back to iowa,only got one sauger jig/minn.took that fish.it was a fun trip can not wait till next year.

The bite continues to improve…

I just got off the phone with Dustin and he had a darn good day on the river today. Big fish weighed 9.9Lbs (Oh so close!) and came on a 5″ Firecracker K-grub. He also had another 8 – 10 fish over 20″ that they released with the majority of his fish coming on the K-Grubs and a few on cranks and ringies. 2′ – 4′ of water was the depth.

Now don’t think I’m stealing his thunder… he asked me to post “something” as he’s not sure if his work schedule was going to allow him to get near a PC over the next 2 or 3 days.

I hope he does… I wanna see some pictures!