Mississippi River Stage at McGreggor IA - Mississippi River – Walleye - Mississippi River – Walleye

Dave,

Hopefully the higher water will open more of the river up and I won’t need to drive all the way to Lynxville this weekend. With the stronger current the fish should be a little more concentrated on the current breaks than they were this past weekend. I was using a 3/16oz jig last weekend but I may need to go to something a little heavier.
Guttenburg should be open by the weekend unless we get some real cold weather. It will be a while before Dubuque is open. The ice would have to be cleared out below the railroad bridge. The 3 miles above the railroad bridge to the dam is closed to fishing until March 15th. Both Bellevue and Clinton also have closed areas below the dams but those closed areas are both less than a mile. We will have to put up with the closed areas in these 3 pools for at least another 3 years as this is only the second year in a 5 year minimum study. Many people here in the Dubuque area are livid over the closed area. Last year wasn’t so bad as the DNR had only closed the river down to the 151/61 bridge but they extended it for this year down to the railroad bridge and closed an area that many local people fished during the winter months. Dubuque now has a closed area over three times as long as the other two closed areas. The DNR had a public meeting here in Dubuque in January. I would guess that there were in excess of a couple hundred fishermen at this meeting. Most of these people were there to protest the extended closed area. I really don’t think the DNR took into account just how many people normally fished the extended closed area in the winter months. The DNR certainly got the message at the meeting but I don’t look for them to make any changes. If I want to fish a tailwater area I have no choice but to drive to Guttenburg, Lynxville or down to the Quad City area.

Eyehunter