Pool 2 is a Mess!

I ventured down to lower pool 2 yesterday afternoon for a short trip. (South of 494) My last trip was nearly 2 weeks ago and the river was a mess. I figured the water would be dropping and starting to clear up. WRONG! What a mess. The water level was up almost 2 feet. Chocolate milk, maybe 2 inches of visibility. The flow was fast and there were trees, branches, deadheads and garbage everywhere. Hard to even get the boat up on plane without clunking into something. Needless to say I only stayed on the water for about an hour. No fish…..

Need to come up with a plan B for the weekend. Maybe some ice out Crappies in a nearby lake???

-J.

I was thinking the same Jon, Getting kinda old chasing ‘Eyes!!!

Crappies? What the… P4 is less than an hour away, Jon!

The Minnesota River is the culprit. It won’t end for a while either. I’ve been fishing the Miss downtown for channels lately and the water is a lot cleaner but still lots of debris….not to mention all the “stuff” coming out of the drain pipes! There are fish biting anyway….channels, crappies, with a few smallies and walleyes by accident….I wouldn’t eat anything.

I checked a high water “up the creek” spot of mine yesterday on the Sota…..bait minnows and carp up the ying yang. I’m sure the walleyes are coming in after dark and really munchin down!

Speaking of plan B… I’ve spent my last 2 sundays on different parts of pool 2 looking for fish. I’m not going to do it this weekend.

Questions is… this weekend do I hit 3 or 4?

I will be on 3. Come on down!

What time you going out Tuck?

Yikes! Be careful guys!

I agree Jon. I was out Wed. night for a few hours and it was tough fishing. Between trying to avoid the logs and battling the wild current, we came up empty also. The wife’s heading to Vegas next week so the fellas are dropping in for a little visit. Should be 4 days of good times assuming the weather cooperates.

Is there any way to find out if the ford dam is all the way open without actually driving to look?

Mike W. and I were out this morning (Sat. 4-16-05) and found the water pretty muddy. We launched at Lillydale, and went to the confluence. Some floating debris but not bad. We decided to go to the dam and fished the lock side. The current all the way up was really fast, but we did troll a couple places, with no results. At the lock we took smallmouth, sheephead, catfish, white bass, and about a dozen walleyes, the largest was 19 inches. The rain took it’s toll on us, so we headed home about 11:45 am. The eyes seemed very fussy and we had to fish really slow, but they were there.

The Sealegs made it out to listen to the Twins game yesterday we got anchored up in the 5th and managed 8 walleyes from the 5th to the 9th. A disappointing loss for the Twin a nice surprise for the Sealegs as the current was really moving and the expectations were low. Im going to try it again tonight and see how the evening bite goes. Game time is 705 in Chicago.
Sealegs

Sealegs,

What general area were you fishing…..up river from the confluence or down?

I am planning to hit her hard starting the tail end of this week. Any tips or tricks you care to share for your evening?

Sounded like a good game last night!

We found our fish tucked in tight to the lock side of the dam. Not much flow there. Fishing a little closer to the current and we found less fish.
Slow was what they wanted. We just drug jigs on the bottom with live bait. Minners and crawlers both took eyes. We didnt look much farter after we found fish at the dam. Between the rain and short amount of time to spend down there we just stuck it out in the one spot.

I was wondering if anything was happening on pool2 and this pretty much answers that. Lots of pool3-4 reports of fish, but p2 reports were silent. Now I can see why. Hope this gets out of the system soon. I have put in at Fort Snelling, but never at Lillydale. How do you get to that from Hwy 13?

We were up from the confluence back in some slack water, tried last night for the evening bite and not much happening we did catch fish but not the right kind. One thing I noticed were a half dozen fishermen fishing the Water Gate Marina access and dock area, didnt see anything caught just noticed the crowd.
Sealegs

I just got back from pool 2, I was fishing from shore around minnehaha, I caught 2 walleye, one nice crappie and a dogfish, the water is still pretty high