Pool 12

I made it out last night (Thursday) on upper pool 12 at Dubuque for the first time in almost 2 weeks. I was surprised at how much the river conditions have settled down since my last time out. The water had come down some but the flow seemed to have dropped even more. The water clarity was very good and there wasn’t a great deal of debris floating.

I headed straight for a wingdam that always holds fish this time of the year. 2 weeks ago I fished this same dam and did catch fish there but I was only able to fish the middle portion of the dam because the current was busting on both ends. Last night I was able to fish the entire dam. I made several passes on the dam the first hour with not so much as a nibble. I was about to head to another spot when the fish showed up. ) The next hour or so I caught 2 walleye between 13 and 15 inches, 2 walleye between 19 & 20 inches and one fish that went almost 24 inches. All fish were released. The fish were still on the feed when it was time for me to head home. I’m sure most of you know how hard it is to leave when the fish are biting but I had no choice. There will be many other opportunities, God willing.

Now I am pumped and can’t wait to get back out hopefully over the weekend. The river is slowly dropping and the weather conditions have been stable the last few days so the bite should only get better. I caught fish both on my 1 ounce drop jig and on nightcrawlers on my long line. I have several spots I want to try that should be holding fish right now but finding the time to get out is always a challenge. Family always comes first.

Eyehunter

Nice report Eyehunter! Glad to hear you are on fish! I really struggled my last outing on 14, mostly due to very high winds making boat control a nightmare, but the flow here was still extremely fast. Could not find any wingdam fish at all.
Are you finding the fish on closing dams in backwaters, or out on the main river? I worked a couple dams on the lower end of a series, but could not turn a fish. Could it be that I was too impatient? Nah, couldn’t be

John,

I have only fished the one dam but I do know of several that should be holding fish. The dam I fished is one that is protected from the main flow of the river. Pretty much everyone in the DBQ area would know which dam it is as it always holds fish this time of the year. In another week there will be 3 or 4 boats on it all day. There are other dams as well as a couple closing dams in running sloughs that should also be holding post-spawn fish. The river is dropping and came down almost 4/10ths in the last 24 hours.

When we were up on pool 9 last week the current and the wind were relentless. I went out last night as it was the first time all week the wind was below a gale. Actually it was a really nice evening to be on the river. Very few boats and very light winds out of the NE made seeing the dam a little difficult but I wasn’t going to complain.
The dam is on the channel but it is protected from the real heavy current. I know what it is like to be impatient. I was ready to head elsewhere but talked myself into one more pass and I was glad I did.

Eyehunter

Glad to hear about your day eyehunter.I spent wed.,thurs. and friday fishing Peosta channel and O’learys and catfish creek.Throwing cranks and ringworms. Caught more white bass and smallmouth but caught a few walleyes everyday. Just learning the pool and from my success or lack of it over the past month it is nice to know there are walleyes close to home. dragging dubuque rigs in front of the wingdams will be new for me but I look forward to learning how. Thanks for the info. We’ll see ya out there. JD

Good report ‘eye. We just got back from our pool 9 trip. It was a good time, but with gas so high, I’m probably gonna be heading up your way and sniffin’ out those Dubuque wingdams next time I get let out of the pen.

I had the same dilemma yesterday evening at Blackhawk. On the “last” pull before I was gonna take her in, I nailed an 18″ sauger after 2 hours of nothing. I should have brought out my leadcore gear and tied on that red craw JSR-5 on sooner. With a 2-1/2 hour drive ahead of me, I didn’t want to be leaving too late. However, there’s always time for one more pass…

I made it out both Saturday and Sunday morning but was off of the water both mornings before 9:30 am due to family commitments. Saturday we did OK getting 5 nice fish between 18″ and 20″ with several short fish as well. The fish were more aggressive Sunday morning than Saturday with many of our fish coming on the drop jig. The trouble Sunday was we could not get on the bigger fish. We caught walleyes in 3 different spots and all but one fish were under 15″. My buddy did pop a 21″ walleye but we came up empty for keeper sized fish. Had we spent more time on the water Sunday I think we would have stumbled on the larger fish sooner or later. It is nice to see the numbers of smaller walleye. There must have been a good hatch the last couple of years because there seems to be pretty good numbers of 8″ to 10″ fish and 13″ to 14-1/2″ fish. Last spring we caught very few fish in the 13″ to 14-1/2″ range and I haven’t caught one fish yet this year in the 15″ to 17″ range which leads me to believe there was a down hatch a few years ago. There does seem to be good numbers of 18″ to 22″ fish. The best part of being off of the water by 9:30 is we didn’t have to fight the heavy winds.

I did not make it down to Catfish Creek but I talked to a couple people that told me they were catching fish there on Saturday. We saw a couple boats headed down that way on Sunday morning. I hope to make it out one or two evenings this week. The river at Dubuque continues to drop. 7/10 of a foot in the past 24 hours.

Eyehunter

Thanks eye. Your posts really help out a lot. Hard to find time is right. With turkey hunting and yard work to do a guy just needs to make time for fishing. Well if I can not be out there myself, then at least I get to daydream through your stories. Thanks again, jeweler