Hey guys. I am starting to fish the wingdams down in Wabasha and I was wondering what are your methods for determining if there are fish on a certain wingies? Also things such as what makes a good wingdam and what presentations work the best this time of year? Thanks.
Tony
be in a boat with Steve Dezurick!
Hey Tony 
I’ve been learning to fish wingdams more efficiently this year also…..Right now with the lower flow, I usually start out by just throwing the trolling motor down and working the dam in and out with a crank (I like the bomber’s). If I catch a fish I will anchor up and spend some time there…..either casting the crank more, or casting lindy rigs at the dam (this is something new I’ve learned that works well 
). Usually start with a night crawler, then try a leech…..I know the guys down here swear by willowcats, but they’re just to expensive for my cheap bones, so I’ve never tried em 
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I think one of the biggest tricks to fishing wingdams is figuring out the correct place to anchor on them to fish the face. If you are too far away, it’s tough to get the sweeping motion of the bait you want…..if you’re to close, you’ll end up casting parrallel to the dam and getting snagged often…..It drives me crazy when I anchor too far or too close, I usually pull up and try it again 
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Your right Tony, Jarrads got it right on the wingdams. Ive read it again now 4 times and its a good article to refer back too to sharpen the pencil. If any of the readers that fish the miss haven’t read it yet they should. Every time i read it my minds eye goes over the length of atleast 4 or 5 wings as a reminder to me. Its the best article i’ve seen on wingdams. This time of year as the water warms i can see anchoring above the wing with a 50 to 100′ ft anchor rope and work my bait over the edge of the dam to drop into the deeper water below the dam. My technique would be to start shallow by drifting down to a dam using an electric trolling motor or an oar to postion myself. Anchoring above the dam to to catch any walleyes coming over the top and drifting my bait, im a live bait fisherman, with a slip bobber over the dam a few times and if no hits go deeper to hit the deeper water below the dam. If i didin’t get anything there i would work myself out, fishing like this all the way to the tip of the dam. As i got too deeper water i wouldn’t anchor so close to the dam and i’d drift for walleyes in the deeper water above the dam too. I ‘ve fished the deeper water above the wings and twards the ends of them and often got smaller walleyes. Ive never been on the wings in a good fall bite but i’ll bet nightcrawlers drifted above and out on the ends of the dams would be leathel when the bites on. Anybody waiting for cooler water?
Just like the article says its time on the water that will help you figure out which dams hold fish, my advice would be to pick one pool and fish it a few seasons to learn it, I would fish every dam you see, you want to become familiar with all of them because as water goes way up and down different dams will hold fish. I have found that you will catch a few off of one dam and then the bite stops, I think the fish get spooked and shut down, go to the next several dams and then come back a few hours later and hit it again. This is my fourth season on P2 and every year I keep putting pieces of the puzzle together. 
Hey guys. Just a report from last Sunday down in Wabasha. Started out rigging and casting cranks to numerous dams with no succuess. Then we found a dam downstream from where we were fishing. We had 3 legals in about 20 minutes, including one about 26″. The big one came on cranks and the smaller ones on livebait. For the first time on the wingdams, it wasn’t too bad of a trip. Anyway, thanks for the tips and good luck out there.
Tony
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