Pool 2 – 494 Ramp – Friday

Due to a schedule change we did not leave the dock till 10. There was one boat out on the water already so we trolled out to the channel , dodging a few ice chunks , and headed upstream. Things looked good till we hit the “Y” at Red Rock. The river was clogged with ice. We had to proceed very slow because the ice was 2″ or more thick. The going was tough and we wondered if there would be any place to fish even if we made the 3 mile run to the airport. The sun was shining and there were numerous eagles in the trees or in flight to keep us company as we worked our way upstream. The journey took over an hour but as we approached the spot we saw a good stretch of open water. Our persistance paid off right away. There were fish eager to hit our jig and minnow offering. Blue and black worked well and we did experiment a bit with various plastics. As the bite on Pool 2 always seems to go , the minnows worked better. The catch rate was down a bit from 2 weeks ago only because of our poor bite to hook set ratio. We still managed to bring quite a few to the boat. The largest walleye measured at 21 1/2″ and the largest sauger was 21″. The only small fish we had was 10″ with the rest going up from 15″. The ratio of walleyes to sauger was almost equal.
We left the spot early anticipating a slow run , but quite a bit of the ice had drifted downstream. We were off the water just before sunset.
Looks like Jon J and I will be out in his winter boat tomorrow morning. Just can’t beat open water at the end of December.
Dino

Thanks for the report Dino. I will be seeing you down there in the morning. We will have to see on the minnow/plastic thing. I just got my super doo kit from hauger and cant wait to try it out. Good luck fishing.,

Pool 2 is a place that i still wont go without minnows…. but Ive not tried the ringworms or doos there yet….. perhaps because I do so well with jig and minnow….. and pool 2 is one place where year in and year out it DOES make a difference if you loose your minnow (normally no minnow = no bites!)….. Im not sure why… I think the water clarity might be a factor….. clear water colors like blue are consistant producers for me on 2……

Dinosaur-I was in the boat with the golden retriever, talked to you at the landing when we were done. Thought you were somebody from this site-who else would be willing to go through all that ice! Posted how I did on another thread, thought you were DaveB-guess not.

hey there Dinosaur, looks like you and Jon J are doing good out there so far this year. Being here in the south now the fishin never closes… but they dont allways bite either. Good luck and say hi to jon J for me!

Thanks for the report Dino. With the holidays as they are, I havn’t been able to make it out but have wondered how the ice conditions are. I’m out of the water and FTR/FTL until next Friday so maybe we’ll touch base on the river.

Hi Neil. How have you been? Do you miss the cold of Mn. and the opportunities to dodge ice chunks to be able to open water fish during the winter?
Dino

Wow, this post slipped by me!!! lol

Saturday was a great day to be on the water. Dino and I did a bit of running around up-river from the airport. Didn’t find much of anything. The fish are headed up towards the Minnesota for sure….at least that’s what the radio tagged fish did in the P2 survey. We figured we would try and track them down.

TrackerGuy, we sure could have used your ice breaker last weekend!! Are you fishing any rivers down there in Tennessee? How about a report!

Jon J.