Lower flow and water.

As the water and flow has pretty much continued its downward spiral for 1 1/2 monthes, with a little up swing for 5 days about a week ago the walleyes moves have been very predictable. The Eyes on nine have moved from inside to middle to outer third of wingdams.(Ofcource there are always exceptions.) Walleyes have disappeared from the very shallow wing dams(under 2 feet), and have started showing up on wing dams that seemed to be too deep earlier in the year. Each year I try to concentrate on one type of fishing and from last fall till now it has been mostly picking apart wing dams with long line and casting cranks. (25% casting-75% or more long lining.) Let me tell you right now if you are not willing to ding the prop skip the long lining!! Earlier in the year I had good success pulling the front and rear lips and the drop in front. For almost 3 weeks now the bread and butter,(size and numbers), have come from doing lawnmower swaths perpendicular across the top of the wing dam. In the last three weeks I have caught more walleye than I normally do all summer (on the Mississippi), and the size has been much more constant in the mid and upper 20s. Even more suprising is the fact that midday has been equal to or better,(much better last week and a half), than early morning or evening. This has been happening since mid June. On Friday about 3 P.M. two friends of mine(actually the two guys who taught me to jig) were casting with cranks on one of my favorite wing dams and as I approached and pulled the flats above the dam, they moved on to the next one. They had been casting parrellel to the dam in the middle and in towards shore. As they drove away down the river I turned and did a 90% run across the dam they had just left. The first pass was 28″ sheeba(walleye) and the second a 10# plus cat. I was only about fifty feet from where they had parked, but they casted towards shore. They were casting 1 to 2 feet of water and above and below and I was pulling over 4 to 6 feet of water and caught the fish right on top. I mention that because 3 to 5 feet of water has worked best most of the summer. I keep trying shallower(mostly casting), both on wing dams that are all shallow and on the shallow end of other dams. Even when the insides were working the water was about this depth. I’m writing a book here to have others who use this technique to compare notes and make additions and suggestions. Have some of you been seeing the same patterns , in particular the Midday bite???Lawrence

I’ve definetly seen the same pattern as far as time of day is concerned. Fishing cranks early and late in the day has been very slow for me since the flood passed. I have been picking up fish early in the day on clam beds pulling cranks, but not on wing dams. Seems strange to me, I thought I was doing something wrong! Late in the day I have had good success with crawler rigs with floaters or spinners, but not crankbaits.

I have a couple “favorite”wings that produce in the 2-4 foot range on top, but most have been deeper here (pool 14) since late June. Also seem to be larger fish in the 6-7′ depth range.

Lawrence, when you say “…lawnmower swaths perpendicular to the dam…”, does that mean trolling through the weeds growing on top of the dam?

Actually I am making overlapping passes. On pool nine on the dams I’m working weeds aren’t much of a factor as far as I can tell, other than you will be cleaning them off all the time. I usually start with the farthest towards shore I can go with out replacing a propeller and then jump to the outside end and work back to that spot. Don’t hesitate to drift over a new dam a few times to see how deep it really is. Pulling the cranks upstream seems best, but downstream works too. Don’t forget to pull the drop just in front of the wing dam and the tailwater right behind. In addition to dings in the prop when you get a little too shallow , you will loose a lot of cranks to0. Don’t be afraid,(if depth allows ) to float back to the the lure, and pull it loose from right above. The fish don’t seem to mind a bit. You are going to find out right away which wing dams and fish like this technique. I catch ninety percent of my fish on three wing dams, but I fish about 8 to 10 a day just to make sure the best ones aren’t changing. E-mail me and tell me how it works. Lawrence

Lawrence, another question just popped up in my mind. If your trolling over the top of the dam, I assume you are using a shallow diving crank depending on how much water there is over the top of the dam. How do you get this crank to dive deeper once you troll past over the top to get down to the bottom of the dam where the scoure hole is? Or, do you use a floating crank on a 3-way rig to get it to dive down the face of the dam to get to the bottom?

I’m using a combination of walleye divers, bomber long a’s, and #5 shad rap RS. These are banging pretty hard, and aren’t far behind the boat. I realized a couple of years ago that it is possible to catch a walleye on almost any rig right under the prop wash. For the front and the tailwaters I run parrellel and with more line out. It appears that most aggresively feeding fish are on top or on the front lip, because that is where almost all of them have come from in the last 2 weeks, (actually last month and a half). I also sometimes will 45 degree across the top from outside to inside and you will snag and loose more cranks this way, but somedays it’s all that works. Over 75% of the time I’m just cutting the perpedicular swaths and basically giving away the front hole and the tailwater. Even at Pepin about a month ago we set our lines at the depth of the humps and didn’t continually adjust for deeper streches. It worked and won the tourney for us. I noticed in the middle of 1999 that fish seem very often when feeding to suspend at the depth of the stucture they are feeding on even when they are not right on the structure, ( like at Castle rock, Petenwell, Green bay, Winnebago), and I’m kind of betting on it everywhere now. Ofcourse you always try the other possiblilities to make sure your not missing easy fish. Try it and tell me what you see. Lawrence

I’m going back up to Pepin on the 19th for 10 days of fishing and the getogether. If you’re there I’ll let you know what happens. If not, I’ll post it on this forum.