Pool 4 “Quick Report” 8-19

This is just a quick little report from the river just north of the lake today… both Dustin and I ran trips and fished the same / similar areas. Even with the high temps that have pushed the water temps to 84 degrees at mid-day, the walleye bite remains pretty darn good. We’re finding fish utilizing high current areas that have sizable clam beds available. The best depths have been 5′ – 9′ deep although today when the clouds rolled in and the wind whipped up, the fish moved a bit shallower. Crawlers were the hot bait. And I mean the fish absolutely would not touch a leech. NADA. Light jigs or split shot rigs worked the best, drifting with the current. Cranks took nuttin’ but sheepers and whites. The lime green Precision Jig was the “stuff” today as that color really shined when the clouds rolled in, resulting in a few doubles and many of our better fish. The small walleyes were nearly absent today, my boat had one sub-legal and Dustin reported two for the day, which is unbelieveable given the number of small ‘eyes we’re been dealing with lately. Average size was somewhere in that 16″ – 20″ range.

Also worth mentioning…. the river is as low as I’ve EVER seen it. The stage fell below 2.0 yesterday, down to 1.9… the lowest I’ve ever seen it. Finding fish is almost as simple as finding shallower water with good current moving through the area.

Just a quick note to thank you guys for your reports. Don,t get out as much as I would like to but always read latest reports before I go. Have helped me a lot. Just a thank you to James, Dustin and all the rest.
Good luck

Hey James, We got 1″ Tuesday in a half hour in Stillwater.
Wed we got another .25″.
It looks like the Croix bottomed out on the 18th and is coming up slowly.
A co-worker said 1.9 is the lowest in 25 years in RedWing! Wow.

Ferny.

hi James, thanks for the quicky report, have been absent lately bustin Big Basses on inland lakes for the past few months. good the see not much has changed around here, James and Dustin busting up the Walleyes still. some things never change, colder temps and early Fall is just around the corner, am looking for good things from the two of you the rest of the year. did I hear someone say Mille Lacs. Whao boy, not yet. but soon. Jack.

Just a little follow-up to my “quick report” from earlier in the week…

This pattern of targeting shallow sand flats / clam beds that have significant current rolling through continues to be very consistent. The last couple days we’ve been seeing 2 – 3 man limits of eaters per day in the 16″ – 19″ range with the odd 21″ – 24″ fish thrown in the mix. To give a better idea how much current you’re looking for, the areas that are really producing will move my boat at a drift at or in excess of 1.5 MPH (w/o wind effecting the drift). On these flats areas that have less current, less than 1.5 mph drift speed, we see few in any fish at all. An interesting lil’ tid bit to chew on anyway.

Yesterday fishing with Jason, Mike and Al Halfen we took the majority of our fish on 3/32 ounce pearl white precision jigs tipped with the tail portion of the crawler. Instead of just drifting we would play out 30′ of line or so and begin to snap the rod tip sharply to rip the bait a bit up off the bottom and then allow the bait to slowly fall back on a semi-tight line. Why the tail section of the crawler? Play a bit with the head end vs. the tail section sometime and see for yourself how much extra action you get!

Hey James— did you guys try snap-jigging any plastics…. or what it strictly a live-bait gig?