P2 Looking Better.

Cut out of the office a little early yesterday and headed down to the river. Pulled out the winter beater for the first time this fall. She started right up and off I go. Funny how you can go from shorts and air conditioning to running the heater and layering up under the rain gear in just 3 days! A very welcome change by the way…

Water still up and the flow still kicking along. Water temp at 62. All of the trees and garbage has washed through. The clarity had improved to about 6 inches. Just a noticeable brown tinge from the mud. Overall the conditions looked pretty good considering how crappy it look just 3 days ago. So many spots are looking good now with current breaks and eddies setting up it hard to settle in on one spot! So that had me hop-scotching down the shoreline. Probably would have done better camping out on one spot…
Only fish 2.5 hours with nothing to show but a few lost jigs. Had to cut out early as somehow my front navigation light was not in the boat.

The next 6-7 weeks are prime time for P2. Just can’t fish too much right now. Get out and ’em whenever you can!

-J.

Just seen a tree or two floating past downtown, so a little extra stuff may be floating out there.

I gotta get my garage in shape for winter, before I can get out fishing again, right now my boat’s down at the inlaws house.

I “need” to pick myself up a winter boat too, already got a go ahead from the wife, but I’ll probably wait until next year. Really wish now that I would’ve kept my last boat It was free and clear wouldn’t have cost me anything to keep it

In the spring, I’m so happy to get out of the winter beater. Come fall, I really enjoy getting back into it. Nothing like running inside the channel bouys without a worry….

-J.

Quote:

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In the spring, I’m so happy to get out of the winter beater. Come fall, I really enjoy getting back into it. Nothing like running inside the channel bouys without a worry….

-J.

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That’s exactly what I realized putting my boat in the water the first time, at that point I had made the commitment to sell my other boat already. I really enjoyed the freedom a little boat with a shallow draft gives you, I know we went places in Mike W’s jon boat I wouldn’t attempt with my current boat, ever .

Actually I’m trying to convince the wife a hovercraft would be the perfect shallow water boat and icefishing machine, she hasn’t quite bought that theory yet

Spent Friday morning fishing south of 494, the river is somewhat muddy but nothing like spring, clarity is between 6 and 8 inches with some logs and the usual increased flow junk.

Flow is pretty good with the breaks showing up very nicely, its pretty easy to find the current seams. All the places I checked the second or third wing dam down was very easy to fish, I could hold my boat with the trolling motor with pretty good jig control.

As for fishing, ended up with two fish about 21 inches. The cool thing is they were really aggressive. The first one hit a K grub, I followed up with a bomber… bang.
The second hit a ringie, followed up with a heavier K Grub and the same thing. Both fish came on the top of the wind dams towards the inside and were very aggressive! Big seems to be better.

Pool Two is setting up very nicely and I expect someone over the next week will have some stories to report.

I was down there tonight from 3 until about 6:30. I set up on several different wingdams and only found fish on one of them….half a dozen big White Bass! One of them hit a crank bait and the rest came on hair jigs. Lot’s of big logs and trees heading down river but the clarity does seem to be improving.

Rootski

Thanks for the info Prof and Rootski. Good to hear things are looking better on my favorite stretch of river. I’ll be out most of Saturday afternoon.

Hey guys, Thanks for the reports. I finally picked up a new boat and am back in business! It looked like about 4-5 inches of clarity in most areas I was at and still a bit of garbage floating around. I mostly fished shallow slack water areas that I have not fished for a while and put 2 eyes in the boat and lost one. I will be out tomorrow AM! Good luck down there and I will keep an eye out for ya all!

I was on the water this morning, almost didn’t go because of rain threat, but was glad I went. Turned out to be a pretty descent day. My first wingdam produced a fish on, but lost it when it headed into some wood-felt like a good fish. My second wingdam produced a 19, 21, and 24.5″ eye, along with a couple of 15″ range silvers. Tried several more wingdams with no fish. Went back to the second dam that I had some luck earlier-got two more hits, one was on but came unbuttoned, the other was a hit and miss. Kalin tails, ringworm and a hair jig all got bit. Water temp was 55 degrees. Flow was very fishable. Floating debris was minimal, but as always pay attention. Water clarity was 6″ or so. Got off the water in time to see the second half of the Adrian Peterson show

Sounds like fun guys. Need to find some time to get back to pool 2. Are you guys finding any color patterns yet? Chartruse white core ringworms was working way up river from pool 2 today. To many fish and to little time to fish them this time of year. Good luck to you guys down there.

Hey Mike,
Yeah, things are picking up on pool 2. Before the pool came up a little with dingier color water, firecracker was working best for me. Today, all my fish came on purple. Those were all morning fish. My hit and misses came late morning-maybe should of been a hint to try a different color, but early am was definitely purple for me.

Hi guys,

My oldest son and I got out in the PM on Sunday. Current was ripping out toward the tips of the wingies. Once we keyed in on the inside of a dam with a little less flow, we popped three walleyes…24.5″, 24.5″ and 26″. We were using 3/16 oz H2O’s with Oystershell paddletail, Chartreuse-pepper K-Grub and Chartreuse pepper ringworm. The fish were on the front face or on top.

It was my 11-year-old’s very first soft-plastic/wingdam walleye!!! He was pumped!!! It takes some patience and practice to get this presentation down for an 11-year-old. I’m glad he was rewarded for his effort. He had another come unglued after pulling his jig out of a snag. The hook was a bit straightened which probably contributed to his losing that one.

This fall is REALLY shaping up nice on P2 with the flow and water temps.

Got out Sat AM for the morning bite. 5 bites, 5 fish, nothing real picture worthy but the fish are on the chew if you can corner them. All fish came on jig/plastic combos. Shooting for Wed to hit it again!

FISH ON!

-J.