Pool 9 Report

Fished out of BlackHawk yesterday. Wow, not what I expected. Very Tough. Water seemed very drity, fast flow, tho water levels looked fairly normal. Fished snaghole, curves, desoto point, above victory, victory, below victory. ect. Jigged, pulled cranks, even lindyed a bit thru snaghole area.Fished from 30ft to 4ft. Lots of boats on the water, everyone was scattered searching hard. Everyone we talked to had been skunked for the day other than a few carp caught down by desoto that we heard of. Results. A big fat ZERO. I have fished this area all my life and rarely get skunked. Anyone have any input to why this might be happening. Any help would be greatly appriciated. Thanks.

can not help ya but some 1 might

Welcome 2 IDO

In my opinion you sort of anwsered your own question in you post. The water is dirty both in color and debris in the water. Also the flow is fairly high however I do not think the amount of flow there is right now is enough to shut the fish down. I do know that ugly water can really make the fish tight lipped. Since the water just came up a couple days ago this would be my first guess as to why it was slow. Once things stabalize the fish should want to eat again.

I am not sure of what the water temperature on 9 is as I have not been on that pool since last week. However if it was aproaching the 43-44 degree mark and has been there for a couple of days it would not surprise me if the eyes have began moving into their staging areas to spawn.

If I was going to go out today and had to catch a eye or a sauger. I would seek out running sloughs and back water cuts near the main channel with some current in them. Focusing on smaller spots that provide a good current break. Eddys, logs, anything that breaks the current and gives the fish something to protect them so they can ambush prey without using too much energy. However most importantly look for clean water in these areas. If you find clean water with a decent current break there should be some fish.

Either that or go up to the dam and play bumper boats with everyone else. The current is tough but there are still some fish scattered in there without a doubt.

These are just my somewhat educated guesses but without actually seeing what kind of condition the pool is in I cannot say for sure what I would do. This is where I would probably start though. Do not be afraid to look for fish in areas you do not think looks like walleye water. The fish may surprise you.

There were 35 boats at the dam when we were there yesterday and they weren’t catching much that we saw. We had 3 walleye keepers from 16″ to 22″ but I thought the water looked good. Some debris floating but not bad and I’ve seen it a lot muddier. Bet there will be 100 boats there today. We used a jig and minnow. Dresbach water was about the same fairly clear. Fishing seemed to be about the same.

I fished Desoto point this afternoon. I seen 1 carp snagged and 1 small walleye caught. I was only there for 1 pass. Just making sure boat was going to run ok.

anyone try the bend on the MN slough by fish bay???? Or go up into the upper Iowa river and try for eyes????

When the water gets “ugly” on the three Blackhawk to Victory runs…switch at least one of your baits to firetiger or bright orange/Larger jointed bait. The extra motion, size and the extra clack seems to draw them in. I actually sometimes use jointed musky size baits. Dirty/ugly is really a matter of human perception so whatever you do don’t remove all the standard colors and sizes until the jointed proves it’s point.

But when the going gets tough it is still hard to beat sitting in one spot,( behind some type of current break), with a jumbo minnow on a three-way(wolf river rig).

Also regarding current …unless things have changed this year, rarely is the flow too strong for the fish. All the flow does is make me move to a larger bellsinker on my three-way crank drops, and slow down to almost a dead stand still so the crank is in the vicinity of the rock or obstruction the fish is behind for a longer period of time. Apparently the fish move to bite less distance from there current block/break, or can’t see as well when the flow and the ugly goes up. Not a bad time to use handlining either.

Dirty on the other hand definitely seems to have an irritating effect flowing through the fishes gills and just in general seems to often slow the bite. When the spawn cuts full loose not much of anything will affect the bite, other than being where the fish are.

By the way many years the spawn , and the fishing is light both at the dam and on the blackhawk runs???? Especially in years when the water isn’t way up and the season warms late. The other effect that is just fine with me is that the spawn may all,( a huge percentage), take place in only one or two days with everything but the males showing up and disappearing very quickly. I can’t stress enough though the there are many many places on pool 9 where walleye spawn and congregate other than the dam and Blackhawk. the posters that have said to fish stagging areas not the spawning grounds just might be on to something.

And now to get out for some fishing…