quick p-4 rookie report

I managed to get up to Pool 4 today with a co-worker and my 12-year old son Zack to make a test run on my fishing boat after pulling it out of storage and to try to get a few fish. I only get up this way once or twice a year.

We arrived at about 2:00 and just missed seeing that 13# that has been talked about. We managed to boat quite a few fish although the bite was steady to slow.

The first picture is my son with the best fish of the day, a nice 20″ female that went back in caught on a jig and minnow in about 18′.

The second picture is of Zack with 2 eaters.

The final picture are the 4 of eaters we took home for the fry pan. My friend Chad took his 3 home but we did not get any pics.

We fished most of the time just below the “Y” with and around the “pac” and caught most of our fish in 18-24′ on minnows. We did see a very nice pike caught and a sturgeon which was fun too.

What a great day to be on the water and even with all the boats we caught fish and had fun. Besides, everything worked on the boat and it was great to get out in that rather than my flat. The ramps at Everts are top notch as is the service

Sounds like you did great! Very nice report! I hope your first time isn’t your last.

Sully

You guys are kiling me with the reports, I need to get up there this week.

Good job!

Great Report

Nice Fish

Cool! Looks like Zack is hooked on pool 4

John

Looks like you guy’s really enjoyed yourself.

nice lookin fish It’s always nice to get the boat out for the first time each year.

Nice looking eaters

Hey cool, i was in the boat right next to you and gave you a “nice fish” when you took that pic. We had similiar results to you at the Y.

Nice job! Thanks for the report!

Eyes,
A freind and I fished below the Y for about a half hour and I boated a nice pike about 14 lbs plus or minus….we were were in my black Lund…..nice weather to be out!

I would love to fish P4 but am deterred. I hear there can be hundreds of boats on the water. The most boats I have been around is on Mille Lacs and I’m talking no more than 100. Is it that busy?

It is that busy, but it’s still do-able. I prefer a little more solitude but there is a reason so many people head down there. P4 one of very few open water options and there are a bunch of fish to be caught.

It’s like stuffing 10lbs of crap in a 5lb bag

Lots of Boats in a pretty narrow area

Keep in mind, many times everyone is having pretty good luck. So spirits are up, nobody has ever gotten mad at me for being too close, or swiping their honey hole. I think if you just be polite, you wont have too much trouble with the traffic.

well…i told myself i was not going to fish in the pack, so i set out for the “big one”…put a lot of miles on the boat, and covered tons of water…..and caught nothing…

how did everyone else do today, cause i only saw one fish boated all day, and one guy that had something huge on that took him from the sportsman club entrance all the way to bay point, never did get to see if they got it to surface or not.

We also put alot of miles on, and didn’t have anything to show for it. We also seen that big one buy bay point not sure if he ever landed it?

We did really pretty poor today as well. Our best fish was an 18″ sauger right when we got there but only got small fish from there on out, oh ya… and a 10lb or so carp

Didn’t hardly see any fish being boated except a few dinks.

Oh well, beautiful day out

Thanks for all the comments. I thought we did fairly well considering I don’t get up there very often (it’s nearly 200 miles round trip for me). Yes, my son is hooked on fishing and said his new favorite pool is #4. Of course you should have seen the look on his face when we were in the bait shop and were told that they were releasing a 13# down at the docks

There were a lot of boats but it was manageable. I started out not wanting to run with the pack but wanted to get my co-worker and my son on some fish so that is where we started. We did well enough that they were fine drifting so we only moved around a little here and there.

We were in one of the silver and blue Alumacraft Navigator 175 tillers out there. My boat had the older 50 hp Mariner.

I will be back for the last weekend of the month. My Dad and brother are coming up for a club outing so I will get to spend some quality time in the boat. They run bass rigs, Nitro and Ranger, so my Navigator will be much slower than they are used to but should be a good time.

I also was near the guy with a big one. Little red boat, three guys? They ended down stream of Bay Point near the barge walls. Was close enough to see the fight was over, but to far away to clearly hear them. From the tone it sounded like it broke off or came off. I as well had very poor luck today, honestly worst time ever. It was good to be out just the same. From now on I will stick to going down while most of you are wasting your time trying to harvest a deer in Minnesota. Have never beeen dissappointed on my November trips.

Guys, don’t get discouraged quite yet. It is still early in the year and we are in a change period so it will take the fish a few days to adjust. We have had warm then cold then warm and it throws the fish off their game. We were out Saturday and had an off day and only put 4 keepers in the boat but we had to be off the water by 2ish. I predict with this warmer weather that by late week at the latest you are going to start hearing much better reports. Pool 4 is a phenomenal fishery but it is still affected by weather patterns and we have been having some crazy ones lately. How many days ago was it below zero—not that many! Don’t write the Spring off on one or two trips—-it is going to get GOOD soon!

Great job guys. Sounds like the P4 bite is really starting to get good.

d&e, don’t worry us nitro/ranger guys can handle going slow once and a while, we just try not to make a habbit of it.