What a weekend!!

I had the pleasure of hitting Pool 4 both days this weekend with my good friend Buckshot. All I can say is WOW!!! Saturday morning, we pitched shallow for the first couple hours, but were unable to pull any fish. About 10:30 am we decided to go chase some saugers. By the time we left the river at 1:15, we had boated 62 fish. Some were real dinks, some will be eaters next year, some eaters, and a few fat mammas that we released. It’s pretty cool when you catch a sauger that barely fits into your hand. Man some of those females were fat. We had a few walleyes mixed in, one nice fish 23 inches long.

Since the bite was so good on Saturday, we decided we better hit the river again on Sunday. Well, the bite hadn’t changed a bit. I think we dipped the first jig around 10:45 am and left the water around 4:30. In this time, we boated 102 fish. Again, a wide variety of fish, from 6 to 19 inches.

It was a great weekend to be out, the wind was a little chilly but overall it was awesome considering it’s December. One thing weird on Saturday that happened. We were drifting pass Steve Plantz and his partner. I hooked up with a fish, something heavy, got it boat side saw it was a sturgeon. I asked Steve to take a pic, about that time the fish rolled and the jig popped out of it’s mouth. Not two seconds later, Buckshot says they must school up like walleyes. I didn’t get his point at first, be he also had a sturgeon on. Neither fish were landed . So tell me this, the way we were fishing, there is a very small chance we snagged these fish. Both fish were hooked in the mouth. Do you suppose they hit our suspended super doos??

Bait of choice for us were super doos. Saturday, we used many colors with varied success. On Sunday however, we could only get one color working, I’m talking a 6 to 1 ratio per drift. Many of the fish would just inhale these baits, you can tell by the gashes in my fingers from digging jigs out of there mouths. We targeted depths from 16 to 27 feet, with success at all depths.

I hope the weather holds, there is nothing like fishing in December on river.

Waterfowler,

What kind of areas were you concetrating on in the early am in the shallows? I was up there on Sunday with a client and found that the shallow bite was some of the best I saw all year. Last week saw bigger fish but this weekend we ran in to alot of 18-22″. We never caught a sub-legal walleye all day. We primarly threw Kalin early and as the sun came up higher we switched to ringworms. We boated nearly 30 walleyes during the trip. Areas we worked was rip rap.

Hi Fireflick,
I was with Waterfowler and Sat morning we hit some Riprap north of Everts that we heard about right away in the morning, we were probably on the water probably right around sunrise maybe a little before and we started with ringies and worked the same stretch several times with pretty much every color the 2 of us could come up with. I tried 1/8 and 1/16 ounce jigs both. Steve at the resort was also shocked that we didn’t come up with at least a couple fish.
We didn’t make it down there for the early a.m. on Sun so we concetrated on the sauger bite…pretty hard to pass up when they are snappin like they were.
Any suggestions you can give on good stretches of rip rap to at least try would be great.
Thanks
John (Buckshot)

You could of been in the right areas. The best rip rap I have found is steep with deep water next to it. The way you present the bait has been the key right now. I don’t know how many times I had a walleye hit my rod while I was just holding the rod motionless. Size of the jig can make or brake you. That’s why the precision jigs are so good. They can be broke down into 32nd’s. It seemed if I even popped it a little I would not get bitten. I hope that helps.

We actually talked to you yesterday late in the day up by the dam. We were in the crestliner fishawk with the yammi. I asked you about picture fish. Like Buckshot mentioned, we hit the key areas, rip rap with deep water close by. We should have pitched last night towards dusk, but I wanted to get home and get rested up for the week. I do have to get some different H2O jigs bought. Number one, I like the plastic holder better than anything I’ve got.

Buckshot and I have decided the next time we can hit the river and it’s overcast, nothing but pitchin shallow. It’s the only way to learn I guess, unless I bought your boat so I could get that free day guided.

Hey waterfowler,
It was good to see you and Buckshot on Sat, wish I could have got out on Sun also but I had too many things on my honey do list
Here is the pic of Buckshot’s walleye, this one went back in the water after the pic, good job guys!

Waterfowler,

I thought that might have been you. Wasn’t sure though. Just have buckshot tell you about my boat and then you would get two free guided trips. A guide trip isn’t any fun without bringing a friend.

I can’t believe I let him wear that Ranger hat in my crestliner.

nice weekend John, way to pop’em. sure is fun. thanks Jack.

I can’t believe you’d let him in your boat looking like that Period!!

Hey Crossin Eyes
At least I was fishin….how many fish did you catch over the weekend???
The only saving grace you had was the Vikes actually showed up to play on Sun for you since you went to the game…I’d still rather be fishin.

Touche’ there big guy!