No kidding Andy…

As they say, “every dog has his day…”

If I remember correctly, the largest was between 16-17″. There are bigger ones in there, I know, I’ve caught some over 22″, and boy do they fight!

We ended up fishing the Res yesterday morning. Surface water temp was 53.

We pitched cranks for a couple of hours with no luck before we bagged it.

However, at the Macbride spillway into the res, the crappie were on a tear. Guys wading and near shore were doing quite well, though it appeared there was a fair bit of sorting going on.

I think this spring, with strong shift between temps, high water, and long cold spells has made the fishing tough.

More yardwork for me today, then mushroom picking til the fishing picks up.

Joe

Rugbystar and I are probably gonna fish the Mac or the Res tomorrow morning, though I think it will be a crank-a-thon in search of ol’ bucketmouth. I’ll put up a post letting you guys know how we do.

I fished the Mac Tuesday morning, early, focused on some rock piles in the north arm; specifically targeting walter, but came up empty. Foolishly, I stuck to the plan of vertical jigging these rock piles, while all around me bass and crappie were chasing baitfish. There was lots of surface activity that morning, and I’m not talking carp either.

I don’t know how I fit work in this time of year; between fishing, picking mushrooms, and maybe mowing the lawn!

Joe

My May calendar…

1. Hunt For Morels
2. Fish For Walleye
3. Fish for Smallies
4. Fish for Trout
5. Fish for Panfish
99. Mow the Lawn

I think my wife might have something to say about this!

Joe

Appreciate the skinny on the saugers ; though I think today our biggest problem were the very strong winds, making control of the boat very challenging.

I have been trolling with leadcore and 3-ways in running sloughs and channel edges; from about now through the summer months, with varied successes on both the sauger and walleye, after the spawn and the waters warm up. I also pull crawlers on spinner harnesses ahead of the wingdams during the summer.

Pardon the sullen tone in the post! I’spose I’m a wee bit grumpy because I had high hopes for today-work and other obligations; along with the weather, have kept me off the water more than I would like.

Joe

I’ll listen in too.

I have seen them out there while targeting walleyes, bass and panfish; and there are some real monsters. I don’t expect to catch one, but I decided some weeks ago that this will be the year I start targeting them.

I do know this much, they are catchable. There was club tourney there last week, and 10 fish were caught in a field of 38 teams, I beleive (if I heard correctly)-all fish were released.

Joe

I know ha ya feel John! We took the kids crappie fishing tonight on Macbride, action was slow, but such a nice evening to be out.

I tell ya what, they may not get as much respect as other species, but a big drum peeling line off your reel is just plain fun!

Looks like its gonna be Sunday instead of Saturday, fellas. Assuming I make it out, I’ll pipe in on how we do.

Joe

Andy:

You guys still throwing/jigging plastic below the tube, or have you switched to cranks?

Joe

Hey Vike/Andy-

Rugby and I fished over at Macbride this evening. We anchored in a little cove and toyed with the crappie before trying our luck at the dam for Walter.

We got on the slope by dam; and pitched plastic til about 9:30, with maybe one hit in 90 minutes of fishing.

I don’t disagree, Vike, on your observation about “traditional” lake walleye techniques falling short in there, I only mentioned it out of sheer frustration. Both the Berringer book and the Hot Spots Fishn’ Map discuss a pattern of fishing the dam face in spring using jigs and lindy rigs. To date, I have not been able to make that pattern work.

The Mississippi is high, so MacBride seemed as good a place as any to try this evening.

Rugby and I stumbled upon a banner day at the tube about a month ago. Struck with cabin fever, we took a ride to the tube and saw guys with stringers of walleyes on the universal access pier. Of course, 2 days later when we took off work and got the boat in, the tube was wide open and the river had risen 3′.

Joe

Well, back east (PA/MD) where I used to live and fish b4 moving out here in ’03, Trout fishing was kinda of broken into 2 styles.

1. Meat Fishing
2. Sport Fishing

Now, I took part in both and still do. So, don’t fly off the handle and think I am one of these fly-fishing snobs or one of these “good’ol boys” that kills everything they catch!

OK, so here’s kinda how it worked with me and many others. Many streams (and all ponds pretty much)stocked with trout lacked sufficient water quality to support breeding trout. This was essentially a put and take fishery during the months of April and May, so much so, that the trout opener in PA was almost as sacred as the first day of the deer rifle season just after Thanksgiving.

In those put and take streams, the predominantly stocked fish were rainbows. This is where you took your Mike’s fire balls (salmon eggs) and got a trout dinner.

In other streams, they have a system called “delayed harvest” where you’re not allowed to keep fish until mid-summer, when the water quality may be marginal in some stretches of streams and the fish would die anyway.

This made for great sportfishing in these “in between” streams, in that the fish were available for a longer period of time for sport fishing, but when waters warmed and the habitat got marginal, people could keep fish-though many of these streams would have deep holes with springs, so in reality some fish would usually make it through a hot summer.

Now, as far as fingerlings and brood fish went, they typically were stocked into higher quality streams/rivers with tighter regs (as they should be, in my opinion) where they had the greatest chance of survival. These were most often browns, because they can handle the warmer waters a little better than rainbows or brookies. Plus, they are quite predatory and can grow pretty fast in a fertile stream. One stream that was managed in this way (and my all time favorite PA stream) is the Little Juniata River. I flyfished on this water almost daily while spending some summers as a student at Penn State some 12-15 years ago. I caught some real bruisers from that river. It saddened me greatly in those days to see people keeping fish, in some cases, for all things as musky bait, from that awesome river. I think today, it is managed as an “all-tackle” trophy stream, with one large size fish (don’t know the size) as the daily limit. But, by the same token, there was an outflow from a small lake (top discharge-so the water was not cold per se) that was heavily stocked with catchable trout in April/May on the way to the “Little-J”, as the Little Juniata was known, and I would use an ultra-light spinning rig with waxworms to conjure up a fish dinner for me and my girlfried (now my wife of 12 years, sitting here with me). That outflow was a put-and-take fishery. Trout would not survive in the warm waters past early July or so.

So, to make a long story short, I think if the DNR is going to do this, which sounds a lot like what they are doing back East, they need to do 2 things. 1. Educate people on the trout fishing 2. Impose special regs on higher quality waters to protect the investment in fish and keep them available for sport fishing as much as possible. A fish in the fry pan is not gonna be there to give his fight tommorrow. That being said, they will do well to keep a put-and-take fishery viable as well to keep those opportuntities available. What you don’t want is people meat hunting in high quality trout waters that can support sportfishing throughout the year. Trophy regs would be the way to go on these higher quality waters. And, since put and take fishing is still allowed in some waters, everyone is happy…in theory.

Regards,

Joe

All good ideas guys.

That new Yamaha deal is pretty cool-just did some reading up on it-like you said, you flip a switch and it revs way down. Also, that 4 stroke is way light, only 237# in a 60 horse-that’s a hair under my 50 E-tec on my present rig.

Anyone have any time on the water with this new feature? Of course, actual trolling speeds will depend on many factors, but has anyone been able to use this to get sub-1 mph speeds? Is anyone aware of any articles or field tests? This could be a really neat feature, if it really works well…

I’d prefer a new boat, but if anyone knows of anybody selling a tiller rig (~17′ fairly recent vintage-decent conditon), pass my contact info along. I’d need to sell my boat first though, to get some liquidity!

Joe Jiacinto

Thanks for the update ‘Eye! I’m praying this forecasted rain doesn’t mess it up more!

Joe

Your buddy is spot on, check out the text in red, below, which was updated this morning, looks like there’s still a lot of ice up in pool 8 yet to break that will be heading our way…

Here’s a link to the webpage with the lock conditions report (the latest of which I pasted below at the time of this post), supposedly updated every 2 hours.

Lock Conditions-Upper Miss.

Best to wait it out I think…

************************************************************************

St Paul/Rock Island/St Louis/Chicago Districts

Information on Navigation Conditions

Run at 03/17/2007 at 10:40

************************************************************************

NOTE: Gage,Elev/Change Dam Cond: last 24 hrs from 10:00

St. Paul: last 24 hrs from 06:00

Weather Temp/Precip: 06:00 reading only (all locks)

Wait/Ab-Bl: boats currently queued (arrivals and locking)

Lock Up-Dn/Delay: last 24 hrs from 10:00 (all locks)

MISSISSIPPI River Hydrologic Conditions Comm. Tows

Date Gage, Dam Weather Wait Lock Avg

Mile Lock/Dam Time Elev/Change Cond Temp Precip Ab Bl Up Dn Delay

—————————————————————————-

854 USAF 031707 U797.93 +0.10 0 A25 0 FG 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L750.10 -0.15 W36

853 LSAF 031707 U750.10 -0.15 4 A25 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L726.09 +0.34 W36 01S02S01

No ice above or below lock except behind upper and lower long

walls.

848 L/D 1 031607 U725.90 +0.22 0 A21 0 CL 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L689.64 +0.43 W36

closed

815 L/D 2 0 0 0 00:00

797 L/D 3 031707 U674.69 -0.11 24 A21 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L670.99 +0.54 W37 01R01L01

03-17-07 Flow this morning is 24,800 CFS. Ice along shoreline

only.

753 L/D 4 031707 U666.91 -0.16 72 A20 0 CL 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L662.61 +0.24 W32 01H00F01

Pool above and below are open. Lock is operational for navigation.

16-Mar-2007

738 L/D 5 031707 U659.80 -0.34 78 A19 0 PC 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L653.76 +0.02 W32 00 03

LOCK CLOSED FOR WINTER

728 L/D 5a 031707 U650.72 -0.25 93 A22 0 PC 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L648.88 -0.01 W32

3/17/2007 Pool and Tailwater Ice Free. Lock is operational.

714 L/D 6 031707 U645.17 -0.19 98 A31 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L642.61 -0.06 W32 01R03E10

Pool Conditions: Floating Ice thru Dam Area. Ice along Upper

Guidewall

Chamber Conditions: 100% Open

Tailwater Conditions: 100% Open with floating ice passing thru dam

area.

Date of update: 15 March 2007

703 L/D 7 031707 U639.19 -0.23 93 A30 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L635.57 -0.17 W32 00R00H00

no ice

679 L/D 8 031707 U630.97 -0.21 105 A20 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L627.13 +0.03 W31 08R07B10

3/15/2007-Pool ice is approximately 7-10 inches thick and extends

above the dam approximatley 10-12 miles. Pool ice is black and

honeycombed. The flow is going to 79,00 CFS this morning and is

playing havoc with the ice. The lower pool is open and we are

looking forward to the first northbound commercial towboat and our

official start of spring.

3/16/2007- ice is still about 7-10 inches thick and channel is

pretty much solid in the channel with a few holes opening up

extending up the river aproximately 10 miles. flow is 82,400 cfs

this morning and is starting to work on the ice.

3/17/2007 -ice still 7-8 inches thick,but breaking with a lot more

holes than yesterday extending up river about 10-12 miles up

river. Flow is down to 79,200 and ice is starting to break up and

floating

648 L/D 9 031707 U619.69 -0.39 OUT A21 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L619.28 +1.04 W– 01R04T08

16 March- Pool and tailwater are clear above and below as far as

can be seen from the lock. There are pockets of floating ice in

the pool. The roller gates on the dam were pulled at 1200 hrs

today.

615 L/D 10 031707 U610.75 -0.44 198 A23 0 FA 0 0 0 0 00:00

0600 L610.30 +1.10 W32 04R04T10

Ice below the dam is moving out. Above is still ice up thru

Mcmillan Bend as far as we can see. 13 Mar @1500

583 L/D 11 031707 U 15.09 +0.21 119 A23 0 PC 0 0 0 0 00:00

1000 L 9.69 +1.11 W37 01R01T15

Due to heavy ice conditions, n/b doubles will require double

tripping or use of an industry helper boat as tow haulage units

will be unable to pull cuts.

557 L/D 12 031707 U 11.93 -0.03 110 A22 0 PC 0 0 1 2 00:00

1000 L 10.44 +1.22 W32

Due to heavy ice conditions, n/b doubles will require double

tripping or use of an industry helper boat as tow haulage units

will be unable to pull cuts.

522 L/D 13 031707 U 14.63 +0.31 91 A24 0 FA 0 0 1 1 00:00

1000 L 9.05 +1.09 W33

Due to heavy ice conditions, n/b doubles will require double

tripping or use of an industry helper boat as tow haulage units

will be unable to pull cuts.

493 L/D 14 031707 U 14.76 +0.28 72 A24 0 FA 0 0 0 2 00:00

1000 L 6.89 +0.69 W39

483 L/D 15 031707 U 18.74 +0.34 34 A26 0 PC 0 0 3 3 00:00

1000 L 9.44 +0.60 W36

The Auxiliary Lock Chamber is closed to all traffic effective 18

August 2003. This closure is due to serious structural

deterioration of the miter gates. This restriction is in effect

until further notice.

457 L/D 16 031707 U 9.96 +0.33 194 A26 0 PC 0 0 3 2 00:04

0800 L 8.22 +0.22 W42

437 L/D 17 031707 U 10.71 +0.07 OUT A27 0 CL 1 0 2 1 00:17

0800 L 10.51 +0.09 W40

Extensive damage occurred to Miter Gate #2 on 27 March 2004. The

#2 Miter Gate was hit again on 6 April 2005. Towboats are advised

to stay off #2 gate. Any contact with the gate may also cause

damage to a barge.

410 L/D 18 031707 U 9.26 -0.17 142 A28 0 CL 0 0 2 1 00:00

So, Andy, how did y’all do out there Tuesday evening? What was the best presentation/technique, if anything?

Joe

John T and All, thanks for sharing!

Based on the reports from Genoa on south, I think this weekend might be a good one to catch up on house chores.

Joe

Ditto Mike-thanks a ton for the update! dismal, though it is…

I checked the corp’s flow data for dam 10 b4 leaving the office yesterday evening and according to their web data, it appeared all the gates were up.

Sunday may be too soon to head out, based on what I’m hearing. Might just have to catch up on honey-dos this weekend.

They are flood control/navigation dams, after all…

Joe

Rugbystar and I fished the Iowa (below the Coralville dam) yesterday for about 5 hours; she’s high and dirty.

Some nice fish came out of there on Sunday, but it looks she rose 2-3′ since then. In 5 hours of fishing, nothing was caught amongst 3 boats; though we did see one guy nail a nice one from shore.

Its just plain muddy, I think it turned them off…we tried everything but pulling big stickbaits near the bottom. I thought for sure a Zonar might get some interest, but no takers.

Anyhow, my eyes are looking to the east…not sure I’m gonna mess with the Iowa til she clears up and/or drops a little bit…

Anyone planning to head out to Bellevue this weekend?

Joe

Andy:

I cannot tell a lie… I blew off work most of day and spent some time below the dam; fishing some deep holes in the tailwaters and the current breaks. I had nothing to show for five hours of effort.

I took a recon run to the tailwaters Sunday-saw some guys nail a few decent ones, but the water today was easily 2-3′ higher and wicked more turbid than then.

I threw everything in the box; tried vertical presentations, minnows, dragging, as well as the Zonar deal since it was so murky-hoping to call ’em in.

I think I might have seen you guys out there tonight in the Lund-looked like a full crew. I had to take my older boy to cub scouts after supper and then had my 2 younger boys in tow. We took a ride to get the baby to sleep; my middle son Dominic (he’s 5) wanted to see if anyone was catching fish, so we headed below the tube. I was the guy that walked out on the pier with the little boy around 7:15pm. The one dude on the pier had caught 2, and he had been there (I know, because he showed up while we were at from the boat) since 2pm.

Awesome weather nonetheless-a great day to be out; the babes jogging and roller blading on the trail made up for the lousy bite!

Let us know how you guys did.

Joe

Quote:

---

You’ll find the number of people willing to wait out a friend increases dramatically when their power auger is still in your truck from two days prior.

---

The martini option is a good one today…about an hour ago we got the first car in the ditch on West Mount Vernon Road, down the way from the house…

I have a nice Pinot Noir that has been chilling in the fridge for some time, today may be the day to liberate it…

No joke about the Walmart super-mega tub of waxworms…pretty insane…we’ll have to feed the fishies here sometime over the next week once the weather calms down…

Joe

Hey guys…woke up late..or is that early? (collapsed with my 2 year old son and dozed off early in the evening last night after supper-it was that sore, tired feeling you can only get from being out on the ice all day! )

We opted to head North-I’ll throw a post up here shortly, but we didn’t head that far north-with the ice storm in the forecast. I’ll let you guys know next time I head to the Mac-maybe late Sunday once this storm calms down. Look for a blue fishtrap, with a small broom outside. (I use the broom to “sweep” the slush from my hole drilling.) Knock on the flap for a sample of deer salami from the Solon locker (Ruzicka’s)or homemade chocolate chip cookies (Rugby knows!) if you see me out there!

Speaking of which, the weather ppl are talking about possible blizzard warnings later tommorrow/weekend, depending on the storm track, be careful out there or wait it out!

Joe

Thanks for the kind words, Luke.

Rugby, could have been; not sure why I didn’t try plastics that night, I had some of those spaghetti-thin mouse tails in the jig box-white, chartreuse, and pink. Goodness knows, there were a tons of fish in there-just seemed like lots of little ones. A camera down the hole or a catch of a larger fish would have verified a little better what was down there. If it wasn’t so late in the season, I would probably splurge on a camera, might do so anyway, ’cause as we get closer to spring, all that stuff is going to be on sale.

Joe

Nice fish Luke! A couple of us have tomorrow off, we’ll probably burn some fuel heading somewhere north, but may need to re-visit those plans. Your post is in line with several other reports about some nice crappies being caught at the Mac. Some sorting is needed to get a decent creel; if you’re keeping, but as we can see, they are definately in there. Great report!

Joe

Its a possibility Sean, a couple of us are planning possibly to fish somewhere either Friday or Thursday. Depends on what we hear is going on locally close to home and then over at Ambro, since there is some interest in possibly hitting the big backwaters before its done.

Joe

Maybe “brown trout”?

Kory,

I’m away on travel, so I don’t have my maps handy. Is there a bridge or something back there to get access on the river, or is there some sort of public right of way to gain access?

I might try to head out there on Friday if I make it out. The Wapsi is a long river, and we have been told that there are crappies in there…just a matter of locating the best hardwater spot.

My son wants to get out on the ice this Friday after school. We’ll see, it will depend on how well he does on his spelling test.

I’ve caught some mongo northerns in the mile or so stretch of water below the dam in Central City really early in the spring…

Joe

Gianni, uncle Rocky works in strange ways, you will get your way-trip is rescheduled…

Nonetheless, thanks for all the ideas everyone! They’ll have to wait a few days since JoJo ain’t going no-where this Wednesday ‘cept hopping on a jet at 6:30am and going to Atlanta, GA

I was greeted by email this morning at the office that my presence was required in the Peach state. Godspeed I should be back by Thursday night.

So bring on the fried chicken, black-eyed peas and pile up the biscuits and gravy! Georgia, here I come!

Gianni…we shall coordinate a possible expedition in the near future.

Saw the obituary, that sux big time dude-for me too! …I was just telling Rugby yesterday how awesome your buddy was; how he could of literally make rat cheese out of the borrow pit we were fishing in no time, as my arms strained drilling into 18″ of thick ice on dulling blades. I hope the eulogy made mention of last Saturday’s excursion, definately a high point in his storied career-out there in the -20 degree temps with the -40 degree windchill; how he admirably came to life in those utterly Siberian conditions and never missed a beat for us.

Joe

‘Rug, you have a PM

I’ve been out a handful o’ times the last few weeks. Best luck (and what I have been hearing from other ice men) has been on private farm ponds and out of the way places. You got to wage the battle on the “dark side”!

Gianni and I hit the Mac last Saturday morning in that insane -40 degree windchill and got 2 typical Macbride runts. I know there are bigger ones in there, shoot, my son nailed a fat 15″ plus speck out of there a couple of springs ago in May. We used GPS to locate an out of the way brushpile in the north arm, we marked fish, but it was SLOW.

From there we went to a private pond where he had permission that doesn’t really exist and nailed a pile of fish, mostly chunky largemouths and one really nice bull gill. We tossed them all back since this fairy-tale pond is really small and we did not want to take out that good breeding stock-but it was a fun time on some quality fish. I was back inside slurping a hot bowl of soup by noon last Saturday.

As I posted on I/O, my 5 year old middle son Dominic joined me this afternoon on the highway 13 borrow pit near the treatment plant. The wind trajectory kept the odor factor reasonable. About 4pm, the vex lit up with fish and the little guy had a lot of fun catching tons of ‘gills. Most of these were really small, with a more decent one mixed in here and there, but nothing that I would call a real bull gill. We quit at 5:30 since he was wanting to head home for some hot chocolate and we didn’t wanna urine momma off being late for supper , but the bite was going strong.

Ice was well over 12″ out there.

If I don’t hack a lung first , I plan to hit some “new” spots too this weekend. I am thinking of trying Wapsi backwaters, Delhi, Cedar River backwaters, and some small public ponds/borrow pits that get little press time. Let me know if you want to hang out.

I feel your pain!

I am still new to pool 12-downriver(Dubuque)-though the water conditions seemed pretty stable compared to last weekend-but I was scoreless on Saturday, as well.

In three trips to the Mississippi this spring, I have yet to catch a fish. Whenever I go, it seems the flow is too high or some weather front has just passed (I need an excuse! )

I may take a week or two off the river, then when the water temps cross 50, try trolling instead of jigging. I need to find out if I forgot how to troll too!

Joe

thanks to all you guys for chiming in! it helps to know what’s goin’ on out there!

Vike:

Very good question…one that I was trying to figure out myself, and I may have an answer for you.

I was also contemplating staying much closer to home and trying the tubes below C’ville (according to the gauge I was able to query online a few days ago, the water temps there were 43 degrees) for just the reason you point out. However, I love being on the big river-so much room, and in general, I do so much better.

If you go to “rivergauges.com” (I think that’s the site) you will want to select the Rock Island Corps district. Then, you select the Mississippi river and passes. In there, there is a list of gauges. The ones that have water temp are the “MET” (meteorlogical?) gauges that are downstream of the dams. I like the St. Paul district’s set-up much better, but don’t get up that way to fish very much.

The sole keeper sized sauger we caught last week in DBQ had her egg sac starting to poke through, so I suppose we are getting really close. However, these are river fish that are in moving water-my theory is that they need to eat more than lake walleyes, so as you say, there’s always catchable fish.

I will probably mull over it this evening and decide on either DBQ or Bellevue. I enjoyed my time last week at Dubuque and really want to learn more about that pool, since its the closest to home.

Also, not sure what this front is gonna do to the fish…but you can only worry and plan so much! If I let every frontal system that went through dictate my plans, I don’t know if I’d ever make it out!