I made it out for a couple hours on Thursday and Friday, and although I caught fish both days, Friday was a lot more fun. The weather was pretty wicked on turkey day, but I managed to catch a 23 inch slot fish, 3 12-13 inch saugers and a couple 16-18 inch saugers(all released). Was only out there for about 3 hours due to the weather and a hangover that was starting to get the best of me. Friday I caught a few saugers up in sylvan at the dam, but the action kind of fell off, so I decided it was time for a change in tactics. Went out in front of the l&d for a short few, and then on downstream to check out some wingdams. The first wing I worked marked a pile of fish on the tip, so down goes a paddletail and BAM! Fish On! A fat 16 inch white bass. Remembering that I was down to only one quart of fillets at home, I decided that now was a good time to stock up. I pounded fish for the next hour, catching my limit, and throwing back just as many. It sure beat dragging jigs around hoping for a bite. Don’t get me wrong- I love walleye, but cut the red out of a white bass fillet, and it makes for some pretty good table fare. Most of the fish were about 14-16 inches, and were an absolute riot to catch. So, with a livewell full of whites and a couple saugers thrown in, I gave up on catching any more walleye/sauger, and went home to clean fish. Both days the majority of the sauger/walleye, and all the whites were caught dragging/jigging a black and pearl sassy shad plastic/ with a black jig head. I did catch the slot fish and a few other sauger on a variety of jig/ringworm combos, the more effective of those would be a purple jighead with a chart/pepper ringworm.

I have been pulling dubuque rigs with about a 4 foot flouro leader with northland mimic minnow colorado blades in gold or silver shiner with a few red beads and a mustad slow death hook in size 1 or 2. Seems to have been working pretty good this year. Don’t always catch lots of fish, but haven’t been skunked on it yet this year. Usually run this as a dubuque rig, or with just a swivel and bullet sinker above the leader.

Made it out Saturday morning for a few hours and late morning Sunday. Caught a 21.5, 22.5 and a 23 along with one 15 inch eater, a bunch of cats, a few sheepies, and one gar. Yesterday was really a beautiful day to be on the river, once the weather cleared off. Wife and I both have all week off, so hopefully I can talk her into a couple days back out there. I couldn’t get anything to go on cranks this weekend, but I only was pitching them to wings. Caught most fish on a crawler harness with a couple red beads, or on a harness with a blade.

After looking at the NWS river data for Marengo, I don’t feel so bad. That would explain all of the debris that was rolling through, and the poo brown water. Nice to see a fellow IDA member though, now that I know what your boat looks like, I’ll be sure to say hi. b.t.w. You should see my wapsi boat. 16ft sky blue polarkraft with either a 1968 9.5 johnson or a 1974 15 evinrude. She’s beautiful.

If you have a blue v-bottom with minnesota tags, then yes. We went down to the McAllister Creek inlet and at least got a few bites, but still nothing that would commit. Oh well, it was still nice to get out and fish new water. Also, sorry for almost drifting into you- the front anchor let go and the back anchor wasn’t doing much. I didn’t realize we were sliding as fast as we were. That was me in the front of the boat pulling up the worthless anchor. It is a no snagg fluke style that just slid in the mud today.

Thanks for the report! I’m heading up there tomorrow for the first time. I have never fished for ice out cats before, but from what I’ve heard, it can be pretty exciting. If anything, it will be a nice day to get out. If you see a tracker bass boat with 2 guys that don’t look like they know what they are doing, it’s probably us.

By the time I got all my stuff done today, I didn’t have much time to go fishing. Fished the Arsenal dam in Sylvan Slough from 3:30 to 4:30 and picked up 2 14-inch sauger that went back in, a 17 incher that I kept, and about four or five sheepies. The sauger all came on a shortened (by about 3/4 of an inch) charteruse ringworm w/ chartreuse jig, and the sheephead wouldn’t leave my firetiger blade bait alone. I was trying to fish w/2 poles, but the sheepies were just hammering the blade, so I put it down and focused on fishing w/ the ringworm. I caught several sauger and a nice walleye there last weekend, all of them coming on blade baits. I heard that the AM bite was good by the wall between L&D 15 and the casino. Wish I could get out more than just tonight, but the rest of my weekend is shot. Good luck wherever you end up going.

Back at the ramp.

James and the sow.

Say Cheese!!!

Here’s Carrie’s first keeper.

James, I can’t seem to recall any point in time on Tuesday when you weren’t the one doing the schooling. I just remember looking over my shoulder every other cast, and watching you reel in fish after fish after fish. Thanks for the rod angle tip, I didn’t think that made that much difference- until I tried it your way. I’ll try to post the pics of that 23 inch sow that you caught tomorrow. I was doing a little show and tell at work and forgot the camera there.

Carrie and I would like to thank you for a wonderful day on the river, and we are looking forward to fishing with you again sometime. BTW We ate where you suggested- good call

Andy, I was fishing the river and the backwater area at the first bridge west of OJ.

I went out early Saturday morning by Oxford Junction and didn’t have any luck on the walleyes either. That got old after a while, so I changed gears and grabbed the 16 foot telescopic pole and started jigging brushpiles. I did manage to catch about 15 crappies, but only about three were over 10 inches. Most of them were closer to 6. There was some brush that I couldn’t reach without going over my waders, so I decided to come back late in the afternoon with the 12 foot boat and try my luck with that. I called up a friend to see if he wanted to go with, and he agreed to meet me at the river later. I was late getting down there, and he had already caught a smallie and snagged a mooneye. We launched the boat and got to the brush pile, and he must have thought I was blowing smoke about the crappies earlier in the day, ’cause we couldn’t buy a bite. We didn’t have any live bait, but the way they were hammering those cubby tube jigs in the morning, I didn’t think we’d need any. We kind of gave up on the crappies and started casting jigs and blade baits, and my friend managed to pick up a nice 22 inch walleye. Hopefully the weather will mellow out and the fish put the feed bag on over the next couple of weeks.