I own a cabin on pool 11…either myself or my parents have owned in the same place for the last 35 years.

My dad asked me this Xmas how fishing was this year. I told him it was the absolute worst year I can ever remember for Pool 11.

I’m no marine biologist. I’m no pro fisherman. I’m no guide. Hell, I don’t fish every month, let alone every week or every day. I don’t pretend to know everything about the why’s and how’s as to why things are the way they are on my stretch of the river.

All I know is this.

The backwater areas are silting in to where in some areas you can’t get in anymore, where 20 years ago you could rip through there full blast, pull up, and catch all the fish you cared to.

The channel gets shallower and shallower. The arguments over channel depth in pool 11 are valid…I can only think of a couple minute stretches where the water’s deeper than 30 feet. 20 years ago, I can remember spots that were 50 feet or deeper.

Every weekend, from anywhere to 6 to 7AM, I am awakened by 20-40 tournament boats screaming up the channel at 65 MPH. When I do get time to fish this early in the morning, I’m constantly fighting for choice spots with other boats, both tournament and amateurs, where 20 years ago I probably had the place to myself.

In the last 5 years alone, I could literally walk the bank near where my cabin is and find walleye and sauger…wouldn’t even need to launch the boat. Every weekend during the fall, I could look forward to catching anywhere from 2-4 real nice eating walleyes, clean these, and feed myself and friends/family for our weekend. No culling, no catching 10 to keep 5. This year, from shore, I caught 4 legal walleye from these shore spots compared to an average of about 20-30 during September/October before, just enough to feed myself and my family/friends for that night. This is fishing three times a day, 2-3 days a weekend, from August to November, maybe 30 to 90 minutes a day total.

My point is this. I’ve fished this area from about 1970 till today. The water is shallower than ever from a lock and dam system finally pronouncing its sentence on the river, eliminating many of the winter habitat that fish used to enjoy because of silting. There is seemingly infinitely more pressure from us anglers out there…there’s just a whole lot more fishermen, with IMHO more weapons at their disposal than ever.

So…less habitat, more fish being caught. What’s that spell? No fish, folks.

I just have this feeling that in 20 years, I won’t have any fish at all to catch. How America’s most historically important physical landmark could be more stupidly managed to the river’s detremit, I’ll never know.

So then I get to this forum. I read about people filling their minnow buckets this and 100 saugers per man that, and I ask…how many are enough? Really. How many fish are enough? 100? Evidently not. 10? People screaming that this isn’t enough. 5? 1? None?

IMHO…anything more than what you will eat that night is too many. I know people here will scream about that, but on pool 11, its just about to that point.

Remember earlier in this rant where I talked about tourney boats flying by my cabin in the morning? I live about 5 minutes from LD10. The reason they’re flying by is because there aren’t any fish in this pool, compared to not that long ago, to catch anymore. They are going mostly upriver it seems. Why? I dunno. Is WI doing it better? MN? IL? Don’t know. All I know is I pay my licensing every year, practice catch/release almost to the ridicule of some of the locals, and trust that the DNR has people smarter than me to research this stuff to the point where they know what’s right and what’s wrong.

Personally, I think fishing from 12-15 through 3-15 should be outlawed on at least this pool. Period. Until it can be proved that the pool is rebounding and going strong again.

Not trying to be a flamethrower. Not trying to incite a riot. Just letting everyone know what I’ve noticed in my favorite fishing spot over the years, my two cents.

I may be wrong, but didn’t the article state that the changes were made in conjunction with what border states were also going to do? If so, I’d say Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois are going to do the same thing. Makes sense.

I was up at my cabin last weekend below LD10. Went to Murrays Bait, the lady there said many fishermen were catching both saugers and walleye…quite a few boats were on the water. The ice was out to the buoys Friday, broke up almost to shore in places Saturday. Can’t help but think that the ice has broken up a little more with the warm temps this week, no idea how fishing is this week though.

I walk the shore in Pool 11 a lot, Iowa side. Where my cabin is located, its just too easy, and I have a couple favorite spots for walleye and lm/sm bass. I run into the same issue…lots of small bass. Jeremy I feel is correct…in most of the places I fish in this area (upper pool 11), there just isn’t a whole lot of bigger bass, just a bunch of smaller ones. But when I do catch larger fish, it always seems to be in the exact same place, and almost the exact same circumstances (time of day, time of year, pressure, color of lures, etc). Personally, with how little time I actually get to fish lately, I try to concentrate on when I know from 25 years of fishing the upper pool 11 areas when I know its in my favor to fish…usually early fall, pool level at L&D 10 around 5-6 feet, hit the wing dams and rip rap hard, dark colors seem to do better on average. The thing I noticed the last few years, small fish early/late day, and big fish right at high noon, lots of smaller fish at all other times (for bass anyway). Example…last Saturday after ‘clones game (6PM)…storm front moving in, level about 6 feet, I went to my favorite “walking spot”, at the base of a wing dam fishing either side of it with a 1/4 oz black/chartreuse beetle spin, my favorite fall bait. In 30 minutes I got 4 15-18″ walleye, a 15″ white crappie, and 4 LM all sizes 8-16″. I KNEW I’d catch the type of fish I caught at that time, with that bait, at that location because I have for the last 10 years. So, if you are catching a lot of smaller bass, I’d say keep searching till you catch larger ones, remember everything you can about that fish…bait, time of day, location, pool level…every item you can to describe that catch, then try to duplicate it. Pool 11 IMHO pales in comparison to what I read about other pools here…judging from the tourney boats that race by my cabin at 6AM every weekend, the pros think so too, so in this pool try to duplicate any success you have to make the odds in your favor better than average. Just one amateur hacker’s opinion…

My home pool. I own a cabin 3 miles south of L/D 10 right on the channel (big tin pavilion above white trailer at Hideaway campground, can’t miss it). I’ve closed down for the winter, but I can tell you what I have seen/heard/experienced that last few times I went out last couple weekends before closed it down. It seems the winter move to the tailwaters is on for walleye/sauger. You’ll find a surprising amount of boaters on the Wisc. side by the barge, no doubt jigging/sonars. The advise of calling Landing 615 is right on…they should be open still and they’ll know more than anyone else if so. Also try any wingdams down to about my campground, especially IA side…first few on Iowa side always good early, but not sure now. Can try below spillway, too, caught some smaller (12-15″) below on Wisc. side of spillway using #5 shad raps (both firetiger and natural shad) two weekends ago, no size though. LMB in Swift Slough (first backwater below Lock…very shallow getting in…be careful) off logs using jig/pig worked for me in late October, but struck out two weeks ago. Just about any rock good places for LMB/SMB, but just didn’t seem to be a good year for them, only had a couple “fishing show” (20+ fish) weekends this year for bass. Lots of leaves in water, dead plants too, very hard/frustrating keeping lures clean, and water is still pretty shallow, be very careful outside of buoys, and especially in 12 mile (backwater below spillway…wingdams in channel…if stage is 5′ or below, they are only 1 to 3 feet below waterline, I see a boat a month hit them buggers!)…If you haven’t been to this pool in a while, you’ll be saddened by the siltation of the backwaters…most of the backwaters getting to the point of being too shallow to fish. My personal belief of this pool is you have to be in the right place at the right time with the right presentation to be effective. From my perch on the hill I see every tournament boat for bass/walleye hit my favorite spots and generally after 10 minutes split. If I were to say how you’ll do, I’d say if you get good numbers, they’ll be small fish. If you don’t you’ll probably get a couple good sized “keepers”, so to speak. But overall, I thought it was a bad year on this pool this year, but I only got out about 15 times this year, so I have no excuses other than lack of true effort. Good Luck!

A town in Iowa of about 2000 approximately 25 miles south of Prairie du Chein, where Lock and Dam 10 is located. Excellent area for multi-species fishing, though not necessarily a huge amount of anything in particular. I fish for walleye, sauger, LMB, SMB, crappie and bluegill there, but catfish, sheepshead, and carp are there too. This is one of the prime times for SMB in exactly the type of spots he described, lots of riprap and wingdams to choose from, especially right below the dam. I’ve fished there for 30 years, and all things considered, it may not have as many fish as the upper pools, but living in Marion IA, its probably the best fisheree nearby for me.

I have fished pool 11 almost exclusively for about 20 years…everything you’ve read so far seems on the mark, but here’s a method I find can at times get you a bass every cast…for whatever reason, Johnson Beetle Spins, 1/4 oz., black w)chartreuse stripes works very very well that time of the year along wing dams for both smb/lmb…for lmb, I try to find a wingdam that is just barely poking out of the water and fish the upriver side casting towards the channel casting from where the last rocks protruding out of the water are…I cast upriver about 15/20 feet at about a 30 degree angle from the dam depending on current and used an even retrieve. I’ve had occasions where I’ve caught 20 lmb of all sizes in an equal number of casts! Seems to be best 11am/noon. I tried this last Thursday, caught 10 (4 15″ or bigger) in about a 15 minute time period, then 2 barges came by, I was wading, the water turned to chocolate milk, and I left because seeing the wingdam became difficult (I wouldn’t recommend wading on these buggers unless you are really, really certain of the dam you’re wading on…I’ve waded this particular wingdam for years, has some flat rock/clear water that makes it wadeable, within walking distance from my cabin). Other colors? Chartreuse w) black stripes, crawdad orange w)black stripes good too, but not as good as black/chartreuse. On pool 11 in the areas I fish, these lures work on any riprap/wingdams I try, no idea why, just works well for me. Don’t be surprises if you get collateral walleyes/northerns too. Smallies will hit it too, but closer to shore like the others state. 1/8 oz. doesn’t seem to work as well for the biggies. Advise on this tactic? Buy lots of spinners, I go through a ton of them this time of year messing with the wingdams, 99 cents at Starks in PDC! Hope this helps, I’ve used this tactic for 20 years in the fall and it always puts smiles on my face.