Tough to say, it changes daily along with the river conditions. Pulled crawlers one day right along a very defined current seam and caught walleye, perch, smallies, etc. Went back to that same spot but the river had dropped a foot, fish were in a completely different location (more out into the current as it was weaker) and much less frequent. We left and ended up doing better the rest of the day by pulling cranks, along rock shores and flats.

Best way to find what pattern works is to try them all, until you find the one that works. If I say dragging crawlers worked yesterday, it doesn’t mean it will tomorrow. Biggest thing I’ve learned when spot-fishing on the river is if you don’t get into fish within 10 minutes, leave and go elsewhere. If its a spot worth fishing, you’ll know quickly.

bbuchho90 wrote:

Flow will stay high until all of this water is out of here, early May most likely.

Or early June** ….. Been a tough spring on the river for walleyes with this high dirty water. With the most recent rain it’s forecasted to go up 2.5ft by Saturday/Sunday, some dams seeing moderate flood stage.

If you can find fish, they’re in a spot about the size of your boat and they’ll be hungry.

40.5 as of Sunday evening ^^ will probably drop again with this snow. backwaters are open.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

If you go to the graph for l&d #3 it will give the estimated cfs.

Some of those funnels are sunken nav markers.

That would make sense, we saw several getting pushed under and popping back up, rinse and repeat. Makes a lot of noise!

No dice on the flow though, BK. I did finally notice this though:

“NOTICE:There is a service interruption for a number of stream gauges nationwide due to the Global Positioning System (GPS) Rollover that occurred on April 6 at 23:59 GMT. The National Weather Service is working with federal, state, and local partners to ensure those affected gauges obtain the necessary updates to resume data transmission. We apologize for the service interruption and hope to have the data restored as soon as possible.”

Flow will stay high until all of this water is out of here, early May most likely. Not a bad thing as long as the water starts to drop. We were out Sunday and saw whirlpools on the channel; not just rotating water, but actual funnels. Tough fishing, considering the fish are probably pushed into pretty consolidated spots right now. We tried just about everywhere and only found a few in one spot.

Out of curiosity, any pool 4 regulars have an “optimal flow” for the pool? I noticed the AHPS hydrographs arent showing KCFS like they usually do, but Red Wing is around 130k right now.

20fow is too shallow this time of year for midday bite, imo. Would suggest 28-30fow, the bottom edge of breaks, find those fish out cruising for a meal. Dawn and dusk, move up to the top edge and get the fish feeding on top of the flats/gravel.

Wasn’t up there personally last weekend, but several over 24″ were caught out of our house, along with a slot fish and lots of 18s. “Didn’t get to sleep”. Bite could be good this weekend with the temps warming up.

Charlie W wrote:

I think he spends more time finding bites than we realize. I think he puts ample time in, then once he finds the bite he’s looking for he puts into action his idea that no one else has really thought of. I think there’s more failure than we realize in his videos that we never hear about.

Yes. But at the same time, he’s VERY knowledgeable when it comes to fishing. It’s a combination of that and putting the time in. I think there’s failure there, but less failure than the average person. He knows where and how to find fish. I believe he used to guide, I think part of why he doesn’t put out as many vids now is that he’s busy with other things like promoting brands and going to trade shows. Just a guess though.

We were fishing the northern islands part of LOTW this fall and we drove by an Alumacraft, solo guy, camera mounts all over the boat, shaggy hair, singing and talking to himself. It was Wiebe

More range, since the G3’s have MEGA+, so the images should be much more crisp. And all G3 models come with the dual spectrum 2d.

Nick Johnson wrote:

Heading up to Mille Lacs on Friday and staying until Saturday night. Have never fished this lake before.. What areas of the lake should I check out? Any help would be great! Thanks

Reefs, gravel flats, mud flats, etc. During the day fish the deep edges of structure (28′ to 34′) and don’t be afraid to move around to find fish. At dusk they’ll slide up the structure breaks and on top to feed.

Get a structure map and pick your poison, it’s a big lake. It’s also a busy lake so be ready to have people fishing next to you.

mud or gravel flats during the day, fish the deep edges. set your house up on a structure break for the evening bite when they slide up shallow to feed. Look on Navionics or a structure map and pick what you want to target, the lake has it everywhere. Hopefully the bite picks up, it was painfully slow this past weekend with the cold front and -20 degree temps.

If you’re in 25′ of water, I would expect to need a gain of 11-14 to pick up your jig, that’s not “cranked” imo. I keep my helix 7 g2 to the lowest gain that displays my jig, and it’s in that range most of the time, around 12 or 13. if you were needing 18 or 19 to even pick your jig up at all, i’d say there’s problem.

When you say the bottom is jittery, do you mean the auto-depth is making the flasher jump, or it’s actually not reading the bottom depth accurately?

That said, i have heard that helix 5’s specifically are hit or miss on causing people issues with the update, moreso than other models.

Not to mention a lot of times short bites are the result of too much weight, not necessarily a less aggressive fish. That switch to a different (lighter) jig will often mean less shorts and more hook-ups. Not always, but often.

Bite is dead right now, went out of Hunters. 2 fish since yesterday, fished the mud today and caught a big fat zero. Had marks, but they look and disappear. Have thrown pretty much everything but the kitchen sink at them

This is in the same boat as loud exhausts, light bars on trucks, and underglow on cars. “It looks cool”. To heck with being considerate, look at me!

What do you mean when you say you “can’t update anything”? They provide update software downloads online for the Helix 7 Sonar, from what I can see.

Current version is 7.770.

I’d try updating and see if that solves anything. However, I’ve heard from most people with anything older than the G2’s that the ice sonar is not very good. Unfortunately a unit upgrade might be the only solution.

Anywhere on the river this time of year tends to be a tough walleye bite. like i mentioned, first and last light bite is pretty much all i fish walleye for. setup at 3:30, catch them from 4 to 5ish, pack up and leave. IMO i’d rather head to Mille Lacs or Red to get my winter walleye fix.

Like you mentioned Bill, I can probably boat fish most of my pool 7 walleye spots still. haven’t been down there in a few weeks.

2nd what Randy said. Sand flats off the current can produce. Slackwater cuts, and below wing dams. Find almost still water. In my opinion it’s a first and last light bite. Dead, turns on for 45 minutes as they come up shallow, and dies again. Be very careful near current and always spud, even if you’ve walked there days before. I’ve seen ice thickness go from 15 inches to 2 inches in 20 ft. Water hits the front of wing dams and keeps good ice from forming so stay away from the fronts of them. This fish came off a Sippi River sand flat last year, north of lacrosse a few miles. They tend to like Jiggin Raps.

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phishingruven01 wrote:

I’ll take Things you’ll do for $1000, Alex.

Literally, with how expensive phones are these days. I have the S9+, and you can bet I’d be finding a way to get that phone out of a porta-potty.

Haven’t lost a phone down a hole, have had a few close calls though. Fell asleep in a top bunk with an iPod, woke up and couldn’t find it. Looked over the edge and it was sitting on the edge of the hole, hanging halfway over. Brand new too, had gotten it 2 days prior as a xmas gift.

Had my RAVpower 22000mAh charger battery fall out of my jacket pocket last year right into the hole….no splash….perfect 10. Gold medal worthy. Things a brick so there was no chance in getting it in time.

Looking into a panoptix setup. I’m not too familiar with Garmin, do i have this right in that I could buy a 93sv echomap plus, without a transducer, for $850, and buy the Livescope blackbox/ducer for roughly $1500? Or is the ducer that comes with the plotter required? And then obviously would need a shuttle and the pole setup for an ice fishing rig.

What’s that thing got for a motor, Dave? Was out on my buddies airboat a few weekends ago, and another airboat next to us where we were fishing had a 6.2 Vortec in it Looks like you had better luck than us, fishing was pretty slow that day.

Jay makes some pretty cool videos, this one included. He was Aaron Wiebe’s (Uncut Angling) original videographer when he first started Uncut, if I recall.

The 2pt series Jay has with Taro Murata and Peric, where they fish smallies on Lake Simcoe, is awesome.

If you’re running a Helix 7 Chirp G2N like you say you are, yes you can adjust frequency. Hit “menu” once, and cycle through CHIRP frequencies 1 thru 6 until the interference is gone. If it stays, there’s likely something else going on with your unit. You could try the narrower 15degree cone too and see if that works. I was fishing next to a Panoptix and multiple Vexilars yesterday and had no issues with interference running on CHIRP 2, with the same setup as you. Was picking up 4MM tungsten jigs no problem in 12ft of water, on 13 or 14 gain.

Needed waders on pool 7 to launch the boat last night. up to mid-thigh at the docks. Fishing was pretty slow….hooked into what I thought was a pig walleye, until I got it to the boat and it was a 15lb carp.

Brian Klawitter wrote:

John does this help you with your 2 cents?
If a person reads the text at the top is states that this was created on 3/25/18.

They do know we’ve gotten over a foot of snow since then right?? Odd that the forecast isn’t updated since end of March, given the change in conditions.

Likely into flood stage by then, forecast for 2pm May 3rd is right at minor flood stage (3.5ft higher than today) and doesn’t show a crest. I’ll let the locals advise on the fishing, as i don’t fish pool 4 regularly.

Check out the red wing episodes James has on here for an idea on how to fish the pool. Welcome!

William wrote:

Thinking about making the trip to Redwing on sunday. Thoughts??

As long as you dont mind crowds!

Matt Moen wrote:

Who else is out this weekend?

I’ll be out Saturday for sure, pool 6/7, provided the launch parking lot isn’t underwater. Already needed knee-highs for the docks last Sunday night, its up 1.5ft since then. Water levels at action stage today, up to flood stage by Monday or Tuesday. Flow at 80k, 110k by sunday.

Brings up a question…. what’s everyone’s preferred optimal flow? Is there one? Ie is it just “higher the better” to push the fish into slack water?

better get out there Thursday! Snow, 40mph gusts, and 30 degrees over the weekend.

Sure can. I’m fairly new to river fishing as well, BUT, here’s what I’ve learned.

Jigging on the river allows the current to provide action to the plastic even when you’re “sitting still”. The colder the water, the slower you want to jig your setup. A lot of people will bounce the jig up and down non-stop, but that can turn fish away in these cold water temps (if the water is still cold down there). In cold water, keeping the bait almost still with subtle lifts once in a while will probably boat the most fish.

Although I know people will pull cranks in cold water for the “reaction” strike, blades and cranks are best when the fish are aggressively feeding (pre-spawn/post-spawn). If the water is in the mid 40’s down there already, it’s probably a good time to break those out. Fish shallow current seams with them, or shallow slack water in general near current. Lift it up so you can feel the vibration, let it fall until it hits bottom, then lift it again as soon as it does. There are some great IDO episodes with James and Eric fishing pool 4 with rattle/blade baits. Watch those if you havent yet!

Brian Klawitter wrote:

I’m going to guess slipping but I’ll double check with Steve.

Aren’t they both legitimate vertical jigging?

I suppose I just always associate vertical jigging with being stationary, and “drift jigging/dragging” as slipping downstream with the current. I need to stop creating my own terminology……

thanks for the input guys!

BK, when you (and others) say vertical jigging, are you talking legitimate vertical jigging where they’re anchored/spotlocked? or vertical jigging as they drift the current?