Fished Saturday evening through Monday. Fishing was slow each day. Bumper boats towards the head of the lake and the can line. South of that and you had the lake to yourself. Caught fish in both the lake and river on rock using crank baits. Tried slip corking the lake points that had lots of sign but that did not produce much. Caught enough fish to feed three guys each night but we worked for every one.

Looking we caught almost all our fish in less than 12’ of water when the graph was lit up with baitfish which was not hard to find. Flicker shad 7’s and shad dancer 5’s both in purple were the best baits. Trusty old jointed 5’s caught nothing.

That ends my 2021 fishing on pool 4 to concentrate on hunting.

Good luck to all as the bite will only get better from here.

I am headed to pepin this weekend for our annual fall camping trip. When the fall is warm and low flow like it is this year, do the walleyes stall there movement upstream out of the lake?

Trying to out a game plan together to start in the lake or river first. Goal being eaters for a fish fry ea h night. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks everyone!

What is the advantage of a high
Speed transducer?

When you say find the right current, can you describe further? Is it relative to the other water around or you can tell by your trolling motor power required to stay still or go upstream at .3-.5 etc.

Thx in advance!

My response had a typo. It is a 1999 3 bank charger. No maintenance mode etc.

It’s time for a new one so
I can leave it plugged in year round.

Any recommendations for a new three bank that has maintenance mode that is not overly expensive?

Thanks! Given how old my three bank charger is I am going to buy a new one with a maintenance mode.

Thanks for taking the time to read my question and offer advice!

I run a couple of shorties for trolling and love how I can read the tip so well and how smaller fish are still fun to catch with then.

I am thinking of getting a pair of there 8’ 6” trolling rods.

Does anyone have any experience with them for flatlining crankbaits? Can you still read the rod tip well with 120’ ft of line out?

Thanks in advance!

See PM

Yes. Previous sale fell through.

Sold pending payment

Sounds good. I will hold them for you. I have not received the PM yet but I assume it us just a server delay. I will check again in an hour.

Thx!

On the low profile reel you used, how much backing did you put on prior to spooling the 833 lead, and also how many colors of lead did you spool on / will it hold?

Were the top teams mostly fishing wing dams, seams, or out in the lake?

It always amazes me the bag size the too teams pull out of this river each year.

James,
Do you find these types of locations are more productive on the upper half of Pepin or just as affective downstream in this early June flooded bite?

Fished the lake today. Steady action until the wind died. Wind blown sand flats and anything crome blue seemed to work. 10-13’ just outside weed edge seemed best.

I was out Sunday. Bay city was closed. We put in right off to the left as you come under the bridge at Colvill.

I find it interesting that on one of the few actual reports written (much appreciated) lately someone has to find a negative thing to say.

Fished the lake today in ~8-12ft pulling cranks and spinners. Lots of action with small fish but nothing of size. Water clarity seemed pretty good and not to much junk in the water.

Beautiful time of year for fishing!

Thanks for all the tips. Headed down to pepin for our annual campinga nd fishing weekend and with the predicted terrible weather I am thinking are usual routine of pulling cranks or spinners will not be the ticket given the cold front rolling in. I am thinking of hitting the river instead.

Any location / structure/ presentation tips on what you would do this weekend given the weather rolling in?

If you have any interest in Information technology I would retool in this space. Software Development, Data Science, etc.. Pay is good and you have ample opportunities to work remote. A couple years in school busting your tail and you will be good to go.

I currently do that. More piece of mind given the fire I had years ago.

Thanks again everyone. Lots of research to do

Thanks for the replies. I will check these all out.

Fished Friday afternoon and most of the day Saturday. Caught enough for a three man fish fry each night but we had to work for the fish we caught. The river produced more fish than the lake. Flicker shads outproduced jointed baits. 12’ or less was the productive depth. Water was still dirty by my standards.

Neither is a bad option.

You happened to pick year 20 to have have your house paid off.

What happens if the black swan sunami hits your household at year 18? They take all your equity?

Another reason I would not pay off the house is because I believe I can do better or at parity in investmenting that money vs. paying down the 4% mortgage note. It was even more of a no brainer prior to the tax laws changing. Some will argue you cannot guarantee the returns. That is 100% correct. But I will take my chances any day of the week.

If you are not maxing out your 401k, simple IRA, and a few other retirement benefits as a W2 there is no way I would consider paying off my house early.

For this main reason:
What happens if a financial sunami hits your house hold?

Two People:
Person A and Person B each own a $500k house putting $100k down. Note is $400k.

Person A maxes out there 401k and other retirement vehicles and does not pay down extra on the house.

Person B only does the minimum in their 401k to get the company match and pays down the rest on the house.

20 years later each person looses their job, has no income, the economy is in the dumps and neither person can pay their bills.

Person A has X dollars in their 401k account and owes Y dollars on their mortgage.

Person B has <X dollars in their account and owes <Y dollars on their mortgage.

They are both foreclosed on and go live with family.

In foreclosure the bank can take both homes and all their equity and go after all assetts that are not protected by the employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. This varies a little by state also.

Person A has X dollars in their 401k and no home. Person B has <X dollars in their 401k and no home.

Depending on what state you live in similar may apply if being sued for something and they go after your home equity.

Just some things to think about before going to pay off a mortgage.

In this low interest rate enviroment of <5% on most notes there is no way I would trade away my flexibility monthly to pay off my mortgage note early.

I am not saying go burn that money at the bar, but instead invest it in some other vehiclse align with your asset management goals.

When you are young and in the accumulation phase of your life, a term product is nice because it is cheap and you can protect your family in the event that you die. Typically your nest egg is not large enough yet to protect your family in the event you die from additional financial hardship without some type of cash infussion of an inurance product(cash payout).

If you have good investment habits and live Ramsey style in my opinion you will have no need for life insurance when you get into your distributon years. Your nest egg will be big enough that if you pass away, who cares, your spouse or kids have enough money in your retirement accounts to live happily ever after.

Once your nest egg is big enough to take care of those you need to I think money allocated to “protection style products” would be better spent on a long term health care product vs. a life insurance policy.

All of this talk is really splitting hairs. The first step is stop the bleeding, then get out of debt, then accumulate wealth. If you are in a position to worry about this you are doing well.

And do not forget to enjoy the ride, it goes way faster than you think!

I listen to Ramsey on AM radio most days on the way home from work.

Most of the arguments made against the Dave Ramsey philosophy come from a perspective of having financial discipline and spreadsheet ROI calculations. But here is where I believe many miss the point of Dave Ramsey’s financial education:

Most of the people who call in asking for help have ZERO financial discipline!
What is the point of talking about ROI on investment products when the core issue is they spend more than they make?

Once a person has all their debt paid off and spending under control then one can talk ROI on investments and I will agree with them that there are better options than taking out a 15 year mortgage and investing in Index funds. But this is so far advanced that it is pointless to talk about when someone is drowning in debt and spending more than they make.

But by no means will I ever bad mouth or talk down Dave Ramsey. In my opinion he is changing lives for the better each and every day and is truly a wonderful and impactful individual. His straight talk advice is second to none for the audience he serves and his system for budgeting and getting out of debt is second to none!

We ended up eating at the Y. We had steak and blackened walleye. It was great food. I would recommend this place to anyone.