High Blue Sky Saugers

I wish I could impart some great words of wisdom on how we got this bite going, but it was a tip from Jon Jordan and Mike W. that pointed my buddy and co-worker Tom Shertz of Woodbury and I in the right direction. (Thanks guys!) It was a chilly 23 degree morning that greeted me getting up. Ignoring the pleadings of my warm bed, I jumped in the truck and headed up to Pool 2. A nice short ride from Hastings, I was there in no time!

We picked up some cerimonial Backwoods cigars from SA and hit the River. We dumped the boat in and soon the sweet smell of two stroke oil filled the air from the 200 EFI, and the quiet purr of the kicker as they warmed up while Tom parked the truck. I readied rods as the first plan of attack was to hit some wing dams with hair jigs and plastics. As we putted out of the harbor it was evident that the flow is way down and the tell tale line of the wingies were barely evident on the surface. Our first stop yeilded no bites or activity and the info I had of a good sauger bite was really eating at me! I know how big these P2 saugers can get and the thought of catching them while trolling really got my mind going! So we did not give the pitching bite it’s proper due in my opinion. But I really needed to find a trolling bite.

I have an old highschool buddy coming over from Sweden with his 12 year old son and I really want to put them on fish. The original plan was to go to Mille Lacs, but weather, no moon and the travel time have me thinking this would be a great bite for them and take many pictures and memories back to Sweden with them. Saugers on P2, P3 and P4 are on a solid feeding binge now through ice up and beyond. Jigs (Remember Super Doo’s???) crank baits and three way rigs make fishing for them pretty easy. Once you find them, there are usually many of them. Try trolling, jigging and three-waying through them to find a trigger to get them going.

Pools 2,3 and 4 offer many long trolling rins for these fish. You can always find them near deep water with a rapid breakline close by to shallow flats. When bait is seen up higher in the water column, target areas that match the depth that you are seeing the bait. It seems that Tom and I identified a "Spot on the Spot" and we shortened up our runs and concentrated on that area that was producing. That really increased our frequency of fishing, I mean "Catching!"…but also gave a number of boats around us the chance to see what was going on! So we ended up getting pushed off our run and headed off in search of some other cooperative fish. We ran into Steve "Rootski" Root who spoke of some luck pitching to dams, as well as Jon Jordan. All in all a great day to be on the water while 2 million neighbors sat at home watching college football. I will take that trade any day for action like this! Good luck on the Rivers and Deer stands these next few weeks!