Mississippi River Pool 4 @ Red Wing, MN Fishing Report 4/11/04

Some of the major changes this week on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River include steadily falling water levels and the appearance of some of the first POST-spawn fish caught on the river near Red Wing, MN in 2004.

Water levels have been steadily dropping and the cooler weather has seemingly slowed the walleye spawn that seemed to be on the verge of taking place last week. As of Saturday PM, I had neither caught myself or heard of a credible report of a POST-SPAWN walleye but we can’t be more than a few days away from that taking place. Middle of last week the saugers had begun their spawn with a few post spawn females showing up in the catches and by Saturday, approximately 30 – 40 percent of the fish we caught where post-spawn females.

The water is dropping steadily now and there is little debris of any size present in the water. Clarity is VERY good for this time of year so visibility is NOT an issue at this time. Water temps have been in the low 40’s for quite some time now and have basically been below 46 degrees whenever I have checked it.

I had the pleasure of fishing with Jim Tate, store dept. manager with the Scheels chain of sporting goods store and his step son, Dana Andrews. Both Jim and Dana are regulars on the river this time of the year as they spend most weekends from early March through April chasing walleye and saugers on pool 4. We got together on a guide trip to introduce some new ideas on how to approach pre-spawn fish with plastics…. and Jim got us started off right with this dandy walleye, shown Top-Right, caught first thing in the AM on a Purple Silver Glitter / White Tail ringworm, a new color from BFT.

We started our morning on the shallow sand below the Lock and Dam, targeting our efforts on depths of 8 foot or less. In the hour or so we spent piggie hunting we only caught the one walleye Jim is shown holding and then we were off to our secondary spots in search of some action.

And action we found!

Jim, Dana and I dropped anchor on a current seam in 15 foot of water below a wingdam about the time the first little snow squall cut loose. Throughout the day from that point on we noticed that if it was snowing, we were POUNDING fish! During that first little 20 – 30 minute cloud burst, we caught fish on nearly every cast with ALL fish caught coming on either purple charteuse tail ringworms or chartreuse pepper ringworms fished on black 1/4 ounce heads. The most productive technique for us was to make a long cast downsteam and straight below the boat and then S-L-OOOOO-WLY drag these baits back upstream. Hits would come after the baits were lifted a few inches off the bottom and paused briefly for effect.

Over the next couple hours we boated about 15 fish, with the vast majority of them being 19 – 21 inch saugers with a few walleyes from 17 – 23 inches thrown in the mix. When the snow would stop, the fishing would slow down from the hectic pace we were seeing to a more typical pace of one solid fish every 15 minutes or so.

In this third photo, Jim Tate is shown with one of the typical saugers coming to the boat on this day. Notice this fat mama sauger is still in pre-spawn, heavily laden with eggs. We caught post-spawn and pre-spawn saugers from the same spot all day long but if my memory serves me, we never did catch a single male that was noticeably milting.

This last photo does a good job of detailing the weight and mass lost by a female sauger during the spawn! This dandy sauger caught and held here by Dana Andrews, a touch over 20 inches in length, had just finished spawning as it had a small quantity of eggs still dribbling from her vent and collecting on her sides during this photo. In comparison to the fish held above by Jim Tate, this sauger is little more than a skinny tube!

With the spawn likely to be in high gear by the end of the week, anglers should begin to expand their search area downsteam and away from the north end of the river and back down towards Lake Pepin. If we get some heavy rains, fish will hold in the river longer than they will if the river continues to drop at its current pace. I would expect the males to really go on a tear as soon as we see a move in the water temps towards the upper 40’s as is typical this time of year and we should still be seeing the fat pre-spawners for awhile yet as not all of the fish spawn at the same time.

I love high water on the river so here’s me praying for rain! :angel:

All images can be clicked on for a larger view!