I’m still in recovery mode after our annual spring walleye fishing trip to Pool 4 out of Evert’s Resort. Recovering from a lack of sleep after fishing off and on through out the day and night while trying to hit the best bite available during our time there. Sleep deprivation was something we knew would be an issue by the time all was said and done. One thing I’m sure of though is that fishing on pool 4 is well worth losing a little sleep over.
Top honors for the week though go to the weather man. The biggest issue concerning the weather was making sure we put on plenty of sun screen. The weather was simply beautiful with only one day of strong winds. It was so nice out there on the river that fishing without gloves was not a problem even in the dark of night. The stars were definitely aligned for that kind of weather to land smack dead center around our week of fishing on pool 4.
My boat caught plenty of fish but we didn’t land any really big walleyes. If you wanted to catch a big fish, the place to be was in the back of John Schultz’s boat. Although John didn’t land a real big fish either, his skill at controlling his boat speed and position in the dark of the night certainly was a huge factor to those who did catch big fish.
Mark Meinholtz took top big fish honors for the week by catching two walleyes that were both larger than anything else the rest of us could muster. Mark was a passenger in the back of John’s boat on Tuesday evening and literally appeared to be out fishing everyone else out there combined. The rest of us were trying out best to duplicate what he was doing but in the end, our efforts were futile. The fish gods had decided this was to be Marks big night and no amount of effort on our part was going to change that. Both fish by the way are Marks personal best and they were both caught dragging a 3/32oz green tiger precision jig tipped with a chartreus pepper moxi. Tuesday night the fish definitely liked moxi’s the best but after that, the new Pulse-R’s from B’Fish’N Tackle ruled the night for the rest of the week.
Congratulations on those two beauties Mark.
Both fish were released unharmed as were all the fish in the photo’s included in this report.
Unlike in years past, finding a consistent daytime bite was a little tough for us. By no means am I an expert walleye angler here on pool 4 of the Mississippi river. This would be my 3rd trip to this part of the river and each time I hope to learn a little more about what works and where to fish. On those accounts, mission accomplished. But there is clearly still much to be learned on future trips.
We certainly caught plenty of fish, ate a bunch of them while we were there and even took a few home. But at times during the day, the fish appeared to just completely shut off. When that happened we headed for deeper water and went back to our back up plan of trolling stick baits on 3-ways or behind bottom bouncers for big saugers. In years past, this was as sure fire method as I’ve seen for catching big saugers. When that shut down for us, it quickly became obvious a new method of catching fish on pool 4 was needed.
The new method on this trip was dragging 5/8oz precision jigs tipped with ringworms in deep water during the middle of the day. We dragged both upstream and downstream and had success on big saugers going both directions. Jig colors didn’t seem to matter much but Fire-N-Ice ringworms were by far our best producer. The next best color was probably chartreuse/green core or purple/chart tail.
Dragging downstream resulted in crushing hits from pool 4’s big, fat saug dogs. Catching them while dragging upstream meant a good fight getting that fish close to the boat and then a hard, bull dogging battle to close that last 10′ if it was a big, fat sauger you intended to put in the boat for pictures before releasing them to catch another day. For me, battling a big sauger in 20+ feet of water is as much fun as catching a big walleye. I’m always impressed with how hard big saugers can fight all the way to the net.
On this trip we didn’t really spend a lot of time in our cabins but I would like to say thanks to Steve & Carrie at Evert’s Resort. We appreciate there willingness to make sure we had everything we needed while staying there. It looks as though the resort is in good hands once again which is great to know since our group plans on coming back
for years to come.
Pulse-R’s by the way worked great when dragging in shallow water. We dragged from dusk to 10:00pm at about .6-.8mph upstream and around 1.0-1.3mph downstream and caught fish on every color of Pulse-R we tried. The only color I didn’t have was oystershell and I know John caught fish using that color.
Great time, great camaraderie, great weather and great food!
Can’t wait to do it again next year!
What a week of fish and weather!
Good to see all you guys again…smiling!
I agree the resort is back in good hands. I had a great time this year although it was a tough bite for my boat. One nice thing about having so many good sticks around our crew is we work together to find what is working without their help I would have caught less fish for sure. I hope I never see another year that requires a 10 mile boat run to get to fish unless I get a bigger faster rig. On the last night there I got pushed off a spot by mosquitoes in mid March. I had three fish that were released too big to keep. I didn’t get a photo of any of them as we were too busy dealing with wind and whatnot. John found several good bites and saved the trip for us I think.
Looks like a great time! I love that 3rd pic in the report, that’s EATING it!
Well, another Red Wing week has come and gone. I look forward to this trip every year, starting about two days after I get home from the trip. As always, it was a great week at Evert’s. As was said by Joel and Kevin, Evert’s appears to once again be in good hands. Kudo’s to Steve for making sure we all had a good week.
I found this year’s bite to be a touch puzzling as I have never experienced water temps this high with little to no flow. As the water started to come up later in the week, things seemed to start getting a little closer to predictable. I never did find any quality walleye day bite. I would try a couple spots every day, and would eventually end up going back to fishing saugers so my boat partners could get their string tugged a bit. Pulling 3 ways put fish in the boat every day, with a lot of QUALITY saugers in the mix. They may not go 10 pounds, but a low 20s inch sauger puts up a top notch battle. Stick baits with blue seemed to be the top producer for my boat on the stick bait bite.
Another thing that worked for me was pulling flies. Growing up around Lake Winnebago, we did a lot of pulling flies in the river during the spring run, so I wanted to give that a shot on P4. Tied some bucktail flies on #2 aberdeen hooks as that was what I had, and was happy to see them catch fish. Orange bucktail with a gold tinsel core was my best fly.
The best tactic for walleyes for my boat was dragging, for a bit before sunset to long into the dark. As soon the sun hit the tree tops, the bite took off. Lots of smaller fish and a fair number of keepers could be caught until about an hour after sunset, and then it died off. The bites came much less frequently, but the big fish all came later in the night. The top four fish in my boat came from pretty much the same spot and came between 9 and 10 P.M. As the week wore on, it seemed the fish I was chasing got a little shallower every night. The good fish we got Saturday, along with a pig we lost, came from 2 feet of water or less by keeping the boat a touch deeper than that and pitching the bait up shallow, letting the forward movement of the boat swing the bait across the shallows as it dragged in behind the boat.
Hot dragging baits for me were the new BFT PULSE R, followed closely by the moxie. I started the week with four colors of Pulse R in the boat and burned through all but a couple firecrackers by the end of the week. My supplyies Chartreuse Pepper, Oystershell, and white were all exhausted by Saturday. Now that BFT Inventory is done, I will need to send in another order.
Here are some additional pictures to what Joel posted.
1. Quite possible the fattest 21″ walleye I have ever seen. 5 pounds 6 ounces.
2. A shot of how deep the fish were taking the cranks when the bite was really going
3. A super tanker of a 17 inch walleye.
4. Typical 3-way sauger
5. Nice 6+ pound fish
6. Big fish of the week. 9 pounds 3 ounces.
7. Phil’s biggest of the week. A hair under 7 pounds.
8. Sunset on the last night
Pic. #1 is I believe a Saugeye!?! An a nice one indeed
I never really looked at it that close. I did have one other fish in the boat that was for sure a saugeye, but didn’t take a picture of it. You may be right though. #1 does have that look to it. Do Saugeyes reproduce? It sure seemed to be full of eggs.
I don’t believe most hybrids of any species can reproduce.
That won’t stop them from trying though. They will certainly go through the spawning process but as I understand it, they’re just shooting blanks.
Great report Joel! The open water looks nice!
I was still fishin on the ice this past weekend, but after todays rain I think it’s time to get the boat ready
thanks for the feedback guys, it was great to see this place full and all the guys having a good time (and catchin fish). see ya next time…
The Madtown Invasion really has it going on.. Josh and I got to join in for a night/two of fishing and the last night the boys were right on the money including Josh and I in their honey hole… I never did get a good picture but it was fast and furious and some dandy eyes come to our boat with the BfishN Tackle Pulse-R..
Thanks Guys !! It was a blast seeing you all
Great job Joel!
The pool 4 fish are well fed.
I caught what I thought was a 6# sauger on Lake WI only to find out it was a saugeye. I talked to a DNR biologist friend who was in charge of the Rock River area where lots of saugers live. He told me a lot about saugers and saugeye. He said if there is any confusion when trying to tell if sauger or walleye it’s most likely a saugeye. The best thing to check are the spots on the dorsal and they should be well defined. My fish’s spots were blotches and had a faint thread of white on the tail fin.
They can reproduce but not as successfully as their parents. Here is a link to an interesting read about saugeye and reproduction.
http://www.walleyesinc.com/walleyeinc2/corey20021.html
Michael
Nice fish
It was great to see you guys and glad you had a great trip!
As I think back of all your trips in the past, you have experienced about as wide a rang of river conditions possible. But good fisherman adapt to what conditions are and good to see you guys havent lost your touch!
Kevin, nice of you to step aside this year and let someone else have a crack at the big fish title this year!
Great report Joel
Everts is back, really good news!
Step aside is a little off the mark. I’ve always made my gravy by fishing where others do not or later than others are willing. That plan didn’t work all that well this year. It does give me something to shoot for next year now doesn’t it. I also made the mistake of not having enough large stick baits that fish seemed to like better this year. A possession limit and some beautiful weather fit the bill nicely. We also had two gigantic fish fries with 80-90 peices of fish demolished by hungry anglers.
Great report. Fantastic fish.
Left out again.
Wasn’t it last year you could have been fishing out of your cabin?
There are no walleyes in any waters that are safe from you Joel, nice fish
Good to see you again as well Dean. Even better to hear your happy with where your at concerning work & life in general.
I also enjoyed touching base with Dwight Schussman again who I haven’t seen in several years. Glad to hear you were catching fish as well. Would have loved to take advantage of the fishing tips you shared with me but I will be sure to put those tidbits of info to use in the future. Loved your new rig by the way!
BK – always good to see you again and chat.
Lots more people up there I would have liked to shoot the breeze with but our paths just didn’t cross as I was trying to maximize our time on the water.
Love your reports Boog!