Pool 4 report…Water level and action up!

If you read Dustin’s latest report(4-22) or fished pool 4 lately you already know the bite has been less than great. Well, the good news is that the water is on the rise and so is the fishing action.

I had the pleasure of fishing with a couple great guys from Michigan, Ken VanHolla and Jim Wilcheck,Tuesday and Wednesday. They have been following the website for some time and were ready to try casting jigs/plastics. We started up near the dam Tuesday evening working deeper transition areas from sand to gravel in 10-17′ of water. I set up the three of us with different colored jig/plastic combinations to see if a pattern would emerge. Ken set the hook on this dandy walleye not far into the drift.(click to enlarge)

We continued to drift and cast, picking up two nice Sauger and some whopper White Bass. The action we were getting started to attract several boats near us so I opted to cross over to and drift near the Wing Dams. The rising water was getting dirtier and we changed to the Pearl Chartreuse and Chartreuse Pepper Ringies and Kalin tails by BFishinTackle, 1/4oz NuckleBall& H2O jigs. The hits were very light and convinced Jim to abandon his Ugly Stick and try the Guide’s favorite 6’9" St. Croix MedLite XtraFast action rod.Jim got a hot hand quickly and boated a couple nice eating sized 17-18" Walleye.I want to add here that regardless of preferred brands, when the hits are subtle; a quality, sensitive, fast tapered graphite rod is essential. The guys also thanked me for suggesting a 6# High Visibility premium monofilament like Solar XT or Trilene Sensation. The thin diameter of the 6# allows the use of lighter jigs and more natural presentations.

Wednesday AM we were the first boat upriver at 6:00. The rain was light and steady but I felt good about the prospect of higher water flow improving the bite even more. The color leader so far was Chartreuse and we stuck with it to start the day. The White Bass now were really on a tear and just about hammering our plastics on every other cast. These "mongo" sized(13-16") critters are a Blast on light tackle and great table fare if you trim the reddish meat off or soak the fillets overnight and fry em crispy brown. The Walleye/Sauger action slowed near midday but we caught White Bass until we were ready for a hot lunch and lots of filleting to be done. I usually release walleyes the size of this one but He literally engulfed a new FinTech Purple Metallic NuckleBall/ChartPepper Kalin combo and was bleeding badly, so he will grace our dinner table Friday.

Wednesday evening provided great excitement! We did some vertical jigging/drifting along the wisconsin shoreline and had fairly steady action from all species on a beautiful evening. Ken suddenly set the hook into something BIG…bending his 7 foot ML St. Croix dramatically and peeling the 6# test line down river.Twenty minutes later I wrestled this 40" Flathead into the boat. What a fighting Cat! We took this picture and returned her to the deep. I caught a beautiful Golden Yellow Flathead cat(again on a jig/grub) as darkness fell on a great day on the beautiful Mississippi. The bite is improving with rising water levels…check this forum regularly or give Steve Vick a call at Evert’s resort www.in-depthangling.com/everts and GET FISHING!

for more details/info please send me a PM or email at [email protected]