Pool 6/7: finding current = finding everything

I’ll need to preface this report as a kudos to Bret Clark for his earlier report on Pool 8. The river is at the low end of the spectrum for water flow, and one may have to run-n-gun a lot of spots to find any concentration of fish. So as more of a continuation of Bret’s advice, here’s a few things I found while chasing multiple species on pools 6 & 7.

Joined by my brother Ted and friend Scott Hunter, we had two days to get the rods to bend as much as possible. Contrary to most fishing trips, my brother (awaiting a lung transplant) just needed to get outdoors and catch some fish. It didn’t matter the species so we were very open to any fish that was willing to give up some good entertainment. We hit the water and focused on the most distinct structure that would have any type of current – Wind Dams. That proved to be the most consistent areas holding bait, and every species of fish that wanted to eat.

Playing leap-frog on the Wing Dam tips quickly proved to be the fastest way to get bit. Boat positioning was a key factor in hitting the sweet spot. Regardless of walleyes, drum, pike, gar, cats….everything we found was located on the channel end of a wind dam before is fell off into the scour hole. Caution really needs to be observed when motoring around the dams in this low current. With next to no water flow the typical rise and disruption of the water’s surface isn’t all that obvious. In addition, many wing dams may be just beneath the surface and very eager to take a lower unit. As illustrated in my screen capture, (and I may add a near perfect drawing provided by Bret) is a typical wing dam end. Our best position was to hold the boat up current and fan cast the end of the dam.

An assortment of presentations produced well, but a couple stood out for us. First and foremost was casting and vertical jigging a 1/2oz Live Target Gizzard Shad. I know I’ve been bragging up these baits a lot in the last couple years, but it’s unbelievable how versatile I am finding them to be. Compared to other lipless baits, they have a different center of gravity and a unique ability to track extremely well in all presentations. By far, pitching them like blade baits and snapping them off the bottom triggered some very intense strikes from Walleyes to flatheads.

Second on our hottest presentations had to be pitching the blade baits. B Fish N Tackle’s B3 in pink, mud minnow, and gold kept Ted and Scott in non-stop action. Vertical jigging them at the top edges of the scour holes quickly had us into any feeding predator fish around. A tip on the pitching blades to the wing dams that my brother quickly learned was the importance of braid! He started with wanting to use his own rods and mono which led to a few donations. After making the switch to one of my Quantum Smoke rods and braid, he immediately became a Master of Sheepshead. Having the ability to distinguish the difference in a fish and snag really changed things around for him.

Our final clean-up method was B Fish N Tackle paddle tails. The low current allowed for 1/8th up to ¼ oz jigs to drag up current. On these two days, the fish had a preference of a bait moving up stream as opposed to falling down stream with the current. Color preferences changed frequently as did the lighting conditions. So as we alternated presentations, we also presented a variety of colors to let us know what the fish wanted.