5/20/04 Mississippi River Walleye Fishing Report

I’ve been guiding on Pool 4 much of the past week and the walleye and sauger bite is pretty solid for numbers of fish and there’s a decent number of big fish showing up as well.

I had the opportunity to fish with the Stanleys on Saturday; father Mark along with his two sons Matt & Morgan. Morgan is shown in our first photo with a DANDY 28" walleye he landed on a #5 firetiger shad rap and later released after this photo.

For the last 4 or 5 days I’ve been jumping around quite a bit on the upper end of pool 4 and on down into Lake Pepin. Three basic patterns have been working for my boat; rigging 3-ways & bait, dragging jigs & bait or trolling crankbaits.

We started Saturday slowly pulling 3-ways and bait around at the head of the lake in 4′ – 7′ of water producing good numbers of eater sized walleye & sauger, but the better fish eluded us. Boats nearby reported similar sized fish so it became quite obvious that a change in approach was in order if we were to get into a big fish or two. Leaving the head of the lake we snuck back into some side channel cuts off from the main channel and began pulling #5 shad raps around, over and through some of the flooded timber. It only took about 10 minutes or so for Morgan to stick the fish shown in the first photo above. This is Morgan’s largest walleye to date and since Morgan works for Normark – Rapala the fact that he caught it on a shad rap made him all the happier!

Trolling speeds have been much slower for me than in years past with the most productive range being right around 2.2 MPH. Much faster and I catch nothing. Any slower and all I do is feed the sheepies. I would imagine this is due to the cooler weather of late and water temps hanging around 60 degrees. Do look for the most productive trolling speeds to increase sharply once we get a stretch of warmer weather. The best colors for my boat have been firetiger on dark and covercast days and craw on sunny days.

Sunday I fished with Nathan and 9 year old Wyatt Huso. Young Wyatt is "all about the action" so a trip out onto Lake Pepin seemed to be in order knowing that we’d get into a good mix of walleye, sauger and white bass along with the always present sheepshead.

We started on the north end of Pepin, trolling along the WI side rip rap and rocks… but found NOTHING. No walleyes that is. After 2 passes w/o a keeper through a stretch of the lake that year after year kicks out impressive numbers of walleye this time of year it was time to go searching…. and we didn’t hit pay dirt until we got down south to the Rush River inlet when the pair shown above "doubled" us up. Both fish came on #5 jointed shad raps with the sauger going on the firetiger and the walleye taking a perch.

Still action here at the Rush was far from outstanding so we hopped a little further south, down to Maiden Rock… and then things started to click! Large numbers of fish could be graphed in 12′ – 13′ of water and we started picking up a fish or two a pass pulling the jointed raps at 2.0 MPH. Nothing huge mind you but solid 18" fish for the most part. Once the wind picked up those fish in 12′ vanished and we moved up into 7′ of water and found them again. In the shallower water, regular #5’s were the ticket and the bite picked up markedly with fish up to 22" showing up in the catch when the wind was hitting the rocks along this stretch. When the wind died, so did the catching.

With the real low spring water levels so far this season it would seem that the best lake bite is much further south at this time of year than is typical. Normally I would concentrate on the northern third of the lake but I found the best fish and the largest concentrations these last few days from Maiden Rock south to Stockholm on the WI side of things with some solid fish and good numbers of big saugers showing up along Hok Si La / Hanson’s Harbor.

Early this week I found myself back in the river north of the lake looking to get after a better big fish bite with Tuesday kicking out some rather exceptional numbers of nice 18" – 24" walleye. A few fish came early on the cranks, again pulled through the flooded timber in side cuts but this bite died with the calm sunny conditions of the day.

The solution to our slow crank bite woes was to slowly drift / drag light jigs and bait through deeper holes in these same areas. Most fish came from 4′ – 8′ of water and there was an unmistable preference for crawlers over anything else. On Tuesday, fishing with Brian Lyons and son Sean (Big & Little B here on IDA) we went through 11 dozen crawlers… and only had 3 or 4 sheepies or rough fish for the day. We did catch a few fish on leeches but those fish were the exception and ran smaller.

Lock & Dam # 3 – Everts Resort

The great White Bass bite is still taking place and the fish are running LARGE again this year with many 16" – 17" fish dominating the catches. Small hair jigs cast to rip rap areas with current are working well as are light 3-ways and minnows fish from an anchored boat on the sand.

Sheepshead are rampant along any rip rap and on the wingies. If you can get a bait past them, well, maybe you’d be able to catch a bass or walleye but they’re so thick and aggresive it makes fish these areas rather frustrating at times.

Very few walleyes have been reported caught north of Everts Resort over the past week. Good numbers of smallish saugers are still lingering in this area.

Everts Resort south to Lake Pepin

Excellent walleye and sauger action is being reported from the main channel as well as back waters and side cuts. Lead core and crankbaits is working well on the main channel as is 3-ways and livebait presentations. Off the main channel look for dragging jigs and longline trolling small diving cranks to produce better than average sized fish.

Lots of post-spawn whitebass are present in these areas. Cast a small twister tail or hair jig to visible eddies and shoreline structure and cover ground quickly to find active fish. Once found, catching them has been very easy.

Largemouth bass, some real HOGS have been coming from the back water lakes on spinnerbaits. Numbers of 3 – 4 Lb. fish have been reported and a fairly reliable rumor of a 7 lb bucketmouth is circulating. The best catches have been by those fishing spinnerbaits and buzz baits.

Lake Pepin

The bite at the north end of Pepin, excluding the bouy line which has been a consistent producer of smaller fish (also known as the cans), has been very inconsistent. Look further south on the lake for the better bite to be taking place with Maiden Rock, Hansons Harbor and Stockholm / Bogus Bay area putting out most of the best catches of late. If you’re not into trolling, I did catch a few saugers on hair jigs (black) tipped with leeches on Tuesday AM and have heard of similar reports from others.

Northerns, some rather large, are beginning to eat up cranks trolled by the walleye fisherman in the Rush River / Maiden Rock area with my boat catching 2 – 4 a day on accident. Many of these fish run 28 – 30 inches plus. For anyone interested in targeting these fish, try a magnum sized rattle trap or a spinnerbait.

Fishing Forecast…!

With the rains of late and some warmer weather I would expect anglers targeting walleye in the river near Red Wing to enjoy some fantastic and consistent fishing over the next 4 – 6 weeks or so. This is, right now… PRIME TIME!~

Click on Photos for Larger View