Mississippi River Pool 4 3/16/13

After a long winter, which still doesn’t seem to want to go away, and not to many trips to pool 4 over the last year I have finally been able to put some time in on the river. I was able to spend a few days on the water this last weekend with a co-worker and good friend! After doing some research on flow and stage before our trip we had high hopes of what was to come, and we weren’t disappointed!

After spending the previous trips time dragging most all day we decided it was time to switch things up and do some pitching. Based on the flow and stage increasing over the last couple weeks I figured there would start to be a push of migrating fish coming up and also start to congregate the fish a little more than in the past weeks. Both proved to be true. Although the flow is not quite high enough to push all the fish out of the middle of the channel, there is just enough to create some underwater current breaks and also some small current seams. Both of those locations produced fish for us this weekend!

Although we got a push of fish with the slight increase in flow and decreased water clarity, I believe it was quite small and short lived. There will be more to come as the days get warmer and we get a little more water coming down. The best is yet to come!

This trip was decided to be a big fish hunting trip. With the thought of big fish moving up we focused are efforts on staging locations up and down the river and pitching to them. Most locations that produced fish were in 8 to 14 feet of water, with a few fish coming deeper, down to 20 feet. Sand was the most common bottom composition, but rocky bottoms were a close second.

Before we left we were able to stock up on some much needed plastics and blades. Anglers Guide HQ was our one stop shop for all the plastics and blades that we needed. Moxies, Pulse-R’s and blades were going to be our baits of choice and all produced fish. The colors for plastics that produced best were Gold Cracker, Firecracker/Chartreuse tail, Purple/Chartreuse tail and Chartreuse Pepper in both the Moxies and Pulse-R’s. Colors for blades were all over the place with fish coming on White, Firetiger, Black, Gold and even Red.

With the river to soon be changing daily don’t be afraid to change up your strategy and try something else. With the flow increasing and the clarity decreasing I can only see the bite getting better and more fish coming up river. If you haven’t already, it’s time to dust off the rods, re-spool those reels and get all your baits ordered because its game time!!

Until next time………………………