Mississippi River Pool 14, 11/10 Report

With a beautiful fall day in the making, I decided I had better hit the river! Our tailwater area will be closing for the season December 1st, so I decided to stay in the area of the dam for the day. It was a good decision! I invited my brother in law, Gerald Houston, to come join me after finding the fishing to be fast and fun! He joined me around 11:00 a.m., and within minutes I had this fat 21" walleye on a 3-way with jointed rapala in chartruese/pearl. I had been fishing since 8:30 and finding several eyes in the 20-27" protected slot, but had no camera man. Unfortunatley, this is the only photo I got on the water before my camera battery died on me. (doah!)

We worked 3 ways and cranks for bigger eyes, but most all the fish, both sauger and walleyes, where above eater size and had to be released. After switching to live bait on Dubuque rigs, with or without a floating head, we started picking up some nice eater saugers. Most of the saugers where coming on my dropper, a 3/4 oz Zone-R Nuckle ball jig tipped with either orange/bubblegum or chartruese/pepper ringworm. We had two doubles on the day with this set up, with the bigger fish coming on the dropper. This photo is of the 15-17" saugers we brought in for a meal. Many nicer saugers and walleyes where released throughout the day!

Along with the previously mentioned techniques, we put decent numbers of fish in the boat on jig/minnow and Super Do in Junebug or Chart/Pepper in 12-25′ of water. We also did well pitching K-Grubs in Firecracker, Pearl Blue S&P, and Firetiger on 1/4 to 3/8 oz. H2O jig into the shallow and dragging them off the drop along current breaks and shoreline drops. Along with the walleyes and saugers, we boated several nice white bass like the one pictured, as well as a 29" northern which destroyed my K-Grub! All in all, one of the best days of the fall!

With the water flow very high, concentrating the fish in more confined areas of current breaks and tight to shore, it is imperative to the continued riches of our fishery that we practice selective harvest and cpr. Let’s keep some for a meal and keep the bigger females in the system to replentish the fishery. I’ve observed a remarkable increase in the quality of the saugers over the past year, with just one year of restrictions in the dam area. If we continue to practice conciencious sportsmanship, we can have a tremendous quality fishery in the future!