Mississippi River Pool 4 Fishing Report 12-2-04

Since my last report a couple of weeks ago, the biggest change I have encountered has been being on the water during bright sunny days instead of those nice cloudy days I love to see this time of year. This past Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had to deal with those bright blue bird sunny days . The catch rate on the shallower fish is impacted greatly in these kinds of conditions. If you are a first timer when it comes to the “pitching shallow game“, I would highly suggest picking a cloud covered day to give it a go or fish just the peak times of sunrise and sunset for the best chance at the fish of a lifetime right now. This will boost your confidence levels using this application V.S grinding it out on an off day and maybe only boating a couple of fish during the off hours off this bite.

Right now the peak time for the better than average size walleye has been sunrise and sunset. I was able to boat fish right up on the banks until around 9:00am the past 3 days. After 9:00am things got down right tough going for good numbers until around 3:00pm, then the fish seem to put the feed bag on again. But with a few adjustments I was still able to get some action in the shallower depths during the down times with 5 to 8 fish in the 20” to 23” class making a showing on 2 of my 3 days on the river. Down sizing to 1/16oz jigs an fishing them "super slow" worked the magic to fool these nice eye’s in to biting during the off times. With the water temps in the upper to mid 30’ those walleye are not in the mood to chase a bait very fast, or very far when they are resting on a full stomach following the morning chew .

With the water clarity clear as it is now, my confidence colors in ringworms has been pro blue and oyster shell. I spent a lot of time by myself the last 3 days on the water. Having 2-3 rods rigged, each with a different color ringworm, allowed me to rotate colors every 2 or 3 casts. In return this helped me dramatically to narrow down the color selection quicker with out another stick in the boat. Once stumbling on to a favorable color for that particular time, I was able to capitalize on a few extra bites.

Ringworms were my best mid day baits but the 5” k-grubs rigged on a 3/16oz precision head from B-Fishin tackle were the ticket for those big mama eye’s come the peak times of dusk and dawn. Everts Resort manager Steve Vick joined me on Tuesday evening for the dusk bite. Steve definitely had the hot hand on this evening as you can see him in the pictures above with 2.…….dang near identical walleyes caught on a pearl blue s/p k-grub . One of these big eye’s hit the digital scale at 9.2lbs and the other was just shy of the 9lb mark. Nice fish Steve! Maybe next time you could let me catch one . These fish were caught 10 minutes apart in less than 5’ of water.

The sauger bite appears to still be going strong from the observation of boats in the channel around me. I saw plenty of action and a lot of bent rods from time to time. Boats 3-waying cranks and bait saw some good action as well as the jiggers using plastics, blade baits, and minnows. Talked to several guys back at the resort saying “the sauger bite was great“. A majority of the fish have been on the smaller side but a guy should be able to boat a nice 2-3 man limit of eaters.

That’s all for now. This will be my last report for at least a month. Good luck out there and save a few big eye’s for me on my next trip !

Pictures may be clicked on for larger view.

I’ll see ya on the river !