The much awaited tailwater opening saw my brother and I on the water well before sunrise. We worked a few sand and rock points pitching jigs early, and managed only a couple of small eyes, in the 13-15" range.
We decided to hit the tailwater predawn and beat the crowds. Within minutes, my brother landed a 26" female with an 1/8 oz. H2O jig and, of all things, a 5" Banjo Minnow! This fish was in 3′ of water in a tiny eddie, adjacent to very strong flowing water.
With no more takers, we moved out to the 20′ range to pick up a few eaters before the crowd arrived. By 7 a.m., we had four nice eater saugers like the one pictured in the livewell.
With our eaters in the well, most of which came on ringworms, we opted to troll some stick baits and Dubuque rigs in the "flats", looking for some better quality fish. It was slow going, although the meat guys where pulling large numbers of small fish. After much experimentation, we picked up this very fat 24"er on a Black and gold floating rapala, in 23′ of water.
With the quality fish hard to come by after the masses arrived, we headed downstream in search of some fun. Unfortunatley, we spent several hours searching sand and rock with very little success. We decided to head back to the dam in mid afternoon, and found the crowds had dwindled and the bite had slowed.
We found the hot bite after some effort, which was Green/Glitter superdos on black H2O jigs deadsticking the base of a drop in 23′. Six fish in less than 10 minutes, then the wind died, and the bite with it. This is one of the fish taken in that spree, with several fatter females in the 19-21" range also released.
All in all, it was a fun day on the water. Many jiggers who stuck it out at the dam brought home limits, and a few very nice slot fish where picked up, but overall the bite was not as good as it should be in weeks to come!
John:
All in all sounds like you boys had a good run of it!
I never made it out this week.
I was gonna go today, but my partner was a no-show this morning 
and I couldn’t find another in such short notice, so I went to work. 
I suppose I could have gone alone, but with no docks in yet, its nice to have the help launching and the company.
I suppose I’ll just be a good boy and hope my wife lets me out sometime in the next few weeks, but it will be hard since my mother-in-law is leaving on Monday. I don’t feel quite right leaving her at home with a newborn, a 6 year old and a 3 year old all day long. There will be other spring walleye runs in the future, even if I miss out in 2005…
Keep the reports coming! I know they help everyone out with techniques and places to try; not only that, they bring a smile to us shut-ins!
Regards,
Joe Jiacinto
Good going John! With this nice weather I’m compelled to work weekends
. Hopefully I’ll be able to get out Sunday 
. Glad to see you and your brother had a good day out there. I’ll talk to you later. 
John, what’s the water clarity up there?
Herb, it varied considerably, but on average I would say maybe 15″. Brighter colors where definetly the ticket fishing deep. Barges are starting to move so the water clarity will surely decline rapidly
.
Barges have been running here for a while now too. I had about 6 inches of clarity thursday.
Nice report John…good fishing plan!
Barges….phhtt!!….you can’t trust em….
great report John !!!Thanks for the info ,glad you guys could get out and had a good day.
i seen you when you and i guess your brother were fishing just below rudy south of the rock pile. must have been your second trip to the tail waters. i was with a guy in a flat bottom, no live well, no depth finder, no trolling motor, and very uncomfortable seats. when you got back the bite had slowed way down. i guess we must be part of the meat guys. cause we caught and kept 8 large saugers between 17″ & 18″. ooops 1 17″ eye too. of course i don’t care who you are, or who you are fishing the tailwaters with, you catch small fish. you throw them back like most do. we were doing the 3ways only, can’t jig too well when your trolling with a 15hp motor. we caught all those fish right in the midst of those meat guys, most were jigging. most keep those very small saugers……..which is a crime.
the dnr was watching i hear, he caught some guys with too many spoonbills. not sure which boat they were, there were 3 spoonbillin when we were there. 
i guess he didn’t know the diff between having 2 or 3. since 2 is the limit 
Sounds like you had a great day 3WAY. I spent a lot of years with nothing but a 15 horse and a 14′ semi-V, rock hard seats and still had a lot of fun! By “meat guys” I just meant those using live bait. I do a quite a bit of meat fishing myself.
I think when you saw us we had come back from the slough west of the flats. Went back in there and found fish, but they where big buffalo!
We went through our share of small fish in the flats as well. Can’t keep them little buggers off the line, but man do they smack hard sometimes!
I plan to head out for a while tommorrow. Hopefully there will be room for me to squeeze in!
What do you do with a spoonbill?
Do people eat them?
i’m pretty sure most smoke them guy. i have caught maybe 2 in my 100 years of walleye fishing
never kept one though, they were snaging them with huge weighted treble hooks. not my kind of fishing, seems cruel to me. when you get one on your jigging pole, hang on your in for a ride. if your line is strong enough your boat will follow. 
I believe they cook them in a smoker and eat them. Can’t say it would appeal to me
.
Finaly made it to Pool 14 for the first time Sat. morning. Weather was cold/ foggy and then windy, fishing was slow for us and most other boats. A 4 hour effort gave us 5 nice eaters to take home for the pan. We will be back to Pool 14; hope to see you out there some time.
good luck guy, not going today. need a day to catch up with home thingys. i am not a big fan of bumper boats john, during the week isn’t too bad but weekends are usually off limits for me. i took a fellow worker friday, we took a ride to the tail waters, first time i ever seen the ia. flats really flat i guess you would say. we counted 14 boats all jammed into the restricted area of the il. wall. i guess they were picking up lots of eyes or saugers. they can have that john, theres not much room between the wall and the current at the rollers as you know. i wanted to say hi wednesday, but we were never that close that i wouldn’t have had to hollar
its more fun like you say to hunt for those areas down stream. seems like there is always something new to learn about river fishing, it changes every day. one day your the windshield, the next day your the BUG! 
I hear you on that 3WAY. I spend more time being the bug, but love those windshield days
. As for the guys in the restricted area, too bad the DNR or water patrol was not out then. That really steams my bean when guys flagrantly break the law to get at those fish 
. I have had a couple times when I hold my boat right at the “don’t go past here” sign and cast up towards the auxillary lock. I start catching fish and next thing you know, there are boats bobbing around between me and the area I am casting. That has put me over the edge of being a friendly fisherman on more than one occasion 
. Next time you see me out there, give a big wave and I’ll buzz over and say hello 
.
Thanks for the report John. Sounds like you guys had fun.
Thanks, Bill
will do john. since i’m still off work, sounds like we might try some trolling cranks in the am. if it isn’t raining. my favorite thingy to do, just kick back and steer the boat. hopefully a blind eye or two will bump into the stick bait.
Maybe I’ll see ya out there. Taking my Uncle out for a while late morning. He has not walleye fished for 20 years, and is really chomping at the bit.
. Looked like it would easily have gone 10# or more.
We fished the dam today. Pretty slow bite by all accounts all day, but we managed to pull 7 saugers and 3 eyes on Dubuque rigs, and 5 or 6 more on Chartruese Glitter superdos. Kept four for the pan and released the rest. We sorted through a bunch more shorter fish on top of the 15 decent ones. We saw a real PIG of an eye brought to the surface, but the guy lost it right before the net
Good luck trolling, we may do some of that also.
John, is the discharge constant or up and down?
It has been pretty steady the since the 16th. That could change any time though.
Hey John,Hope you save a few of those fish for me,soon as I get over this flu bug and I can get out I’m going.I hope it’s before the big melt down James is sending are way.Thanks for the report. Rick,
John,my trolling plans got changed this morning, my partner brought his crappie buddy from the quad cities. i have never trolled with 3 guys in the boat, sounds like a disaster to me. so we stuck to the jigs. pretty fair fishing between 9 am & 10am. those guys were using hair jigs and minnows. i hate to admit it but they kick my
today in #’s caught. i did remind them the guy running the trolling motor is sometimes at a disadvantage fighting the wind and current. thats my story and i’m sticking to it. had a few decent saugers, a several short eyes. 4 nice fat slot female eyes. i didn’t get the #s today but held my own on the bait less ringys. that east wind we been having the last few days sucks. 
BEER is proof that god loves us & wants us to be happy. (B. Franklin)
Got out today with my uncle. He did pretty well for 75 year old in post cold front conditions! We boated around 20 fish in 5 hours, with a few good eaters in the mix.
Hot bait for the day was Dubuque rig with a Purple/pearl tail ringworm on the dropper and glow Phelps floater with minnow. About half the fish coming on each bait.
Bite was very light and slow, and the dropper had to be suspended slightly to feel the fish before they released.
Best depth for us today was 22-24′, moving in from 28+ feet. Fish where holding just off the main channel break, and wanted the bait coming up the break, no takers in any other direction.
Tough bite, but still a beautiful day on the water with great company!
3WAY, I msut have posted right after you. Sounds like we just missed the good bite. Got there around 10:00 I believe. We did find a couple slot fish down river I neglected to mention
. 3waying Rogues.
john, today would have been a better day to be at work. 3 of us again in boat jiggin. fished maybe 3hours till the wind really picked up
. nothing to brag about today, mostly short greenies and a few small saugers. did manage 3 between 16″ & 191/2. long 3 hours fightin that wind with a trolling motor and 3 guys catchin a few large rocks. i stuck to my guns with the no bait and h20 jigs with several color changes on the ringys. 
charteuse was the color of the day.