A Very Good Friday; March 25, Mississippi Pool 5

Friday, Jim Johnson of LaCrosse and I hit Pool 5 for some sand flat walleyes and a chance to try for some early smallies. Jim and I have fish 4 times this winter and the results have been less than spectacular. We had one OK day, a couple of real stinkers but we make up for it on Friday. We had somewhere around 25 walleyes in the 16-22” range. Jim had a dandy on that I should have got in the net but was to slow. That fish was well over 5 lbs. We had a half a dozen fish over 20 inches but the star of the show was the one and only smallie we caught. This fish measured 22 inches, was definitely over 5 lbs., and may weigh 6 pounds. She was my largest Mississippi River smallie, and possibly biggest ever. I’ve had a few off the Great Lakes that were in that size class. This fish came off the tip of a wing dam in about 12 FOW. The fish hit one of the new 3.5” Mimmic Minnows that Northland came out with this year. The wingdam is in an area I suspect fish use to over-winter. I’ve caught fish in area last March, but not in the same spot. I spent part of Wednesday looking around the area and took an 18 incher off the new location.

The walleyes and the northern in the photo all came off either wingdams, or the sand flats near the dams. Most of the fish came from 6-10 FOW by dragging light colored ring worms on 1/8 oz. unpainted jig heads. An interesting wrinkle was we took 3 fish on a Yamamoto 4” Senko’s. Think about it! We’ve heard a slow fall can be critical for Wing dam walleyes. A 4” Yum Dinger or 4” Senko is going to drop slowly with a very different attitude than plastic bait on a jig head. This may be worthy of future investigation.

The good news is spring is progressing in spite of the cold weather. On Wednesday we had bright sun shine and light winds. During the day I saw pods of shad just under the surface and watched gar come to the surface to pluck them off. All this with water temps at 40 degrees and the air temps in the same range.

The sun is finally high enough that its energy is fueling the change. Man is trying to help Mother Nature along. On Thursday the first tow attempted to break through Lake Pepins Ice. He was back on Friday and 2 tows were working the ice on Saturday. Unfortunately, they aren’t making a lot of progress. They seem to be bogged down at about Maple Springs. It’s going to take next weeks warmth and current to thin the ice. The tow in the picture has 2 1,600 HP engines running at full power and isn’t making much of a dent in the ice.

I was out at Alma briefly this morning and we are starting to see the changes due to the run-off. The flow is up and the water is starting to cloud up. The bite was tough but still managed four decent walleyes. One key this time of year is using scent. As the water clouds the fish have to switch from sight to all of there senses so a little “Lunker Dunk” helps the fish find your bait. It’s time for me to shift gears and devote the bulk of my time to bass. I suspect many of the back-waters will be ice free by next weekend and the bass will increase in activity. Be sure to check with Lee at the Main Channel Bait Shop for the walleye progress report.