Mississippi River Pool 4 Walleye Report – 5/4/2005

And we FINALLY get one of the nastiest cold fronts I can ever remember…. behind us! For the last week we’ve been forced to fish in some of the coldest, windiest, flat out UGLIEST weather one will ever run into during late April – early May. The fishing has been tough to say the least with the numbers of fish coming to my boat on the low side. We still saw quality fish but fewer numbers than should be expected for the time of year. Water temps fell from a high of nearly 60 degrees 10 days ago down to a low of 48 – 49 degrees.

Today we broke free from the north winds and cold temps and actually got to fish on a day without 20 – 30 mph winds and no freezing sleet and snow!

The river is in great shape… no large debris to speak of and the water stage is falling rapidly. Visibility is "normal" for this time of year. Water temps are on the cold side of things starting out the AM at 49 degrees but they’ll climb quickly over the next couple of warm and sunny days and we should see the fish activity climb with the temps. We ended the day today with water temps just south of 53 degrees.

I fished with Mike Curry and his son today. It was his son’s 18th birthday and the goal was to get his son into a nice walleye or two and have a good time out on the water. I just cannot think of a more fun way for a father & son to spend a birthday than to be out fishing together on a warm and sunny day. We started the day switching back and forth from crankbaits and slowly trolling 3-ways and livebait into the current with a few shorties and 1 – 19" walleye to show for the first hour. One of the things that has my scratching my head is how poor the fishing has been on the main channel north of Red Wing since the cold front settled in. Areas that typically produce well for me at this time of year and at these water levels are producing little to nothing of late.

After checking my main channel spots with little to show we opted to scoot down towards the lake and hit some areas off the main channel to see if a change of locations might improve things.

BINGO! Deep side channels just up from the lake were holding fish… and the birthday boy didn’t waste time by putting a nice 22" – 23" fish in the boat. From this point on we opted to go with the 3-ways for the rest of the day and put the crankbait rods away. I would expect the crankbait bite to improve as water temps climb towards 60 degrees but for the last week or so the cranking bite has been pretty slow for my boat.

Working slowly upstream in 13′ – 18′ of water pulling crawlers was the ticket with our next pass producing a 30 1/8 inch DINOSAUR of a walleye that weighed in at 10 Lb 14 Oz. on a digital scale followed up about 5 minutes later by a 28.5" walleye that hit 9 lbs.. The "birthday boy" ended up being jonny on the spot on both occassions and landed a pair of walleyes that would make most seasoned walleye guys green with envy. Congrats young man! That walleye you landed is one of the largest post-spawn walleyes I’ve had in a couple years… it couldn’t have come at a better time or for a nicer young man! Good luck in college and with the remainder of your hockey season.

We ended that first pass with a 27" fish that Mike coaxed to the boat. A couple more fish, another 26" piggie about 45 minutes later and we had ourselves the makings of a day worth remembering!

We set up our 3-way rigs with a 4′ leader back from the 3-way and approximately a 9" dropper to a 1.5 oz. weight.

keeping the forward trolling speeds to a minimum was key and we concentrated on 16′ – 18′ of water for our best fish.

With the cold front of the DECADE behind us we can look forward to some incredible fishing on pool 4. We’ll start to see a more wide spread "numbers" bite down in the lake and in the river as well and the crankbait bite and the jig dragging bite in the side channels and backwaters will take off. If you’ve been holding off on getting over on the river with the family I’d suggest you start to make plans soon. By mid-may you can count on the bite being in full swing for walleye and the bass fishing, smallies specifically, should be on fire.

We’ll see ya’ on the river.