Mississippi River Upper Pool 4 Report 5-16-05

I was able to hit the river once in the middle of last week, and again on Sunday after a two week absence from the big river. Only if it was two weeks, it sure seemed to be a lot longer, then again, with the weather we have experienced over that time frame, it was good timing to be away.

Now, on with the upper pool 4 fishing! The middle of last week I shared my boat with Wayne Earland. Wayne and I started our day slow trolling 3-ways with crawlers and leeches with little success on the nicer fish. About noon we made the switch over to crank baits. The size of the catch increased a bit with cranks putting the couple of eaters and one nice 22” fish in the boat for us. The smaller 8” to 14” fish are seemingly abundant right now and keep the action moving right along but it can be frustrating pulling in 25 short fish on an outing and not being able to figure out why the better fish wouldn’t make a showing on this day. Wayne and I tried multiple presentations on this day. Dragging jigs, casting and trolling cranks along with 3-waying all got a shot at trying to pull some of those big mama’s out of the mighty river. All an angler can do on days like this is keep a positive mind-set while jumping spots knowing that someone is always catching big un’s somewhere. I enjoyed our day together Wayne and am sure it was a learning experience for you. I’m looking forward to our trip in November as I write.

On Sunday I shared my boat with good friend Steve Sherwood and his son Hank. The fishing was still not what it should be for this time of year but was a big improvement on the size of our catch on the trip I had in the middle of last week. We were fortunate enough to put a 2 man limit of eye’s in the boat with most of our catch running in the 15.5” to 18” range. We saw 3 better fish as well in the 21”-22” class along with the best fish of the day that Steve is picture with above just short of 7lbs. Hank’s pictured here as well with a couple of eaters that he brought to the boat. We swapped back an forth from cranks and 3-ways with bait. Cranks were much more productive for my boat on this day catching all of our 21” plus walleye except for one that was taken on a plain hook and crawler. Good fishing with the two of you again. See you soon I’m sure!

CD#5 Wally Divers, and #5 and #7 Shad Raps were our best cranks. Got bit on several different colors but anything with orange on it seemed to be preferred. Our best fish all came out of 5-7’ of water while trolling and 9-12’ while pulling 3-ways with bait. I fished rock on the main channel ,and wood in the side channels on this day with minimal results. Sandy areas with much less flow than the main river were what we focused on to get our fish.

I spoke to a couple other boats on the water that caught a fair number of bigger fish on Saturday………one of those I should have been there yesterday deals……….. The fishing is very day to day right now!

The colder temps we have seen in the last couple of weeks have not been in the fisherman’s favor giving all species a bit of lock-jaw . The white bass in the dam area are able to be caught but not in big numbers. The colder weather of last week saw anglers lodging at Everts Resort to head for home days earlier than planned with the not so great fishing and weather conditions. By looking at the forecast, that should all be about to change. Once we see some stable warm weather, the fish should really get the feed bag on an bite on more of a consistent basis. There’s one thing I’ve learned over the years and that’s the perfect cure for early to mid May lock-jaw is warmer weather!

See ya on the river!