Every once and a while, everything works like it is supposed to. The cranks run true, the fish jump into the boat with ease. This was one of those trips. LeRoy Carl of Hastings and I ventured out after work to cure a jinx that he thought was hanging over our heads.
He thought that for some reason, when he and I get together on Pool 3, the fish get lock jaw. I told him boldly "That is just not the case!" (Although, he has been hookset challenged lately!) I made a flippant remark about going out and getting him his biggest fish of his life. Yeah, right! Well…it happened! Just like last year, when I called his biggest catfish! I looked out of the corner of my eye, and saw his St. Croix rod tip crash waterward. I said something like "Whew!" He said it felt nice, so the boat dance was on! Reeling three other rods in, and trying to keep the boat into the 2.5 MPH current! It took two tries with the new Frabil net to boat this behemoth! She went 28" and 9.9 on the digital scale! By far the biggest Eye I have seen come out of Pool 3 in a long while! And yes, LeRoys biggest of his life!
We were pulling #5 Shad Raps into the current over old wing dams that had been silted over. We pulled about 8 fish between 16-21 inches before the big girl hit. I tried Power Pro on one of my trolling rods today, and I am now joining the ranks! It is awesome line! I can cast a #5 SR about 70 feet with PP, and about 25 with Fire Line. I like the way it spools up as well!
It was one of those days where it looked like a Hamm’s Beer comercial! Bright blue skies! We saw this father and son tandem in Buffalo Slough. Twice the little fella had fish on, but lost them at boatside! Bummer! The look on that poor kid’s face! Man! Fish were active there as well. We boated a few there, and then went in search of Piggies on the main channel. Current is still moving at a good clip, but water clarity is good. The fast water makes seeing seams in the current easy to spot and fish. I would guess that as soon as the water starts to drop, the wingies will turn on big!
Good luck this week and weekend! If I can help, drop me a line, and I will try to answer as many questions as I can.
Tuck
Wow!!! Nice fish Bud. Its fish like that, that keeps you coming back to the river, like as if a person needs a reason anyway.
Gotta love the river. 
Thanks for the report.
Thanks, Bill
Hey Chris
I like how that St. Croix sticker really shows up in the back round looks pretty slick almost looks like its on the water and not on that splash guard PRETTY COOL LOOKING
Nice Fish also man I wish I could get out there
Beautiful fish Chris! Great, refreshing report too! What range of depth where these fish in, especially that hog?!
John
That fish looks like it has the fall feed bag on. What a gut.
Nate, funny! We said the same thing! Maybe we should charge others to advertise there$$! The fish were in about 8 feet of water in sand to rock transitions. Like I mentioned, these were old wingies that created current seams. When you went over them with the Garmin 188, there was a shelf leading up to the wingie where the sand had silted them in.
We know of another Pool 3 River Rat who boated some other large fish in the area this weekend. We are waiting for the pictures! I hope there are some! You know who you are!
Tuck
That is a great fish
.
Congrats!!! That fish must have escaped from pool 4!LOL!
Sorry I missed your call.
congrats Leroy !!! Is it going on the wall ?
g
Wow, Great Fish. It looks from the picture that girl went back in the river. Another Great. Good to see some big fish getting hooked again.
Super fish LeRoy
Nice report Chris
That has gotta rock
dave
Sweet fish guys. No shortage of food for her!
Way to go Elroy boy, biggest walleye Huh?
She’s a dandy!!!
Tuck what do you mean on the second attempt of the new net
????? Oh I get it now….. on the 2nd try Leroy must of zapped the shock collar he had on you, to get you settled down and concetrating on netting his fish 
.
Great report and nice fish gentelman!
Tuck, you have the lucky charm in your boat this year! Keep that up so next time I get out with you we can just count on a pig. No pictures from me this weekend because I’m a dumb
and figured I wouldn’t do very good because of the recent weather. Man, you sure picked a nice night to be out. Congrats Leroy! That is one fat fish, hopefully it is a sign of things to come from Pool 3 this summer.
Bri
Just an aside to all of this, I have noticed a great shiner and shad hatch this year! I had said all of last year that North Lake would be in bad shape for the big crappies (My opinion) because of the lack of baitfish. Well, the last few weeks has shown a huge influx of baitfish in Pool 3. We have been watching gulls and terns diving like crazy! The fish ElRoy caught is living proof of how good they are eating! I am licking my chops for the wingies to heat up! I am also really impressed with the size of the saugers too! Brian, have you noticed this? We had two saugers in the 22″ range!
Tuck
Tuck,
Although I believe a huge bait fish population is great for the walleyes, I’m not so sure it’s great for the walleye fisherman. What’s your thoughts about this? With so much food available, I’d think it would make them less likely to take our baits. For example, Mille Lac had great fishing in during the summer of 2002 when the bait fish population was way down but last year fishing was much slower after the bait fish populations recovered. About four or five summers ago I found fishing on Pool 3 to be significantly below average and I attributed it to all the shad that were available. Shad were everywhere that summer.
Boone
Most of the saugers we have been getting have been fairly small, between 14-16″, but then all of the sudden you will catch a behemoth. We had two last week that were pushing 4 pounds. It’s like there is a decent number of an older year class. Boone, I think the baitfish thing can go either way. I think you need good baitfish hatches to have a good population of fish in the side channels and cuts (often places where there are shallow sand flats that the shiners love to hang around and spawn on), but a massive population can make things difficult. The RCL Championship held two falls ago saw a massive population of shad within the main channel during low water conditions. I think all of the baitfish congregated into the main river made for a real tough bite. It will be interesting to see how this summer turns out.
Boone, as Brian said, I think yes and no. Yes, there is a lot of food to chose from. But find the bait, and you will find the fish. What I did/do is vary my patterns from trolling straight into the current (Like every other bait fish in the river) to trolling at angles that would be unorthodox for bait, provoking strikes. I do catch less fish, but they are for the most part, higher quality. I won the RCL at Mille Lacs by doing the same thing. I targeted schools of perch and tulibee that were eating bugs. When I would pull out of the school, bigger than normal walleye were hitting the baits because they were doing something different from all the other fish in the school. Again, I am not a fish, but I used this theory going in, and so far on the River and Mille Lacs, it has been working for me.
Tuck
I’m fairly sure you smell a lot like a fish, Hooks…Bobber…Dman?? I’m sure these guys can verify! Crusty old river rats!
Nice fish!!! I’m gonna try P3 Saturday morning.
I’ll give ya old, but crusty I don’t know about.
Maybe a little burnt around the edges is a better description?