I was fortunate enough to get on the river twice since my last report 10 days ago. The fishing has still been a series of up and downs with the consistency of the bite being very sporadic. This past Sunday found my boat trolling cranks in the morning hours. Long line trolling CD #5 wally divers, #5 and #7shad raps was the game plan. I was only able to boat one 18” walleye, a bunch of shorties, and small white bass on cranks this day in the morning hours . In the afternoon hours I switched gears and started 3-waying crawlers and leeches. The 3-waying bite was slow but better than the crank bite on this day. I was able to put seven 17”-19” fish in the boat once switching over to the bait rigs slowly trolling up-river in 8‘-10‘ of water. Plain hooks rigged with a whole crawler was the ticket for me on this day. I never saw a legal fish make it to the boat on floaters this time around. No big fish on this day 
. Once the afternoon rolled around I was just happy to have some of those eaters make a showing 
The bite on Wednesdays trip of this week saw a complete turn around from the previous outing.. The numbers were still on the low side but the size of the eye’s was remarkable! This made for one heck of a day of walleye fishing for myself and Darwin Viker 
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Our day started trolling cranks along some of my favorite high water rip rap areas with only smallish white bass coming to the boat. After the rip rap bombed for us, we headed off to 3-way crawlers and leeches. We were focusing on a deep water current break in 15’ to 18’ of water, this little current break was about the size of my boat. It wasn’t long and we hooked in to the first, of what was to be a good number of big walleye’s on this day. The first walleye hit the digital scale at a whopping 9.5lbs. Darwin can be seen pictured below with that fish. This fish was taken on a plain hook an crawler. That was the first, and last fish to be caught on a crawler this day. The rest of our walleye’s over 6lbs were taken on leeches. Darwin and myself are both pictured here in the report with 4 of those big girls. The biggest fish, and another fish that weighed in just short of 9lbs at 8.8lbs will be pictured below.
From 7:30am to 11:30pm we had a blast 
! We caught a total of six walleye weighing between 6lbs to 9.5lbs. We only had 8 good bites in the duration of our trip but they were darn good ones. We had another two fish caught in the same are that are not pictured here. One of those eye’s weighed 5.4lbs and a 23” walleye that was as feisty as the rest of them. Darwin, it was great pleasure of mine to put another wonderful day of big walleye’s behind us. I never though we would top the trip we had this Spring. Looks like I have my work cut out for me on our future trips together 
Once our big fish bite dwindled we jumped from spot to spot in hopes of running in to another big school of hungry eye’s but it never happened. In the mid afternoon hours the wind picked up and switched directions. This made for a big weather change from the 2 days prior. Monday and Tuesday were very warm giving the river and lake the well needed sunshine to get things warmed up. The water temps have come up 10 degrees since I last reported 10 days ago and they are still not what they should be for this time of year. The weather for this weekend has overnight lows projected for the mid 40’s. I don’t look for the bite to be very stable or fast and furious until we get those warmer temps we have been holding out for.
I heard good reports from reliable sources that the trolling bite on the lake and fishing on the river was the best it had been in quite sometime on Monday and Tuesday of this week when the warmer temps were upon us. Groups staying at Everts Resort are getting a fair number of white bass in the dam area, at least they were in the early part of this week. Maybe Dean from Everts will chime in here and let us know if the cooler temps have effected that bite at all over the last 2 days.
That’s all for now. Hope everyone has a great holiday weekend!
See ya on the river!
Here is Darwin with the 9.5lber
. Notice the tail on this fish was not in very good shape. The fish as a whole was pretty beat up, but still a nice looking eye 
Here I am with the 8.8lber. Wish I knew the camera was going to go off………
or maybe this is how I normaly look and just havn’t noticed it yet 
Nice fish Dustin thanks for the report. I hope to make it back up sometime soon.
Congrat’s Dustin,
I’ve got some serious work to do now to qualify to get back on the bulletin board. 
You are my 5 yo son’s new hero. He had to have a pic of you with a big fish printed out to put on his bulletin board. Nice fish!
Clark
Nice catch Dustin. Thanks for the report. You look like you’re yawning,…must be nice to be ho hum about a fish like that !
hi Dustin,
I go out of town for a week, get back yesterday, and check Pool 4 Reports, and I find out that some things continue to NOT change:::: Dustin boating BIG Walleyes. Way to GO. Keep ’em pics coming. any Saug’s showing up???? Thanks Jack…
Great report Dustin, good to see you get out fishing.
Nice fish Dustin
! Great report 
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Congrats! I didnt know that when I took those pics that the camera had settings for comments regarding the guides appearence
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The falling temps havent been complete devastation on the bass bite but has slowed them down.The water levels are staying consistant the last few days,everyone are catching fish,just not huge numbers.Our regular campers are starting to bring in repectable catfish as well.In summary,it is getting better
Nice fish, Dustin. Can you explain the 3-way crawler and leech setups you use? I’m really curious about the leader lengths and how you’re hooking the crawlers. Thanks!
John
Clark,
That’s a nice thing to hear but I’m sure you will be back on the boy’s bulletin board in no time
Dan,
A walleye like that will put a smile on my face anyday. From now on I will smile the whole time a big walleye is being held in my hands to keep this from happening ever again
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See you on the river soon!
Thanks John! On an average day I use about a 6″ to 8″ drop to my weight and a 5-6′ snell to my hook. This day was an exceptiion because of the area we were fishing. The current break we were working was loaded with wood so we started with shorter leader lengts in the 3′ range and added a float above the hook. The float rig was not seeing the same results as a plain hook and bait, it wasn’t long and all the floats were cut off. Once we took the floats off the hook would sink to the bottom and get snagged on the 3′ leads. We went down to about a 1 1/2′ snell and a 4 inch drop to keep the hook out of the wood better.
I was using an aberdeen hook and threading the crawler up on to it bringing the hook point out just below the egg sack of the crawler. The leeches were just hooked once right below the sucker on the leech.
This particular spot was such a small area that we threw out the anchor and were casting the rigs off the side of the boat. We would slowly lift and drop the rigs trying to minimize the snags while they would slowly drift down river. We had to use 3/4oz sinkers to keep the bait moving at the right speed. I did try casting heavier weights down river and working them back to the boat but we saw no takers. The fish wanted those baits slowly drifting down river on this particular day.
I use the above 3-way rig set up in the summer months fishing bait on wingdams as well and it works great. Something for you to try on those pool 2 wingies when the eye’s are to deep to get at with a plain ol jig. Or the area is just to snag riden for just a plain jig
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Good job and good info. Thanks. Use your and the rest of the guides tips a lot. Don’t get out as much as I would like, but I start with you guys reports and go from there. Just a big thanks.
Great report Dustin and nice fish too. It is the time of year where live bait is the ticket one day and then they want cranks the next. It just takes us average guys a little longer to figure it out. I still haven’t figured out how to get the big ones to turn on like you do. I guess I better get my butt out there tomorrow and work on figuring it out. Thanks for the great report.
I obviously lost track of this thread, but I’m glad I found it! Thanks for the OUTSTANDING info, Dustin! I’m pretty good at catching eyes when it’s cold out, but my late spring/summer water tactics could use some work. I really appreciate the detailed explanation of the live bait rigs.
I’ll be giving them a try this weekend! 
Thanks again!
John