Upper Pool 4 Fishing Report – Big ‘Eye Bonanza!

This report should really get the attention of those fishing in the FREE IDA Fishing Tournament on Saturday – the walleyes are on a TEAR on the Upper stretches of Pool 4 right now! The numbers are excellent and good numbers of larger fish are making it to the boat as well. Those participating in the IDA Tournament or taking out a kid fishing during the ARM event on Friday should see good action with the chance to put a trophy ‘eye in the boat. Pulling crankbaits, rigging livebait and fishing bait on jigs have all been productive methods but fishing light jigs and live bait has been the best for my boat.

Earlier this spring and into the summer www.wellmanmortgage.com was offering a FREE guide trip to any customer purchasing a mortgage. Mike "Suzuki" Yaeger, a long-time visitor to the website, had one of these complimentary guide trips coming from Wellman Mortgage and chose to fish with me on Pool 4 of the Mississippi River. He shared his trip for 2 with another Mike… Mike "Crossin Eyes" Lee and both guys expressed an interest in targeting larger walleye as neither was interested in keeping any fish to eat.

For more info on this promotion with Wellman Mortgage, click here >>> FREE Guide Trip Offer from Wellman Mortgage

Trips where we target big fish over numbers are always an extra challenge but one that can yeild wonderful results when conditions are right. But on Wednesday things didn’t start off as planned. A strong storm from moved through the Red Wing area right as we were scheduled to launch the boat forcing us to call an hour and fifteen minute rain delay. Strong lightning and thunder boomed throughout the river valleye and I was more than a little worried that the front would put down the fish and I’d be stuck chasing after walleyes with lock jaw! I told the guys that we’d been doing VERY well on recent trips during the warm weather right in the middle of the day with the sun high over head and if the sun did pop back out I felt we’d see some good fishing.

For the first couple hours the clouds lingered and the fishing was slow. We had 4 fish in the first couple hours… one that would have hit 23" and 3 other 17" – 18" fish. The bites we did get were very lethargic and we converted very few of the bites we were getting into solid hook ups. Until the sun popped out!

Once the sun came out the fishing steadily improved until things absolutely busted loose around 1 PM. The hotter and more humid it got, the better the fishing was. Suzuki is shown in the 1st and 4th photos with a pair of PIG ‘eyes that fell to a jig and leech combo. Crossin Eyes is in the 2nd and 3rd photos with his contributions… also caught on jig and leech. All fish were caught in 9’ of water in the backwaters. These fish fought so intensely that the guys swore each fish was a big channel cat! Numbers caught were excellent with 6 fish over 24" for the afternoon and we could have easily kept a 3 man limit of eaters had we been keeping any "under 20 inch" fish for a meal. Average size was awesome with another half dozen fish in the 20" – 23" range landed as well. I’m not sure how much longer this bite will last but most years we see things continue to run strong well into August. Thanks for fishing with me "Mikes." It was a hoot and hope to do it again soon!

On another note…

We still need a few boats for the ARM event to be held out of Everts Resort on Friday, July 22nd. Please check out the ARM forum or General Discussion forums for recent posts covering this event. It’s for an excellent cause… getting kids involved in fishing! We need your help to make this day a success.

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