I have been doing double duty lately, chasing cats and walleye. My internal clock does not know which end it up! Let me start out by telling you what I am finding out about the condition of Pools 3&4. The forage base is very VERY high! For whatever reason, the shiner hatch this year was absolutely fantastic! You all may have heard me talk about the decline of baitfish in pool 3. (My observations only!) I went out on a limb (Big shock, I know!) and predicted that the crappie and pike bite would be terrible on North Lake last winter due to lack of shiners. Unfortunately, I was right! First time for everything! This year, I am predicting a banner year for fall and ice fishing in the pool 3 backwaters. Saturday night while catfishing, I scanned the top of the water with the spotlight, and we saw gazillions of shiners jumping out of the water. I even caught some by hand! In my opinion, we should se a great bite this fall and winter!
Got out and got a few Eyes during the week. I hit the usual spots along wing dam edges, and current seams. Nothing big, but numbers of 17-19" fish! No pics as my camera was lost for a couple of days! Found it right where I left it! Duh! Trolling #5 Jointed Shad Raps in Craw and Firetiger, as well as Nils Master’s in Chart/pink. Moving water was a must!
I got to get out with the kids, and my "Cattin’ Buddy" Tim Deiman from St. Paul Park. Tim is shown here speaking words of wisdom to two of my boys, Ben and Aaron. He was trying to convince them that bats were just "Rats with a pilot’s license." We had one nice fish around the 20 pound mark come unglued next to the boat. My 11 year old Aaron wresteld with the fish for a while. If we would have been more intent on landing the fish, we could have gotten it in the net, but we were having fun watch him fight it, or maybe vica versa!
Saturday night I was joined by Cwallerbass and ElRoy Carl for a night of smart talk, and satelite watching. Oh yeah, we fished for cats as well! I was lucky enough to land a couple of shorties that were nearly identical. Thanks to ElRoy for driving about 200 miles to get bait! We had a great night! It was good to get out!
Man, there’s no way I’m buying the 785 degree water temp!
Hopefully the backwaters pan out this winter. Sure can be fun down there.
Mark
Note to everyone going fishing with in the future. Bring black electrical tape and a pen cap.
Ha! Good one! Fixed it! Thanks!
Must be the Kelvin scale…..or the Tuckner scale.
On the Tuckner scale, all crappies would way 3 pounds!
I thought there were all three pounds anyway.
Shhhhh!
Hey, we met down there, didn’t we? A couple years ago? At the landing?
I talked to you on the ice a couple years ago at North Lake. You had a pail full of three pounders!
great post! Experiencing the same heavy forage base situation down here on pool 9. Mnnnows scattering all over when you pitch a bait. Believe the high forage density is the best excuse us fishing pros can use for a tough bite for the next few weeks.
Ol Koonce and me got out Tuesday morning and only boated about 8-9 short smallies fishing all my best spots,throwing our best confidence baits and truly fishing hard….nothing over maybe 13 inches.
Of course, Dave couldn’t leave the cell phone at the launch. It rang about every 10 minutes keeping him from fishing. Have ya ever fished with a parrot?
“Awk! B-Fish-N Tackle. This is Dave. Awk! Superdoos? Sure. Awk! How many do you want? Awk!”
“Awk! B-Fish-N Tackle. This is Dave! Awk! We got the paddletails. We got the paddletails.Awk!
Pahoo wanna cracker? Sheesh.