Mississippi River Pool 4 Fishing Report 3-16-06

Not much has changed for me on the last couple of outings. I am still seeing a majority of my better than average size walleye on shallow sand. The biggest change since my last report is that the water clarity is much more stained now than it has been. We only have about 18” of visibility right now vs. the 3’-4’ we have had all winter. The stained water is nice but let’s just hope all we have to worry about is stained water and not muddy water.

Vertical jigging in 15’ to 28’ of water has still been the best for numbers of nice fish in the 15” to 20” class with saugers being the majority on this bite. Reports from anglers launching out of Everts Resort have had some good catches over the last couple of days. On my last couple of trips I have stayed away from the vertical jig bite looking for some of those bigger pre-spawn females. All though I have not found some of the sumo mama walleyes, the fish I am getting have been running in the 19” to 24” range. Mixing it up has still been best for my boat. Kelly green hair jigs tipped with a minnow have been my overall best producer with firecracker and chartreuse pepper ringworms a close second. I have not been seeing big numbers of fish casting shallow sand, 12’ and less, but the quality has been what’s keeping me on this presentation.

The river is projected to steadily rise over the next week. With the dirtier water look for brighter color combinations on your baits to take precedence over the next couple of weeks. Brighter is not always the way to go but it is a great starting point.

Last Sunday I shared my boat with Tim Drexler. Tim was along for the ride helping me search out some new areas that were holding pre-spawn fish. All though the casting bite was very tough on this day we stuck it out with high hopes suckering a big female walleye in to biting. That we were unsuccessful in doing but did have some decent fish. Big fish honors for the day goes to Tim with this slimmer (Northern Pike) that topped the scale at a whopping 17lbs. This is the second biggest pike I have had in my boat on pool 4. A few years back Holst landed a 20lb pike in about the same area as Tim got this one. Tim and I both thought it was a snagged Carp but upon it surfacing we were very surprised to see the size of this fish. A couple of quick pics and back she went. Nice fish Tim. Maybe next time you’ll get a walleye that big:)! Wouldn’t that be nice ? Thanks for keeping me company on Sunday Tim .

The water temps were hovering in the upper 30’ last week this week they are back down to a dreary 33 degrees. Once we get some steady warming weather and some nice sunny days things should really get rolling for the “Spring Fling”on pool 4.

See ya on the River!