There is variety of things happening on pool 4 right now. Since my last report the water has risen over 3’ and is expected to rise another 3’-4’ in the next week. Whether or not that prediction holds true is yet to be determined. The water clarity is down to right around 4”-6”. An educated guess would leave me to believe the water clarity will continue to suffer as the water keeps rising.
What about the fishing you ask? Well the walleye/sauger bite has yet to be a free for all that’s for sure. The bite has been very day to day with one day being a banner day seeing good numbers and the next with lower numbers but the quality is there. There has been no consistency on the walleye/sauger bite but I guess that’s why they call it fishing. With the water levels jumping around like they are right now I expect the bite to remain spotty from day to day due to the lack of fish location. Those eyes are on the move daily right now trying to survive an spawn successfully. Your biggest daily challenge is finding them. If your out there having a slow day, just remembering that “someone somewhere, is always catching fish”. This phrase will keep you in high hopes and in the hunt.
I was fortunate enough to get on the water 3 days last week 
. And as always when you spend 3 days on the water you will have a good day, a fair day, and a slow day. Just the way things were intended to be I guess. Wednesday I shared my boat with Doral, Horace, and Horace JR.. The day began with us casting to some shallow sand in 3-12’ of water. The morning bite was good for the father of the 2 boys. Horace was putting on a clinic boating darn near the first 10 fish. Way to show us how it’s done. The magic bait for him was a purple/chartreuse tail ring worm on a plain lead 3/16oz precision head. Once we had a nice mess of eaters in the box we headed off to explore some of the areas I tend to run in to bigger fish this time of year. We only boated 2 more fish on this day after 9:30am but one of them was a dandy topping the scale right at 10lbs. This fish was caught on tequila sunrise ringworm with a black 3/16oz precision head in 4‘ of water. This has always been a good color for me one the water clarity starts to suffer from the Spring run off. I would personally like to thank Horace JR for showing me how to fish a jig an minnow combo by trolling your presentation in to the river off from the bank during the slow time of the day…………..! Inside joke but Horace knows what it means 
As always, it was great fishing with you guys again. Hope to do it again 
Last Friday the bite was better for numbers. I fished I fished with Jim, Fred and Wendell. This day was looked at to be more of a numbers day and just trying to keep the action going. So we spent the day vertical jigging looking too keep the action going. By days end we had a nice 3 man limit of walleye and sauger with a couple of over 20” fish that we released. Best bait by days end was that darn purple/chartreuse tail ringworm jigged on a plain lead colored head. 5/16 or 3/8oz were the jig sizes, we targeted current edges in the 10’ to 16’ range to get our fish. It was good to fish with you again Jim. Get with me on the Date we talked about in November.
Saturday would be the slow day out of the 3 for my boat. This was yet another attempt to just keep the action going. I never did cast a jig on this day 
. Even though myself and Joe an Jack tried to keep the action going the fish had something else in mind…………lock Jaw that is! The day was spent jumping around trying to find active fish in areas that I was able to jig in with the water conditions we were presented with. I attribute the slower bite on Saturday to the stage and flow swiftly on the rise. This had those fish moving around all day. We were only able to boat 8 eaters in the 15” to 19” range by trips end at 3:30, half sauger, half walleye. We did have 2 release fish for the day, a fat 22” female eye and another female eye that hit the scales at 9.9lbs out of the same spot in the late morning hours. The 2 better fish came out of 9‘-13‘ of water. Big fish of the day came on a 3/8oz chartreuse/orange precision head tipped with a pro-blue paddle tail. The rest of our fish on this day came on a purple/chartreuse tail ringworm with a plain lead colored head. It was good fishing with you guys. I’ll see you again this fall!
I had Dean from Everts Resort in the boat one afternoon last week. We were searching out some virgin water in hopes of walleye gold but that didn’t happen on this treasure hunt. We were fortunate to get in to a bunch of nice smallies for s short time. Pro-blue ringies is what they wanted, or at least what they opted for at this particular time. They were bass so I suppose we could have just thrown anything out there and we would have got um . No hate mail Please! 
Take a Joke!
In the next week, keep an eye out for floating debris and dead heads. Lets hope the water stays fairly clean over the next couple of weeks. Look for areas with slower moving water to hold the most fish with the high water.
That’s all for now, see ya’ on the river! 
Now that is the most beautiful fish in your report. A TRUE P4 piggie
Dustin,
I don’t recall ever giving it a whirl with waters on the rise like they are. What sort of areas would you suggest keying in on?
I am hoping to make my one visit to the river this Spring tomorrow.
Thanks for any help!
Jim
Jim,
Right now your best bet is going to be keying in on shoreline eddies and other visible current breaks along the rivers edge.You can either cast or vertical jig these areas.
Try what Dustin suggests ,the shoreline eddies produced a fat 5lber for me on a slow Saturday.She was caught on a orange spinner with yellow beads and yellow hook and minnow,cast in to shore and back troll out. 2ft leader and 5/16th egg sinker. Something different KD.
Hey DUSTIN (I got it right this time)
great report. I hope to say hi someday, and maybe even share some boat time together. Great reports and photos.
Dustin,
Thanks, I’ll let ya know if I have success. Otherwise, we can assume my time was better spent waiting for the streams to subside!LOL
Jim
WOW nice fish.
Dustin, Nice fish, I would like to thank you for the info.
It helps guys make the best of a day on the water. I know several guys maybe only get out once or twice this time of year.
thanks dustin…and a couple of pigs!
Nice fish and report Dustin
Nice fish dustin.
Great looking fish Dustin
Even the slower days on Pool 4 are better than most on other pools. Dustin did those smallie come on ringies also? Again super report 
Those are some nice fish Dustin, It looked like you guys were having a good time out there Saturday
for someone like myself who is realitivly new to the mississippi way of fishing, i would like to know more about how the flows work. when you click on the links about the flows, how do i use this information. what size numbers indicate high and low flows? how does this affect fish patterns of all species? does certain flows make the fish sit in front of a wing dam vs. behind it? does certain speeds of flow indicate good or bad fishing? i myself just want to become a better fisherman on the river and by hopefully understanding the river better will help me do this. since i grew up on lakes, i never had flows or currents to take into account for changing fish patterns. this will definatly puzzle me for some time till i get it figured out. any information would be great. i know there is a wealth of knowledge and understanding about the river by people on this site and i just want to tap into that resource. i am living her now so i have to come to terms that my lake styles will need to be changed in order to increase my catches
i thought i would post this weekends fishing reports from 5a
with all the rain the river was a battle to fish and limited places to fish. the flow was up somewhere around 50-60,000 during the weekend. ended up with around 25-30 saugers for 3 guys on saturday. sunday ended up with about 15-20 sauger for the same 3 guys and monday only 1 sauger for 3 hours of fishing for 2 guys. we also ened up with only 3 walleyes. all fish were released. the elements were far from hospitable. betwen the rain, wind, and flow, not to mention all the changing weather patterns, i felt like we did pretty good. it didnt look like many other people were catching any big numbers or sizes.
did not really have one specific color or presentation the worked the best. all colors were used of gumball jigs, lindy rigs with plain hook also worked. fatheads were use with all. i tried some plastics for a short time without luck.
my questions…
1) on sunday they opened up the gates at the dam wide open. does anyone know how this effects the fishing? do the fish swim further up river when this happens? does it take some time for the fish to stack up at the dam again?
2) what recomentations do people have for how to fish the river when the flow is so fast? along with how, where do the fish tend to hang out with such fast currents?
3)did anyone else have any luck?
like i have said in other posts, i really want to understand the river and how changes effect the fish patterns. i dont want to know your fishing spots but what to look for when condtions change. thanks for any advice.
Hey lookin4fish,
You pose several good questions! Glad you asked, because I think a lot of us on here are curious about those same things……hopefully someone will enlighten us?
Just a quick reply here guys,as the guys have a tight fully booked guiding schedule this week.Not to even pretend to be as knowledgeable as they are,I think the answer in a nutshell,is to look for the current seams which in high water will typically move downstream and closer to shore.A visual look at the water will be obvious where the slack and the fast water meet.Hope this helps untill the guys have time to get back on the puter!
Its true that you will find lots of saugers and some eyes up by the dam, but I have had better luck downstream during high current and on seams and back flow pools. Lots of wing dams to work also in your area. FF
I can try to answer a few of those questions. A few years ago I was asking the same ones still do sometimes) and I’ve gotten a lot of good answers between this site (it was FTR then), fishing partners, and a LOT of time spent on the water.
First, the flow data is important. Look at the chart for the last year and you’ll get an idea of what high and low flow is. Winter flow (low) is in the neighborhood of 4,000-6,000 on pool 2 and 10,000-15,000 on pool 4 if I remember correctly.
Fish generally like moderate current, or rather they like to be close to it. Changes in the current mean changes in fish location. Low flow does typically bring them to the tips of wingdams and to prominent points on riprap, flats, etc. because that’s where the water is moving and where the food is. High flow pushes them up against shore because the current is too stiff for them anywhere else. In my experience, high water tends to be boom or bust. When you find them, they can be stacked and aggresive … but they’re often tough to find. And they move around like crazy. I’ve had some awesome days on Pool 4 during high water, but I’ve had just as many (probably more) really tough ones.
Dean pointed out current seams because walleyes like sitting in slower water next to faster water. I suppose it’s like a buffet line: they get to sit in the slow water and the food flows past them in the fast water.
When the gates open up the effect is an increase in current, which generally pushes fish towards shore because there are more and better current breaks there. The boats follow, and that’s why you see so many people lined up alone the shoreline when the water is high. There are plenty of subsurface current breaks, too, like clam beds, logs, etc. They’re generally easier to find and fish during lower water, but that doesn’t mean the fish aren’t on them.
That ain’t everything and I’m sure that other people will have additional advice. I hope it helps!
i really appreciate taking the time to give tips. this is the exact info i am looking for. i never want peoples fishin hole, i would rather find them on my own and i hate going were all the other boats are. you dont learn anything that way. thanks again and if there are more tips, keep them coming.
thanks again
wade
Hello everyone,
Just wondering if anyone has been to pool 4 withing the past two days. I was planning on going there saturday or sunday. I just want to know what the water levels are and clarity. Also if anyone is catching fish, size, numbers etc. All information will be good. thanks for the help
Jordan
I see the IDA tour is going on this weekend at everts. Wish luck to all. I’ll be down there, although will not be fishing the tourney. Have Fun.
Chad
IDA Walleye Tour Cancelled
These two Tournaments [seperate tournament each day] will be taking place on pool 4 this weekend.
River Rat Classic