Mississippi River Pool 4 Report 4-20-06

Since my last report, the water has started to recede but has remained fairly clean. Thankfully we did not get the muddy mess that is sometimes associated with the higher water. The biggest change in the bite since my last report is the numbers of fish making it to the boat. The number have been on the low side but the quality of fish is still there. The walleye and sauger are moving around a lot right now with the water levels subsiding.

On Wednesday, I stuck with the casting game for the most part right away in the morning. It wasn’t long and the wind started to kick my . Trying to cast light jigs to subtle current breaks is difficult to do when you have a 20 MPH wind. The area I was targeting was a very small one, since I was not able to cast and maintain control of my jig drift I went vertical in 12’ to 16’ of water with a 1/4oz sour apple precision head and a firecracker/blue tail ringworm. Going vertical and controlling the speed of my jig with the boat did the trick. Best fish of the day was the above pictured 8.6lb eye followed by a 7.4lb eye. The other 2 walleye pictured were taken on the same set up, out of the same area before the wind really blew to the point of impossible to fish except for 3-way rigging, which I did not try. I was only able to boat 7 fish but the they were all quality fish.

With the water temps in the mid 50’s, an angler should be able to put together a good long lining crank bite on the smaller males with a good chance at a summo post spawn momma eye. The trolling bite would likely see better numbers than what I am doing right now with plastics but as long as I can still boat fish like the eye’s pictured here ……………. it is going to be very hard to get a jig rod out of my hands

3-way rigging bait over the next couple of weeks will be a big fish producer as well. With the higher water 3-way rigging the deeper current breaks that are next to impossible to target with a jig or trolling presentation is a great way to catch those big females on their way back down river.

Anglers fishing out of Everts Resort are reporting some good white bass action with success on some post spawn saugers in the dam area. Not sure on the numbers of fish these boats are seeing. I did find a white bass honey hole the other day. Now that I think about it, I did see Vandy (ReefRunner) on one of my white bass spots trying to hog um all out with cranks and rubbers………….. Hope your hands didn’t get to cut up by them squirrelly fish

That’s all for now. See ya’ on the river!