Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. The fish most certainly are jumpin’ out on Lake Pepin! This is a great time to hit the lake and enjoy very good to excellent numbers and to have a chance to tangle with a brute or two as well. So pass the lemonade, gas up the kicker motor, drop those cranks back and enjoy some summertime trolling action on Lake Pepin.
When I hit the launch at Pepin WI this afternoon, I was not impressed by the water conditions I found: 83-85 degree water and very poor clarity caused by a fairly substantial algae bloom. Not what I was hoping for, and a dramatic turn for the worse since I was last on the water about 10 days ago. Nevertheless, there are fish to be had on the lower end of the lake…LOTS OF THEM, and BIGGUNS TOO. Our big eyeball of the afternoon was the 28+”, 8 lb 2 oz beauty shown in the first pic. We crossed paths with her in 14 fow at the end of an expansize shallow flat, where just enough wind was coming in to ripple the water’s surface a bit. Like most really nice fish, she was at first confused with a snag, until I remarked to my partner Tim: “ok, I’ve got a problem, my snag just moved.” She finally came to the net with a single tine of the rear hook of a jointed red craw SR5 lightly embedded in her upper lip. A few quick picks and a momentary rest in my livewell, and back into the drink she went.
This trip found us working two areas within a 10-minute boat ride of Pepin. Nearly all of our bites came from edge-relating fish, with walleyes found near the top of breaks and saugers at the bottom or suspended off the sides. While my last trip found us working 8-12 foot flats, we spent most of our time working between 12 and 17 fow today. If we weren’t making S-turns over a breakine, we weren’t getting bit. This method produced very nice numbers of legal eyes and saugers today. The second picture features Tim showing off a couple of nice eyes that he picked up within 5 minutes and 50 yards of each other.
As is common on Pool 4, we also landed up a few representatives of “other” fish species, including a few ever-present white bass, and this big ol’ gator that hit the tape at 36+” and 12 lbs 8 oz. She tatooed a jointed hot perch SR5 in 12 fow as we were working our way out to a breakline that later produced sauger after sauger after sauger (after sauger after sauger!). Dustin, feel free to PM me for the coordinates of this sauger hotspot!
We didn’t have a single hot bait today, but rather all of our bites came on a small set of loud patterns: firetiger, red craw, and hot perch accounted for most of our fish. We picked up fish between 2.4 and 3.2 mph, with nearly all of our eyes coming on the fast end of that range. With the warm water temperatures, the key for us today was to pick off those fish that were coming out of deeper, cooler water to try to snarf a quick shallow meal. The bite was best for us between 5 and 8 with virtually nothing happening during the last hour of the day, presumably because of the poor water clarity. So, even if you can’t sneak away for a whole day, drop the boat in for an after-work outing….you’ll be able to get those rods a-bendin’, and you may have a chance to tangle with a Lake Pepin trophy!
Here is one of the many legal saugers we picked up today; this one turns out to be 18″. I literally lost count of the saugers after the first couple of hours. We picked up a bunch of these guys pulling leadcore in 15-17 fow. Jointed firetiger SR7 and jointed red craw SR5 accounted for many of these fiesty little guys. We also caught a surprising number of saugers that were suspended out over deep water, 30-40 yards off the breakline, running baits about 14 feet down in 17-20 fow. Lost one saugzilla at the boat due to a poor net job by yours truly, and had another suspended fish submerge a board before it finally came unbuttoned half way to the net.
Can’t beat that summertime Lake Pepin scenery!
Nice report Jason, I knew I should have went to Pepin instead of Island Lake yesterday. I’ll probably head down that way on Monday…I’ll have to get some pointers from ya.
Nice report. I can’t wait to get out there next week.
Great report, looks like a great time.
Thanks for the report Jason. Some beauty fish there!
Were you running boards or “regular” trolling?
Great Report, Thanks
We ran boards, did some flat-lining and also pulled leadcore. You can actually see a board that had gone limp in the pic with the big eye. Caught fish doing all 3, but when targeting those deeper fish we focused on lead.
Nice looking fish Jason!
I bet that was fun watching that nice fish hit on the board.
Porgy and Bess eh
Nice report, and fabulous pics, Jason. That had to be a very memorable evening
dave
You did that pic on purpose didn’t you Jason. Trying to keep me homesick for the lake aren’t you?
Thanks for the report and pics. VERY nice fish. 
I have my oldest son coming down Saturday to get out in the boat probably and I haven’t been on the lake yet this year. Been fishing other places instead. So the reports will help. 
Thanks.
Thanks, Bill
Nice complete report Jason. Sure would have liked to see a pic of a BIG Sauger…
You’ll get them next time.
thanks, Jack..
great report and pics. im hoping to get back down there tom (sun). hopefully will have some pics and a report to post upon my return. once again nice fish.
Eric
Eric: Did you make it out today?
I’ll be back at it on Monday or Tuesday of this week, but I’ll be leaving these lower lake fish alone. I need to find a bite on the upper half of the pool that I can hit during the Anglers as Role Models event on Friday.
My wife and I were out from 7am-noon jigging Lower Pepin and didn’t catch a walleye. Hammered the sheephead though, too bad they weren’t worth catching. Also caught a catfish and a carp. Wondering what we’re doing wrong. There were a good dozen boats out doing what looked like the same thing we were, not sure what they were catching though. Looked like they were catching a lot of sheephead too.
Here’s what we used. Jigged with orange, pink, yellow and red (trying anything). Orange seemed to be the color of choice for the sheephead. Jigged with crawlers and leaches. Fished all different ranges across the lower, tried the shallow flats of 10-12, tried going deeper in the channel too. Also tried trolling a little, but that wasn’t working either.
We also fished a couple wingdams just up from Slipperies, caught Sheephead there too.
Gave up and did some casting in the shade for Northerns and Bass, didn’t do well there either. Ended up with just a couple crappies as the catches of the day.
Wondering if anyone has any advice, hoping to head to that area again Friday night/Sat. morning and am hoping to do something that will be more effective.
Here’s a couple pics of Ol’ Miss that my wife took, since I don’t have any good pics from fishin’
Ok Last One
Thanks.
Hey there. Nice report on Lake Pepin. It peaked my interest in fishing the river which I’ve never done before. Mostly interested in walleyes and thought I’d try my hand at trolling with a variety of crank baits. Have read a few things about trolling with lead core but have never done that before either. I have questions. First of all, looking in my Cabela’s catalog I see they have lead core line in several weights. (12lb., up through 45lb.) What would be a good choice for trolling crankbaits for walleyes on the river. Or is lead core really necessary. Also curious about how deep an SR5 or SR7 will go at 2.4 to 3.2 mph using an 8 or 10 lb. mono vs. say a 12lb. lead core and at what distance from the boat. Is a line counter reel necessary or can a person be close enough by counting passes on the reel. I’m going to go try Lake Pepin sometime soon and could use the help. Thanks in advance for any info you could give me. Backtroller II
Well let me try to answer your questions: first, most guys including me use 18 lb leadcore. I use it on both line-counter reels and non-line counters. Some guys like to have the counter for lead but I don’t find it all that useful. When using lead, I usually let line out until I feel the bait ticking the bottom, then reel up a couple of cranks, drop the rod in a holder and go. The counter is useful if you want to get back to a precise distance, but since leadcore is colored (changes every 10 yards) you can get that reproducibility without the counter.
For non-leadcore trolling (with mono or superlines), I feel that linecounters are extremely beneficial. I wouldn’t go back to fishing without them. If you’re going to get serious about cranking, pick up a copy of “Precision Trolling”. It just came out in an 8th edition, so older 7th editions are really cheap! This book is filled with charts showing how far baits will dive on different line distances measured with line counters. I have my “trollers bible” all the time! If I’m working a 12 foot flat with a partner, I’ll run two baits to just tick the bottom, one to run a foot or so up, and one to run a foot or so higher. Once the fish tell me how deep they want the baits, I can very easily zero in on that depth. I’d have no way to get that depth spread or precision without the dive curves contained in precision trolling!
I hope that helps. Let us know if we can help in any other way! This is a good time to hit the river, lots of fish are strapping on the feedbag!
Any suggestions on how to catch the eyes without trolling? Not sure if we’re doing something completely wrong with what we’re using, since we’re catching pretty much all sheephead.
Any help much appreciated. Haven’t fished the Mississippi since I was kid.
Thanks!
Chad: Sorry you had a tough day out there. My first piece of advice is to play the wind, especially on Pepin. Before I ever leave home, I check the weather on the web to get wind speed and direction. I use wind direction to dictate my general spots. I always focus on areas where the wind is blowing in. So if the wind is from the south, I leave the MN shoreline alone and fish the WI side of the lake.
If you’re not going to troll cranks in the lake, I’d cover some water before I broke out the precision hardware. In other words, pull spinners with livebait or drift with some livebait rigs to cover some water and find an acive pod of fish. Then you can break out the jigs and work that pod until they quit. If you’re going to focus on the river, find some current and work areas adjacent to the flow. Eyes will look to rest in shallow areas next to moderate flow so they can dash out and grab a meal drifting past and then retreat to a low flow area. Wing dams are an obvious choice at this time of year. Of course, finding the right dam and the right spot on that dam can take some time. If you read Vandy’s new report, you may get a few pointers about how he is fishing the riverine portions of the pool right now. Hope that helps!
Hey there. Thanks so much for the reply and the info. Looking forward to trying the river soon. Backtroller II
Very Much Appreciated Response! I will check out the recent post on Pool 4 also.
Thanks for taking the time.
Fish are still bitin!
Nice fish Bud. Looks like you have them dialed in pretty good.
Thanks, Bill
Hey there. Just thought I’d let you know that I’m still working towards some fishing on pool #4. Spent some time at Thorne Bros. yesterday and got some more information on lead core trolling. Some very detailed information I might add. Bought some 18# lead core and some Fireline and now have two reels all spooled up with lead core and looking forward to a break in this heat to get out and try my luck. Wanted to thank you again for your reply to all my questions the other day. It really helped get me going. Now thinking about looking up a guide for a day to help further my education. Looking forward to your next report on pool #4 or other reports on that area. Take Care, Backtroller II