The walleye bite on pool 4 over the last month has been very slow for overall numbers of walleye but the quality of the fish has, on occasion, been great. Over the course of the last couple of weeks my boat has caught walleye on several presentations. Dragging jigs, trolling cranks, casting cranks and vertical jigging or pitching hair jigs. Out of the above presentations casting hair jigs on rip rap areas has been best for the better than average size walleye. Best color has been Kelly Green and Purple a close second. With the very low flow we have on the river right now keying in on one certain current edge is not really an option because there is not enough current to school up good numbers of fish in one area. Now that the water temps have fallen in to the lower to mid 50’s, the walleye have the option to be very nomadic right now. A couple of months ago when we had very warm water temps in the high 70’s to low 80’s all you had to do is find areas with increased flow and the fish would be there to feed at one time or another. Right now there is plenty of oxygen and bait fish thru out the whole system for these big eyes to stage and feed where ever they please.
The bait fish population is phenomenal right now. Every where I go I see big schools of shad, in some areas the shad are so thick that my locator will not even give me a bottom reading. Right now we are experiencing a typical low flow high forage base bite. The numbers are on the low side but the quality of walleye that can be caught is very good. As always, when we see a very high forage base in the system, come early fall , hair jigs or casting cranks shallow are hard to out produce when the water temps are in the 50’s. I have only played with plastics a little bit on the last couple of trips. Hair has been hard to beat right now but the plastics will come in to there own in the next couple of weeks…………you can count on it 
!
On Wednesday I shared my boat with fellow IDA pool 4 staffer Lenny Jamison. Lenny and I spent the day casting hair jigs and cranks to some rip rap areas that can be very productive this time of year in low flow. By days end we not only had lots of fun, but a great catch of walleye to remember the day. Wednesday also got us pumped up for the fall pitching bite.
Lenny had the hot hand on this day bringing 3 walleye over 6lbs in to the boat with his two best fish right at 8lbs 
. On his second cast of the day his first fish was 23”. Lenny caught all his fish on Kelly Green and Purple buck-tails. My best fish of the day came casting a fire tiger #7 shad rap up on the bank. We also saw some low 20” eye’s, that I will post pictures of below and a couple of nice Pike, along with a slab crappie. Best depths for us were right on the bank down to about 12’. The fish that were caught right up on the banks were very aggressive and struck with a vengeance. The deeper fish were much more lethargic and felt more like a wet Kleenex bite. Lenny, it was great fishing with you. Last time we shared a boat together the fishing was very good as well. Might have to make this happen more often 
The walleye bite over the next couple of weeks will slowly get more consistent. Look for the bigger walleye to be very shallow in the coming weeks. If you are catching quality fish vertical jigging an area, chances are very good that the bigger fish are in the same vicinity but much shallower
That’s all for now…………….see ya on the river!
Here is Lenny again with a 23″ eye that was caught right on the bank.
Here I am with a nice 21″ eye. Purple hair jig did the trick
Here is Lenny with another 20″ fish
Lenny was lucky enough to tangle with this big pike and was not bitten off
. Made for a nice pic…….. 
Darn Pike 
We guessed this fish to be in the 15lb range.
Nice Crappie
Dustin/Lenny
1st I hope I can post a reply on this page
Great pics and report
I believe there is alot of us folks here that cant wait till the fall bite is hot .This tells me it will be real soon, unfortunately for me, Ive been sick (bad cold),so I have to wait for the nice days this fall,maybe sunday tho.
Again thanks for sharing your pics and great report
Jeff
Dustin, it was great to get out with you. I had a wonderful time and the fish cooperated nicely. I would have liked to have seen the big one that hung you up.
We’ll get out again real soon.
On a side note, remember guys you cannot fish jigs too slowly. All day I was giving the jig an aggressive twitch then just letting it lay on bottom. Most of the hits came after the jig was motionless for a while.
Great fish guys! Now you know what those big
Mille Lacs eyes will feel like in a couple weeks!
Nice report guys.Its good to see pool 4 starting to produce.Looking forward to putting the trolling rods away and doing some jigs
Great report and thanks for sharing your tactics. i have a couple questions if you dont mind.What size jig do you use for that depth . and do you guys anchor and cast upstream a little so it drifts down? i guess iam trying to figure out how you set up your boat for this and how slow you fish the area , ive been trying the casting to rip rap shores latlety but i have trouble keeping the boat and the jig on the same page so ican actualy fish an area effectivly i do ok with cranks cause all i have to do is cast out real in. also you say you were getting most of your bites while the jig was setting still how long do you leave it set?
We were using 3/16oz jigs.
Right now there is absoutely no current, the only way the boat will move is if the wind blows or if the trolling motor is being utilized.
With the low flow the best bet to fish a rip rap section is to slowly pull your boat up river parallel to the bank with the trolling motor and cast to shore. Work your jig down the rocks with a slow lift and let it fall back down on a tight line. Right now you can cast up river and work your jig back to the boat but once we get some flow we will cast slightly upriver or directly off to the side of the boat.
My anchor will only be used this time of year if I am fishing one little spot like a wingdam or a rock point.
thanks for the info that helps alot i fish pool 16 and the walleye fishing here is not realy that good , so you can be practicing bad habits and not realy know if you are doing somthing right, wrong, or there just isnt any fish there. thanks agin, iam going out sunday I am going to try this all day will let u know if it works for me.
Nice report Dustin and some damn nice looking fish also.
JWB
VERY nice fish guys. Thanks for the report and pics. Gotta love those hair jigs.
Thanks, Bill
Nice fish Dustin and Lenny, good to see someone’s catching fish, and some nice ones too! I’m finally back to the river tomorrow after a two week hiatus
See ya Saturday night.
Nice fish fellas! I’m jealous.
Jami
Nice fish.
Dustin, really nice fish!!!
Did you say the water temps are at 53-degrees?
Up on P2, the temps are still in the mid-60’s.
It time to go through the jig and plactics boxes and make that order to B-Fish-N to stock up for the fall plastics bite!!! I’m stoked!!!
Nice fish guys! It is getting that time of year again. Between the start of duck season and the walleye turning on, Oct. is going to be a busy month. I think Pool 4 will be seeing the Redneck clan in the near future!
Thanks for your expertise advice on Pool 4. My father and I did catch about 26 pounds of walleyes the 2 days before the tourney only to struggle the 2 days of the tourney. We attacked the rocks by the railroad tracks untill we found active fish and just couldnt find em when it counted. I pitched hair jigs and Pa casted shad raps. Blue on the cranks and brown/green or all oarnge on the hair.
Those of you who havent been to Everts Resort, Dean Marshall is a great guy and is very helpful, and all his staff that help him out were also great guys to just hang around. Thanks again guys great trip and I will be back soon. Dan Palmer
Martin, The air temps fell in to the high 30’s in some areas last Tuesday night. That really cooled the suface temps of the river. I am sure it was not the same temp thruout the water colum but that is the reading both my graphs gave me on Wednsday. The Corps of Engineers web site has the water temps listed in the low 60’s right now.
Your right, it won’t be long and the plastics bite will be going strong
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Your welcome Dan. It was good to meet you as well. Thanks for all the new gadgets to play with. I will put them thru the ringer for sure
.
Great report Dustin..when you say Pool 4, are you talking about down by Lake Pepin/Wabasha Area? Or up near Red Wing? I usually fish the Red Wing area, but have mainly concentrated from the Y down past the bridge in Red Wing. From the pictures, it looks like you might be in some backwater areas…Do you concentrate on the main channel areas this time of year, or do you branch into backwater locations? How far down from Red Wing are you going?
Welcome to IDA SCORE92
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Pool 4 runs from the Redwing dam down to the Alma dam. It is huge body of water.
The high bridge area can be fantastic this time of year and the Y area you speak of will be producing fish in the next month but it’s is early for that area.
This time of year main river and backwater areas all hold good numbers of walleye. We have back water areas with good trenches of 8′-12′ of water that will hold good numbers of eyes in to early November. Once the water temps fall in to the low to mid 40’s most all my time will be spent on the main channel of the river fishing feeding shelves adjacent to deep water.
The month of October can see good catches come from the dam area all the way in to the Pine creek area of Lake Pepin.
I hope that answers the questions that you have, if not ask away
Great report Dustin! And nice fish Lenny!
Dustin thanks for the great report. Do you tip the hair jigs with anything?
I will on ocassion but just plain hair has been working best for me
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I have some friends who are on pool 4 right now, They said they tried the main channel with no luck, and are now moving below the dam at Alma, if anyone has a fresh report that I can use to give them some directions, let me know, it is the second time there and they trael up from Kansas City. Nothing too specific, just depth and what to use, do you tip you hair jigs with a fathead? Thanks in advance.