Mississippi River Pool 4 Fishing Report 10-25-06

The walleye and sauger fishing on pool 4 has been magnificent! The best part about it is I think the best is still yet to come . The fish are in their typical fall patterns right now. Sauger are hanging in the 12’ to 25’ depths and most of the better walleye in are being found in less than 12’ of water. Plastics have been on fire for my boat. I have fished with hair jigs, blade baits and the ol’ jig/minnow but plastics have predominately out produced any of the above baits in my boat on my last 2 outings.

My top producing baits for sauger have been purple/chartreuse tail ringworms, catalpa orange ringworms and paddle tails, an chartreuse pepper paddle tails and ringworms. Best color ringworms on the walleye have been chartreuse pepper, straight purple, purple/chartreuse tail and firecracker chartreuse tail. 3/16oz to 5/16oz precision heads in black, chartreuse/orange and sour apple have been best for my boat. The sour apple or black heads work best for me when coupled with the more natural colors like purple and firecracker. The orange/chartreuse heads have been dynamite with the catalpa orange and chartreuse pepper ringies and paddle tails. Look for the walleyes/saugers color preferences on plastics to slowly roll in to the more natural colors like oyster shell and pro-blue with a plain lead or black precision head for jig colors as the water continues to clean up. Right now I am surprised it is still stained as it is for this time of year.

If it’s Saugers your after, then now is the time. No telling how long the strong sauger bite will continue but like I stated above “I think the best is yet to come “. Dean at Everts Resort has the up to date info on the bite daily. Launching out of Everts will give you a running start on where the bite is going the strongest along with the best baits from the day prior.

Wednesday I shared my boat with Randy Schauer and his friend Fran. This was a trip that I had donated to the St. Jude’s Hospital fund raiser last Spring. Randy was the high bidder. We started our days casting a shallow rocky area before the sun was high in the sky with only a couple of fish to show. After the early morning bite proved to be a bust in the area I was in we headed to the dam area to get in on some of the sauger action . Things were very slow to start the day but once a few minor adjustments were made, we found a key area to concentrate on. Once a few fish were put in the boat we were able to pick the area apart boating 30 nice sauger in the 16”-20 “range during the morning hours with the best sauger, caught by Randy, measuring 22 ½” long . Catalpa orange ringworm did the trick to fool this big sauger in to the boat!

With plenty of fish catching action in the morning hours we spent the rest of the day probing the shallow waters along the rivers edge for some bigger walleyes. It didn’t take Fran long, maybe 7-8casts an he hooked in to a 23” eye . Randy wasn’t far behind boating a carbon copy of Fran’s fish in minutes. We continued to work over one little area that held good numbers of quality eyes on this day. We saw several walleyes in the 21“-23” class with eaters in the mix and one bigger fish that Randy is pictured here with . This was our biggest walleye of the day caught on a firecracker/chartreuse tail ringworm. The afternoon hours produced darn near a 3 man limit of walleyes . All the eyes were caught in less than 6’ of water with our biggest walleye in about 2’ of water right on the river bank. Thanks for spending a day in my boat guys! I am looking forward to future outings with the both of you

The fishing is good …………so get out and get fishing!

See ya on the river!