I would have to say the bite on Pool 2 the last several days has been hot one day and luke warm at best the next. This past week I had the opportunity to fish at various times of the day. The lowlight periods are beginning to be the time to be on the water as we typically expect for this time of year. Mornings and evenings have been pretty consistent for producing fish. Every day is a bit different, but rest assured the lowlight periods now will put the odds in your favor.
This past week I had the chance to fish with the new BFT’s Blade baits that are hitting the market. These blades proved to me that they need to be added to your box of tricks for these river walleyes. I would most likely consider myself a “rookie” blade fisherman, but with a little help from Dean @ Everet’s Resort, he was able to share some of his insight with me on “how to” fish these things properly. I have been experimenting with these baits the last couple days and I have got the confidence under my belt now knowing that these blades do catch fish! Like I said, I would consider myself a rookie blade fisherman, but I like what I am seeing thus far. I have been fishing them a lot like fishing a ribworm or other type of plastic you like to pitch this time of year. The ¼ oz size has given me the ability to cover an area quickly and pick off the aggressive biters quickly before I spend some time throwing the plastics. It does take a little practice throwing these baits to wingdams, but after a little bit of time you quickly learn what you can and cannot do with the bait. I have beefed up my line a bit when throwing these blades to help get out of some of those hard rocky snags that exists on the dams. Lately, no one color has stood out better than others right now for me. I have been playing with the bright chartreuse and pink colors as of late as that is the only colors I have at the moment.
This past week, I was joined by a long time friend Ron Zimmermann. Ron and I played a little hooky from work and decided to take advantage of the light winds and tackle the river together. Our outings together have been long time overdue, so it was good to fish together again. Ron and I decided to run way south on Pool 2 to check out some spots that I have been meaning to check out. After a little digging around we started to slowly start putting a pattern together and the fish responded accordingly. The blade baits came in handy for locating the active fish upon arrival to a new spot. Ron and I jumped around all afternoon throwing a few casts here and a few casts there. The numbers at each spot were nothing to write home about but the quality sure made up for it, and by days end we had a good showing of numbers as well as some big fish to boot. One thing that has been very evident this fall on Pool 2 for my boat is the response we have been getting from the fish within 10 minutes of arriving at a new spot. Usually we either get a couple fish or get bit within the first handful of casts and then we might as well keep on moving to your next milk route spots.
The river has still been on fire one day and the next day you seem work twice as hard for less. All I can say is keep at it and start looking at putting some blade baits in your tackle boxes. These baits sure have made a believer out of me the past week.
I have been seeing a lot of posts here on IDA about wingdams and how do I find them and fish them. First off, dig around in the archives and do some searches on “wingdam fishing”. The search function is a very under utilized feature that will give you hours of reading and provide you with some very good start knowledge. With water levels low right now, it is very difficult to see the classic “ripple” on the water that you would expect to see. My advice would be to take a slow cautious drive overtop of these spots and watch your depth finder. I have been throwing a marker buoy out near the tops of the dams so myself and my customers included can cast to the spots with next to little guess work. Give it a try!
Until my next report, I would like to wish everyone here at IDA a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving week. Take Care and I will see you on the water!
Beautiful looking fish Steve,
That’s an excellent tip for marking the wingdams to have a reference point to cast to.
Have a great Thanksgiving
Nice fish, Steve. I’m chompin’ at the bit now. Hopefully there will still be a few willing biters after Thanksgiving!
John
Steve,
I see in your pictures that it was a cloudy day. I also noticed in Walzer’s report he had good success on a cloudy day. In fact Walzer caughht more walleyes in one day than I’ve caught all Fall added together. The last few times I’ve made it out, the weather was bright and sunny. As usual I caught my usual one Sheephead and no Walleyes at all
Is there a connection here to your comment about low light periods? In other words, sunny days would be poor times to be on the river right now?
Still confused and fishless….
Rootski
Great report. Nice size fish – excellent quality!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
As usual, beautiful and healthy looking fish there Steve.
Chunky and well fed!
Nice report.
JWB
As always, thanks for the info! We Rookies appreciate the help as we start to learn Pool 2.
Typically we see the river water clarity clear up this time of year, thus making the lowlight periods (mornings, evenings, overcast skies, sunny but windy) be better options for this time of year. The water clarity is stil not where it should be for this time of year but it is coming around. The construction up near the airport is surely not helping matters. With that in mind I do also start catering my color selection a bit as well to more natural colors versus the brighter contrast colors. Colors such as Cotton Candy, Oyster, Ozark Smoke, Firecracker, etc…. Purple and chartruese are always good colors to have in the back pocket when needed. 3/16th oz Precision Jigs is the size that I have been using the most day in and day out. I have started throwing 1/8th oz as well as of late.
Steve,
I might have a open seat for ya in the coming week or so if you want to hop in and we can try to tackle that pitching bite a bit?
Steve,
I have been seeing about the same results on pool 4 fish with the blade baits. Not on wingdams of course because we just don’t have a lot of them on the upper end of pool 4
. They have been good at picking up a fish or 2 right away on sand and rip rap for me but plastics have still taken a bulk of my catch.
Are most of your eye’s coming right on top/front face, or out in front of the wingdams on the sand?
I need to get up there for my November pool 2 outing with you. Pool 4 walleye bite has been sluggish but for those targeting saugers the bite has been very good.
Thanks Steve!
, but I always learn things from your reports 
The pictures were more than worth the reading
dave
Steve, thanks for the report and the pictures. I also like reading your reports since I can take something away from them each time and who doesn’t love to see the shots of those big girls. It gets the fishing urge going
Can’t wait to get up to P2 someday to try it out. You make it sound like there are plenty of wingies and riprap shorelines to go around. I wish we had some more of it on upper P4.
Thanks,
Chris
Steve awsome report. I am suppose to say hi to you from John Lohr. Also what do these blade baits look like and where could a rookie to river fishing find them? Thanks
Thanks for the report and pics Steve. VERY nice fish.
Thanks, Bill
erica,
You could get them at Evert’s, and I also think Dean would mail them, or you can click on the banner at the top of the page for B fish N tackle.
hope that helps.
Jack..
Steve, thanks for another great report. Great fish to boot!!
Erica,
when you see him. Tell him to bring his rods the next time he comes and visits the “in-laws”!
Give John a big
Jack hit it on the head.
You can give Dean a call at Everet’s resort for some blades. MAybe Dave Koonce or James Holst can chime in here on the forecast for the blade inventory.
Steve, Great report!
Thanks for our “playing hookie” time on Pool 2 and your right that is was overdue! You are right that we only caught a couple of fish or so per spot but by keeping active and moving from spot to spot the numbers for the day sure added up. That and the size of the fish is pretty hard to beat! A great reminder I left with for the day was to really spend time searching and learning new areas of the river to expand on “the old milk run” and spend time looking for new spots. A number of spots we fished were not on my radar and I know you had to spend hours and hours to find them. As we said in the boat, nothing improves your fishing like time on the water!
Great Job!javascript:void(0)
Zim (ron zimmermann)
If all goes well, were looking at a couple months out for BFT to have a full supply on blades in stock for the online store.
The best place to get them is at Dean at Everts Resort he will even ship them to you..
Great job on the Eyes Steve
Be happy to help-out getting you the blades!
Steve,I thought they only worked on pool 4!
They are working very nicely today on orange and green tiger!
As always,Nice fish,and hope to see you soon!
With the water low like it is now, do you use your trolling motor to stay in position or do you anchor?
Also, I am trying to look around for this but can’t seem to find it so I guess I will ask, Where do you guys launch for pool 2?
Thanks…another confused bass fisherman trying to fish walleyes
Dan,
Just my $.02!
I have been doing both for right now. If I get calm winds, I like to move around on the dam with the bowmount, but if I get a breeze at all, I like to throw the anchor and pitch from the fixed position. I do stay pretty active with the anchor. Basically, if you are not finding any active fish right now within 15 minutes of the spot, I would pick up and either re-anchor inward or outward depending where you are at or move on to the next spot. It has been very evident lately that if the fish are there, they are usually opportunistic and hit right away. You can play to waiting game, but odds wise by days end you will be better off keeping on the move!
I have been putting in at the 494 ramp right now.
This ramp is located on the west side of the river in South St. Paul right directly under the 494 bridge. There is alot of bridge construction going on right now, but the ramp road is open.
Good luck to you!
Steve-
Thanks for the quick reply but it seems that you are making this to difficult for this bass guy. How about we meet at the ramp and you can show me?
We will be getting out on sat and hope to have some piggies like yours to show for it
Have a good Turkey Day
Dan
Hey Dean, Thanks for you help in getting some of these blade baits. I eagerly await their arrival! Appreciate it! And I’ll let you know how I do…