With a break in the cooler weather this past weekend, I was able to get out and enjoy some of the fair weather. As an added bonus, the fish were cooperating as well! It’s been almost two weeks since I have had the chance to hit the river. Saturday morning was kind of a search mission for me trying to see what areas and presentations were best to put fish in the boat.
I spent Saturday with Tom Emmel and his friends Eric and Alex. We hit the water a bit after 7:00am and proceeded to try an muster up some action vertical jigging saugers in the dam area. It took me about 2 hours in this area jigging, with only 2 fish in the boat and I decided to switch things up and see if there was a dragging bite for walleye in the shallower depths and possibly some sauger in a bit deeper water. After about an hour and a half of dragging jigs, with no fish 
, we switched locations and went back to vertical jigging sauger in 20-26’ of water with decent results. With only 2 fish in the boat by 10:45am I was starting to wonder if I was getting rusty with the 2 week lay off 
but it wasn’t long and we put together a decent pattern for sauger in the 16“-19” class vertical jigging oyster shell ring worms and chartreuse pepper super doo’s. We ended our day a bit before 3:00pm just 2 fish short of a 3 man limit of sauger. Thanks for spending a day in my boat guys. I am looking forward to a Spring trip with you guys this year!
Saturday I fished with friend and fellow Pool 4 Staffer Eric (walleye_fool) Rehberg. We started our day looking for some of the shallow water walleyes. Our first spot produced 4 fish right away in the am. I was casting ringworms and Eric was doing what he likes to do best, casting blade baits. Both baits caught fish but the plastics won out by days end. Eric is pictured here with our best walleye of the day caught on an oyster shell ringworm with a 1/8oz black precision head. 
. We were able to pick up a couple more walleye casting some deeper sand in the 10’ to 16’ of water later in the morning hours. This bite was just about done when we got on it. We spent to much of the morning looking for fish shallow on rip rap before we decided to hit the sand. Our fish came right away in the area we were targeting and did not last long. I do believe we caught the tail end of this bite with the sun higher in the sky and the boat traffic increasing by the minute.
Instead of toughing it out for the walleye mid day we went vertical for some sauger action. I ran the same program as Saturday, oyster shell ringworms and chartreuse pepper super doo’s on black 5/16oz precision heads in 20-26’ of water 
. We were rewarded instantly with sauger action, good move on our part just to keep the action going 
. In the 4 hours we spent chasing sauger we were rewarded with 16 sauger in the 15-19” class. At 3:00pm we pulled out of the sauger haunts and went back to chasing ol’ marble eye’s in the shallower water. It wasn’t long and the walleye proved to be active again. Once our day ended we were rewarded with 15 nice walleye‘s .
Best ringworm colors for the pitching bite this afternoon were Chartreuse pepper, firecracker chartreuse tail and oyster shell. 1/8oz and 3/16oz precision heads were best with the 1/8oz proving to be the better jig weight by days end. Thanks for keeping me company Sunday Eric 
It was a pleasure to fish with you again. I’m sure it won’t be the last time we share a boat together. 
I had other success stories from anglers that hit the water this weekend with baits varying from one boat to another. Chartreuse and oyster shell paddle tails were hot for more than a couple of boats and hair jigs tipped with minnows did some damage as well this weekend. Best hair jig colors for the hair guys were kelly green/black head and Everts sunrise. Some guys were fishing meat and some with out, both ways put fish in the boat.
If the nicer weather holds over the next week, the bite should remain about the same. There was quite a bit of debris floating in the river this weekend. Not only big ice chunks but lots of wood as well. Not quite sure where the floating dead heads are coming from but I did see a few that would put the hurt on a nice rig.:(. Be careful if venturing out in the low light time frames.
See ya on the river! 
Looking good guys!!
I wouldn’t expect any less from two anglers of your caliber in the same boat
Eric, did you have a “best” color pitching blades?
Boy you sure look happy holding that sauger!!!
I would expect nothing less from “The Sauger King”. LOL
Great report guys.
Nice job guys.
Way to go Eric that eye looks good on you.
Dustin I think you had better fish sauger a little more often, That smile holding the sauger is the biggest I have seen you wear in a while..
Hope to see you guys on the water soon.
Take care
That fish was tickling the palm of my hand trying to make me appear happier than I really was
.
Where were you on Sunday
? 
We didn’t keep you up to late the night before did we? 
I was fixing a couple of washing machines.
Then did some book work and watched the tube.
I knew you would get them if I stayed home.
Thanks for the report and pics Dusty. As always very nice fish.
Thanks, Bill
Actually yeah. The only color I caught fish on was the new Black and silver B-Fish-N blade. Tried other colors but black was the ticket. It kind of confused me only because we have stained water and lower light levels so they should be hitting the brighter colors but that wasnt the case. It just goes to show you that once you think you have them figured out they change up the plan and do differntly.
It was good to get back out with you again and look forward to doing it again soon. 
By the way thanks for putting up with me all day Dustin.
Good to see you hadn’t lost your touch Dustin.
Hopefully we can hook up soon, Love those big Saugers 
RB
Thanks for a great report Dustin, We Know how much you love to vertical jig
Yup…keep that up Dusty and we’ll have to call you Ol Saugeye Stewart!
Don’t tell anyone that those old SuperDoos still work
I like it when Dave has those close out sales 
The walleye and sauger fishing continues to be very good on pool 4
.
I was on the water Wednesday with a good customer of mine, Darwin Viker. I ran the same program as last Sunday. Pitched for walleyes in the morning and went vertical from 10:30am until 4:15pm for saugers. Very nice Saugers were plentiful in the 20-23′ depths. Chartreuse pepper super doo’s and oyster shell ringworms on 5/16oz plain lead, or black precision heads worked their magic again. Saugers were really on the chew today, our sauger fishing ended with 37 fish in the 15-19″ class with about 20 dinks in the mix. Once we dropped in to water deeper than 23′ the fish became much smaller but the numbers were greater. The deeper water produced 3-4 dinks for every 15″ plus sauger. Best jigging method for the sauger was to just hold motionless 1“-3” of the bottom. I have not been able to coax those fish in to chasing my baits up off the bottom very far.
The walleye bite was very good as well casting the shallows. Ended the day with 23 walleye in the 18-21″ class. No big mamas on this day but we had 6 eye’s that were cookie cutter 21″ fish. 1/8oz precision heads coupled with oyster shell, firecracker/chartreuse tail an pro-blue ring worms did the trick for the walleye. 12′ of water and less was the best depth for the eye’s. We caught fish on both sand and rock. No fancy jig motions, just slowly lift and drop while working the bait back to the boat. The water’s cold and the forage base is exceptional right now with all the dead and live shad floating around. Less is more on your plastics presentation right now! Those eye’s will shy away form an aggressive jigging style on most days but a subtle do nothing jig motion will prevail over aggressive movements of your baits in this cold water.
Get out and get fishing!
Dustin,
Anything on K-grubs lately?? Thanks for the update!
Chris
Great report Dustin.. Very nice fish..
Thanks for the update Dustin! I am hoping to be down there on saturday for a little open water action.
I have spent some time with them but the fish have responded better for me on the ringworms.
Good luck out there Chris.