It’s been a little while since my last report from Pool 2. I wish I could report a fantastic bite for everyone, but the bite remains mediocre for the most part.
Lately I have had a few trips where the number of fish boated have reached double digit for an afternoon/evening trip. Certainly nothing hot and heavy but like always Pool 2 offers that chance of boating a fish or two above average size. So if you do not mind putting up with a bit of a slower bite right now, you should be rewarded with a couple big fish to show for your efforts.
Sunday I was joined by Martin Vrieze and Joel “drewsdad” Ellingson for a short afternoon/evening trip. Marty and I have had conflicting schedules the last few weeks and we finally found a day that worked well for all 3 of us.
Our bite consisted of pitching 1/8th and 3/16th oz BFT Precision jigheads coupled with BFT’s purple/whitetail and oyster shell paddletail’s being the producers for the evening. The bite was certainly not hot and heavy although it seemed to be right on par with what I have been seeing the last handful of trips. Marty is shown here in the first pic with a very nice 9#+ walleye that smacked his paddletail in about 2 foot of water on the top of one of the wingdams we were pitching. I overheard Marty mentioning that this marks his personal best for Pool 2! Congrats Marty, that’s a beautiful fish! After a few snapshots, the fish was back in the water to swim another day! Joel and I followed Marty up with a handful of 20-25” fish that fell victim to purple/white tailed ringworms. Thanks again guys for the enjoyable evening of fishing! I had a great time and look forward to the next time we share a boat again.
With river flows being so low right now, the walleyes appear to be widely spread out and taking advantage of many areas to occupy their visits. This seems to be the hard part for locating a good sized school worth camping out on. I have been spending my visits to the river lately playing a bit of the run and gun approach. There are spots that have been producing consistently if you wait them out, but I have been trying to cover as much water as possible to take advantage of some active fish. Run and gun or sit tight on a spot seems to be both producing fish as of right now. The best advice I could give right now would be to look for those wingdams or rip rap that are receiving the most current right now and poke around these areas. These would be higher percentage spots and chances are there should be a few walleyes lingering around these areas not too far away.
Another side note on the low flows situation right now…we seem to be at the mercy of what Mother Nature decides to bring us for cold weather. Thanks to some mild weather here the last 10 days or so, the river is wide open and nearly ice free…..for now anyway. I think the next evening we have calm winds and single digit overnight lows could put a good layer of ice on the river and keep us off the river for couple days. For now anyway, I would say its worth the trip to the river for a shot at a nice fish.
Whew, that’s a relief! I was beginning to think that Pool 2 Walleyes were exctinct. Steve you’re about the only guy doing anything down there
Rootski
Nice report and pics steve
That first fish is an absolute horse!
Good Job!
-J.
Awesome fish Steve!
JWB
Great fish and report Steve!!!
VERY nice fish Steve. Hogs for sure.
Thanks for the report and pics.
Thanks, Bill
Awsome fish and great report!! I have got to make a trip up there!!
The world is OK after all. I spend a couple of weeks away, and login to see DeeZee is still finding piggies in P2. Nice work guys
dave
Nice Fish Steve.
I didn’t think ringworms worked on Pool 2
Thanks for a great trip Steve!
Martin schooled me again on pool 4 this afternoon/evening catching saugers that could eat the ones I caught. 
dd
one of these days, someone other than steve is going to post big fish on P2 and my new years resolution is that it’s me! nicely done steve.
micah
Congrats Marty!Dont worry Joel,your day is coming!As always Steve,well done!
Steve, thanks for the trip and getting us onto some fish!!! We will definitely do it again.
Guys, what really strikes me about fishing with Steve is the continuous adjustments he makes when fishing a particular spot. Steve is always observing how we are pitching our baits and then adjusting the boat position to put us in the best position to get hit…Moving to the inside/outside…Moving closer to the wing dam/further away…Asking if we are hitting the rocks underwater. Those are the kinds of little things that make all the difference in the world in putting fish in the boat.
Guys, you owe it to yourself to get in the boat with Steve or any of the other IDA guides. You will shorten your personal learning curve and put more fish in the boat.
Nice fish Steve.
Awesome fish, Steve
Hey Steve what was that piece of paper on your windshield Saturday the 23rd? Could it have been some sort of invitation? To a dance maybe?
Seriously, thanks for the great report. The information you give this forum helps me understand what to use and how to pattern these fish. I was out there Saturday as well, and before you came around the bend in that river boat of yours (stealthly I might add) I had boated some really nice footballs (all sauger).
Thanks Steve and keep that info coming.
STEVE! I didn’t know you danced!
Nice meeting you this morning at Everts Kirk!
Brian,
It was great getting to meet you as well. Thanks for the info this morning. It ended up being a great day for the sauger bite, the morning was one 19 incher after another.
After our conversation I tried one pole with a hair jig and a minnow, and the other with a hair jig and a munchie.
It ended up being a plastic day but every so often the minnow combination would have a flurry of action as well.
Most active depth for me ended up being 15 to 20 feet, with the bigger fish coming from the shallower water. The only walleyes I got today were short and very light biters.
Anyway good to meet some more IDA guys and spend time “dancing” on pool 4.
