If your looking to close out 06 on open water, what a great weekend! Minimal boats and great fishing.
With the balmy weather and the anticipation of of a good bite, I wanted to get off to an early start. With a 3:00am wake up, time to get the coffee brewing. No matter how quiet a person tries to be, you can’t sneak around a vigilant black lab. My lab Kota lopes into the kitchen, pauses long enough to stretch and greets me with his usual muffled bark/growl combination. I have to believe this is his favorite time of day too. Time for him to make his patrol of the backyard and wait to see what adventure we will be setting off for today. With Kota on point, we take a stroll around the neighborhood. he has not been on this route since long before hunting season. I wondered if it brought back memories for him. With The village laid tranquil, shrouded in the darkness and a light fog. The quiet was only distrubed by a occasional auto. The last of the night life scene heading home, I thought. With the boat hooked up, it was off to Super America to get BrianK. some sustenace. Heading west out of town Kota wimpers as we pass his favorite walking area along the small river. he then sits back and seems to enjoy the ride along the empty road. An occasional milk truck and a few deer standing along the shoulder our the only interuptions. The silence in the truck is broken as tune in WCCO. Time for Minnesota Outdoors with Ron and Raven.
Arriving at Everts, Brian informs me that I am late and not the first boat to arrive! After a quik pow wow, time to get the boat unloaded. Warming up the Evinrude, Shane came down to the dock and said he and his lttle were down for a day of fishing. We decided they would join me for the day.
With the last bit of darkness hanging on, we decided to do some pitching. Our success was very minimal so we quickly switched to a vertical presentation. Our first pass yielded a couple fish so it looked like we could put a program together. We were getting a few here and there but decided to move upriver to find some faster action. After a quick shore break, we got into a flurry of action. Trolling the channel edge from the 3rd wing dam down. Most all of our fish were caught in 13 to 15ft of water. We had about a 50/50 split between Doo’s and Ringies. Best color for the day was Chat./pepper for the Doo’s. Cottoncandy and purple/chart. tail did the trick for ringies.
the first photo is Shane with a couple of nice fish. Photo #2 is Justin with a Dandy. Photo #3 a few eaters. Guys thanks for spending the day with me, it was fun. To everyone, have a happy New Year. Get out and enjoy the balmy weather and great fishing on pool 4.
Thanks for the report Don.
The way the ice is around the LaCrosse area I might have to round up the troops and do some open water fishing to keep from going nuts
You thought you were late yesterday…there were two boats out before you this morning!
41 degrees and a light rain falling. It’s going to be interesting to see what the bite is like today…but what a way to finish off the year!
Thanks for the report and pics Don. Sounds like you guys had fun.
Thanks, Bill
Don,
Again thanks for the great day out on the water, Justin sure was smiles after you left and we put the Jalope II in for a little river run, just to get the seafoam and sta-bil into the motor. we loaded the boat up, said our good-byes to BK and we had the truck headed towards the nearest Mcdonalds. Justing grabbed his meal and withing about 10 minuests of us getting back on the road, he was out cold sleeping. he didn’t wake up until we his front door. I on the other hand still 10 eaters to clean up, there was some meat to be had on them little pigs. almost filled up a small roaster, so I am sure that justin and his family will be eating some good fish. Justins favorite part of the trip was being Dons right hand man with reeling in all of the fish. I had a hard bite that didn’t wanna come up from the bottom and bent the hook on my jig to get off, sure would have liked to see what that one was, but all in all, don’t let Don fool you, he caught the majority of the fish, I had all little ones off the back of the boat.
all in all, it was enough action to keep a 9 year old kid looking to see if each twitch of the rod tip was a hook set, and asking every time you started to reel in if you had a fish.
some of the bites that I had in the back of hte boat was due to more of the dragging jigs than going mostly verticle, I was having a harder time trying to stay up top of my bait, so I ended up dragging more, I could have stepped off to the side of the boat and hung them over the edge, but oh well.
also was a good thing that I did jump in with Don, I forgot to put my trolling motor pedal in the boat, so it would have been very hard for me to jig or even pitch jigs without it.
Again Don, thanks for the fun time on the water, wearing justin out, and most of all, sharing some pointers and technique. it was alot of fun.
thans
shane
Thanks for the report.
Good to see you out there
Good report, I like seeing those pics from pool 4. What will all this rain do to the river this time of year? Ive only been up to Red wing twice, and they were both last month. Just wondering what to expect if we come up toward the end of the week.
Sunday started off good,nothing big but plenty of sauger caught pitching. For us, when the rain let up the bite died off. With 4 days of sunshine forcasted, I think towards the end of the week things will be hopping again. We may even have some current flow!