Mississippi River Pool 8 Report 2/17-18/07

With a good friend (Mark) making a trip from Palmyra WI to fish for the weekend, the plan was to spend Saturday looking for some larger crappies by morning and saugers and walleyes after dark. We didn’t find numbers of pan fish, but the ones we did catch were of quality size.

With a stiff North to Northwest wind and a temperature of 10 above Mike C, neutron, Mark and myself set up in the first spot early AM. We were fishing in 16fow with a slight current. Mark caught a short eye at 14 inches then I followed up with a 14.5 eye. Some nice crappies fell prey to the offerings of a Purple Lil Cecil, Perch Forage Minnow and a Pink Ratso. Pictured here is neutron who iced the most crappies in this spot. With a bite that stopped as fast as it started we all loaded up and headed to another area hoping maybe the perch where more aggressive.

We set up in a large bay on a ledge the starts at 15 feet and drops to 22 feet. Mike C iced this dandy White Crappie on the Orange Gold Forage minnow shortly after we started, not a perch but hey, crappies of this size work. I have seen more white crappies iced on pool 8 this year than I have in the past 5 years Mark and I were set up in a 2 man with the LX-5 in a hole between us so we could each watch our jigs. This was the first time Mark has been exposed to a flasher and I think he likes it He also learned just because we are marking fish doesn’t mean they are going to bite We had plenty of fish following but not taking what we were trying to get them to except I became impatient and told Mark it was time to move on. We did and Mike C called to tell us thank you. After we left the crappies turned and he made himself a fish fry

After hearing about the bite going on at the lock and dams, and having an alright night after work Thursday, that was where we headed. We still didn’t find a fast and furious bite but did ice a few nice perch and saugers on a Black/Chrome and Blue/Chrome #3 Rapala Jig N Rap. tipped with either a minnow head or whole minnow.

Wanting to finish off a fish fry we headed to another area in 12fow which holds submerged timber Sunday, 6am came early after spending Saturday on the ice from 6am till 8am but we found numbers of fish. After punching a good number of holes around the wood I hopped around with the LX-5 looking for fish and finding out what presentation they wanted. After we were on fish the LX-5 was handed off to Mark so he could play with it himself Crappies and gills were slamming a Purple Lil Cecil tipped with a waxie. You would have to ignore the fish that jetted up to the jig and keep a drop twitch motion going. If you fished the fish that flew up at your jig and made it chase you it would not hit. It was a blast showing off our area to a good friend (Mark pictured here with a Sunday morning crappie) The bonus was the nice fish fry headed to Palmyra