Not a whole lot has changed on pool 2 over the last week. Water level have stayed about the same and the wingdams walleyes continue to bite. They are still not jumping in the boat but with some work nice fish can be had as shown in this 1st photo of a nice 28" fish. This fish hit a hair jig that was drifted across the face of a rocky point.
South winds where still a challenge this weekend. A least boat traffic wasn’t to bad. Some of the boat traffic even helped turn on the fish on some spots. As the big cruisers would come by there wake would pound the rock. At certian time this was just like a diner bell for the fish to feed. At this point some of the walleye would come up and feed right on the shore line. Had one take a jig on the surface and several others that hit in a foot of water.
Last weekend the fish where pretty hot on deep diving crankbaits and ringworms. The start of this weekend was a little slow as those did not seem to be there bait of choice any more. Not sure what made them change. About the only thing that changed on the pool was a slight drop in water temps. Hair jigs ended up being the bait of choice this weekend. Think I only caught one walleye on a crank bait the entire weekend.
We did end up with several nice fish this weekend. The 28" I got was the largest. TBO pick up a nice 27.75 this morning. There where plenty of 26" to 23" fish also. Pitching jigs to large walleyes made for a very entertaining weekend.
Glad to hear a few others are getting into these fish also. Whats been working for you?
Nice report, sounds like a fun time.
I got out on Pool 3 and did well with natural colored ringworms. The south wind dictated heavy jigheads in order to maintain a tight line to feel the hits. Nearly every wingdam I stopped at produced fish of one variety or another.
The tuna fleet was out in full force…my hamstrings still hurt from keeping balance in the boat during the rocking and rolling on 3-4 ft rollers. I had one guy drive right over the top of a wingdam that topped out in 2 feet of water. He stopped, scratched his head and then proceeded to drive his boat directly between me and the face of the wingdam I was pitching at…Bonehead!!!
Be careful out there guys…a lot of other water users are just not that experienced with river structure and navigational markers.
Wear those life jackets and stay out of the middle of the channel if you can avoid it!!!
Are you guys finding the fish primarily on the tips/outer half of the wing dam with the lower flows?
Nice fish Mike and Joe! I was down on pool 9 and we caught a few walleyes on cranks, but more of them wanted crawlers on the wing dams. We tried plastics, but not hair jigs. We found mostly 15-19″ walleyes and none over 20. For some reason they didn’t seem to be around and neither were the sheephead(not that I’m complaing about that though). Thanks for the update on what is working Mike.
I did fish some crawlers this weekend. Just couldnt seem to get anything going on them. I know others are have some good luck with crawlers right now.
The fish on the wingdams seem to be spread out. I think this is a sigh of the moderate flow pool 2 has right now. One cast they may be near the top and shore. A few cast later they may be at the bottom and out towards the end. If there was higher flow I think the fish would be in more defined areas.
One thing all of my spots have in common is a fair amount of current. 1/4 ounce jigs is what we most commonly used this weekend. They worked well being swept across areas but once behind the boat got swept up in the current.
Nice fish Mike, I can’t wait to get down there this weekend, I definitely have Pool 2 fever! I also had some crazy pleasure boaters down there last weekend, I was on a shallow dam about 40 yards off shore and a big cruiser with 8-10 people on it blow over that dam 20 yards away from me between me and the shore, I couldn’t beleive he didn’t lose his lower unit, oh well maybe next time.
I’m looking at the water moving in front of the dam and specifically for the seam between the faster moving water on the outside and the slower moving water on the inside. Some dams are easier to read than others.
I think the south gale-force wind and the tuna boat wakes actually helped me locate these spots easier on Saturday and again yesterday.