Mississippi River Pool 4 Northern Pike

Over the last several years the number of bass fishing on the Mississippi, the number northerns we are seeing has sky rocketed. Plus, the average size has gone up. Fish in the mid thirty inch range are showing up regularly. These aren’t trophy fish but it’s an improving fishery that is under-utilized. It’s also a subject that we aren’t seeing many fishing reports about. At the ARM event out of Everts on June 22 my Big Brother caught a 38” fish that weighed 14-4. The catch sparked the idea to set aside a day to target northerns and see what we could do. On Friday I recruited Mike Anderson to help me fish northerns specifically with a report in mind. Mike and I have had several trips where we had caught a lot of good size northerns so we thought it would be a piece of cake. To add to the confidence this 31” fish came off our 2nd spot.

I suspect you know what happened, we caught bass…we caught walleyes on swim jigs in 2.5’ of water… but over the rest of the day we caught 4 small northerns. At the end of the day we gave up on the idea of a report.

On Sunday evening my wife and I waited out the pleasure boaters and went out of an evening of relaxing fishing. And guess what… the northerns were every where. With renewed enthusiasm I’ll do the report.

This is not trolling Daredevils or soaking sucker minnows…it’s moving around and going in after em. It’s heavy vegetation and a swim jig is the tool of choice. And there are some specific targets. It can be slack water and weeds…it can be rocks and weeds…it can be sand and weeds… or it can be wing dams and weeds… the central issue is vegetation. In the lakes at the lower end of pool 4 its sand holes in the veg that are holding fish…in the current its veg that are holding the fish. So if you want to explore get a hand full of swim jigs and BFT K-Tails for trailers and start casting the vegetation. If you’re around em you’ll know in a hurry. Northerns don’t school but if you catch one work around the area and you’ll likely find a few more. This year I’ve started using fluorocarbon line on my swim jig rod and the line seems to be bite proof. It may be it’s harder finish that slides across a northerns teeth and doesn’t get cut. I’ve landed a lot of fish with the line through a fish’s mouth and couldn’t detect a knick on the line. The judgment is still out but my early impression are positive. It could be the high cost of the line could balance out with fewer lost lures.