Mississippi River Pools 3 and 4 6/30/07

What a beautiful weekend it was to be out on the water. I had the pleasure to spend the weekend with fellow Everts Resort seasonal campers, Brian and Sean Lyons. The Temps were in the low 80’s and we had sunshine both days, and little wind. Put that together with 2 great guys and great fisherman and you have everything you need for a GREAT weekend. And the fishing we had made it even better:)

Saturday morning saw us both going out in differnt boats so we said what the heck and decided to jump in the same boat. After a little decision time on where to go we decided to lock through up to pool 3 and pull some cranks and cast some wingdams. We had planned on trolling one strech just to see if we could get a few eaters, then we planned on going on a search mission to find some wingdams that held some better fish. Well our first spot (that we were only going to stay for an hour or so) turned into being our hot spot for the day and we spent almost 6 hours there! We pulled many of the fish pictured here on spot number one other than the 25" Saugeye, and a 23" walleye that we pulled off of one wingdam.

Spot number one consistied of a rip rap shoreline with a fairly steep break. There was 2 shelves that we found on this break that ran at about 10 feet of water and also at 18 to 20 feet of water. The fish we caught here we holding in between the two shelfs at 13 to 15 feet of water. Speeds were between 1.9 to 2.1 mph. If you went any slower or if you went any shallower you would end up with sheepies or bass.

The wingdams that we found to be productive topped out at about 4 fow and some fairly deep water in front of them and off the tips. In front of them most dams had anywere from 8 to 10 fow and the tips were about 10 to 12 fow. One BIG thing I noticed was that these dams had a fair amount of current on them. Also the fish we caught were mostly out towards the tips!

Our best baits for trolling were Firecraw #5 jointeds, and Monkey Puke jointed walleye divers:). As for our wingdam baits, we were using Bombers. Our best color on these were brown craw. I was also told be others that the firetiger pattern was also producing fish. If you plan on taking a trip to the Mighty Miss. and dont have these baits I know Dean has them all in stock at the resort (as long as myself or Dustin doesnt get to them first:).

There is quite the story behind this last photo and I will re-tell it the best I can. It wont be as good as being there but good none the less. Here was the set up.

We had 3 rods on the inside and 2 rods on the outside. We were trolling along and my inside rod gets hit. I say it’s an ok fish so Brain slows the kicker down to idle. Just has he slows down one of Seans inside rods get hit. Ok now this could get interesting. I told Brian he better take it out of gear and reel up the other lines. He got one of the 2 outside rods in when our 3rd inside rod gets hit. Now we have 3 fish on and one other rod still out there. Now this is getting really interesting. Also be informed that during all of this there is cruisers going by non stop and we are only about 30′ from shore. I finally get mine next to the boat and have to net it myself. I get it netted and its 19". I am trying to get this fish out of the net so I can net Seans fish that is only 25′ away. I ran out of time and thought well I will try it- now we have 2 fish in the net with baits and lines still attached. A 19" and a 22". Sean and I are now both trying to get these fish out as Brian says, "I am only 20′ back and it’s a good fish. Well once again we couldnt get the fish out in time so I try for the triple. We GOT it! We now have 3 fish in the net with all baits attached still. A 19", 22", and a beauty 27 1/4" eye. What a site to see that was. Even after all of this it only took us about 5 minutes to get the fish out and our lines untangled!

Now if you remember earlier I said we had the 2 other fish hit after slowing down. That proved to be a little extra something that seemed to trigger these fish. We caught fish both ways, when we came to a stop or when you started to speed back up.

It was a GREAT weekend to spend some time fishing with the both of you and we had plenty of laughs. I hope we can do it again soon. I have a few more pics to follow.

Until next time………….