My last couple of trips on the mighty river have been spent away from my home stomping grounds of pool 4 up yonder on pool 3. Wing dams have been my sole focus on this pool of the mighty Miss. The cranks casting bite has been fantastic for me 
. I have had bait in the boat but when you are catching close to 40 legal walleye in a day, between two anglers, with walleye up to 29”, there has been no reason for me to get my hands dirty 
. The average size fish has been spectacular as well with most of the days catch consisting of 20“-22” fish with the occasional big walleye in the mix 
.
Wing dams with good flow have held the better fish for me but do not over look the tips of dams with slower moving water on them. A vast majority of my walleye are coming right off the top of the dams out towards the tips, with a few fish coming deeper right at the base. I am not quite sure how long this great bite will continue on this body of water but the last couple of years in July have been good for me on this pool utilizing this same presentation.
My best color patterns have been fire tiger and craw patterns, with fire tiger winning the tug of war the last couple of trips by days end. Bombers, Jointed Shad Raps, RS Shad Raps, Fat Raps and Flicker Shads have all seen some action. The crank that has stood out the most on the deeper dams has been the Bomber 6A’s. They have been hard to beat boating walleye 2 to 1 over the other baits right now in my boat. I have to give the Bomber some props, it is a great wing dam crank 
. It dives quick and it will get you down to 9’ on a long cast.
I have some second hand info from some good friends and relatives trolling the main river from the dam to the head of the lake on upper pool 4 with very good results. Bigger walleye have been coming deeper and more main channel in faster moving water. Some very nice fish have been caught over that past week trolling cranks in such areas on upper pool 4. Jointed shads have been hard to beat on this bite from the sounds of it. Maybe that “some one” will see this report and tag on some pics of those big walleye that were trolled from the abyss ……..
The walleye fishing has been very good on the river for the past month. I attribute a lot of the good bite to the great water clarity we have had over the past month. I have been able to see a fire tiger crank bait about 24” down The clarity has been good enough to see walleye follow your crank up to the boat on pool 3 and grab on 
Last couple of years we have had dirty water off and on for quite some time on the main river and those dirty water days in June and July forced us anglers to struggle a bit from day to day. If you keep an eye on the barges as they make their way up or down river you can see a mud trail behind them right now 
. That’s all for now!
See ya on the river!
thanks for the report Dustin,
Jack.
Dustin, I told a guy to contact you for a guide trip on Pool 4. Do you still have open dates for guiding?
I only have 2 open dates for the month of July. August is looking good for open dates right now
. Have him look me up ASAP.
Dustin;
Looks like you’ve converted Dad to a full time wing dam guy
Another great report, thanks. I been hearing you guys talking about trolling #5 alot latley, just curious how deep you get them to run, and how ? here with our flow 7 ft is about best you can hope for. are you guys running them deepper than that and how far off the bottom is to far ( in the river)?
Dustin, well done. I wish I would have taken Tuck up on his offer to fish up on P3 the day of the GTG as I have yet to put a boat in up there. Gotta love the bombers!
Not to highjack Dustin’s report here but I will try and help you out. Most of our trolling has been somewhere around that 12 to 15 fow. You can achieve this a couple of ways. One way is to run 20 lb steath and run a good amout of line out, or option 2 would be to troll with lighter fireline or power pro. As for how far off bottom you can be, it depends a lot on water clarity. If you have decent clarity you can be up to 2 feet off bottom but when it starts to get dirty I would want to be right on bottom. One thing I look at is to see how far I can see my crank next to boat and use that as a guide as to how far I can be off bottom. Hope this helps and I am sure others will chime in on this also.
Dustin,
See you in a couple of days again. 
Great report and fish. One of these days we will have to share the boat again.
Great report Dustin, I’ve been doing exactly that, and its been working great.
See you on the river!
Jami
Nice report Dustin, just one question are anchoring above the dam and casting?
Great report Dustin,
Eric, that is a great point, thanks for the tip.
, have to go south to Mad-town to beat up my brother-in-law in 3D archery.
Can’t go fishing this weekend
Thanks,
Jeremy
Eric has gave you some great advice. The question i have for you is what kind of #5 shad rap are you running? From your post it sounds like you are running the regular balsa #5 shad rap that only weighs 3/16oz. Am I right? If so 7′ in the river is very good for this bait.
If you are trolling the #5 RS shad raps or the #5 jointed shads you should be able to attain depths of 11′-13′ with 20lb/6lb diameter spider wire stealth. Thinner lines will get you deeper of course.
I am holding the boat with the trolling motor and casting to my target area. The flow is very low right now and holding the boat with the bow mount has worked well for me.
We were out in pool 3 out of Prescott on the 5th between the bridges and couldn’t seem to find the walleyes. We jigged in the morning with a few light bites and half eaten fatheads but caught nothing but sheephead and rock bass. We started trolling #5 shadraps and husky jerks but still caught nothing. We headed down river to jig the main channel and a few other spots we had fished earlier in the year and did well but the walleyes weren’t there either. Where are the wing dams located on pool 3 and is this the usual summer pattern on the river?
Most of the bouys are marking wingdams. Look for the ripples of the water going over the wingdams. Like I said…Look to the bouys. And don’t try to go over the wingdams! There are very shallow!
Will do. Glad to hear you’re staying busy. A little extra cash can’t hurt when you’ve got a little guy to take care of.
Great report sir!
Wish I could say that the same bite is happening up on 2. We are getting some wing dam walleyes but the flow is cruddy and the clarity is about 8″ or so. So it has been spotty for me and some of the other guys…… Time to head to 3!
dd
Like chappy said, look for the ripple lines on the inside of the buoys. Cast right in front to on top of the ripple line. This is a very good low flow pattern on pools with Lot’s of wingdams in the summer months.The dams are easy to see if there is a south wind but a North wind makes it hard to find them sometimes even if you know where to look
.
I would leave the fat head minnows at home this time of year and stick with other livebait options such as crawlers and leeches
. I have never heard of anyone having a spectacular day on the river fishing with fat head minnows in the summer months. Might happen on occasion but not for anyone I have talked to.
Great report, I am hitting P2 tomorrow with a bag of bomber cranks, Mike W. clued me in on these and they have been great, I have never had to tune one, they work every time out of the box and they can take a hell of a beating. I am actually going walleye fishing tomorrow without any live bait, thats not like me.
Iwas refering to the #5 jointed running 14/7 fireline 150ft back i seem to run about 7 to 8ft down. 80ft back on lead core about the same. only thing i can figure is the difference ibn flow. unless you guys are running out more line? gonna do some expirementing tomorrow , thanks for the info eric , and the reply back dustin you are alawys a big help.
Dustin,
Are you positioning your boat below the dam or above it?
I assume above it, but if like fishing a riffle then maybe I was thinking below it and out towards the tip for an upstream quartering cast. I know pitching jigs the boat position is above it and wondered if you approached it the same way when pitching cranks?
Thanks,
Jeremy
Jeremy,
I position the boat right on the tip to up above the dam. Dams with more flow will require the boat to be positioned up river from the dam. Dams with low flow I will put the back end right off the tip and cast towards shore.
Thanks for all info. I am pretty new to fishing the river for walleyes in the summer so all tips and hints are more than welcome. Thanks again.
Very few plugs are tuned perfect out of the box. I’d guess you need to tune your plugs. Run them about 4 MPH GPS with about 6 ft of line right next to the boat. If it runs in or out it will not reach maximum depth. Tweak the wire the opposite direction the plug is running until you get it to run straight. You should easily get a joint # 5 13 ft deep with 7/14 fire line. Good luck tuning remember to just tweak it if you see the wire move you went to far keep testing until it runs true. Whatsa
Looks like another great day on the water! Nice job! I look forward to our trip again this fall!