Welcome to tropical Minnesota, wow the last eight days here were a merry go round of challenges, to say the least. Saturday the 6th we had air temps of 94 degrees water temps of 68 degrees winds 5 to 15 mild and warm. The river was rising a half a foot to a foot in every 24 hour period. The flows went from 16.2 kcfs to 23 kcfs in five days time.
Mother Nature can sure toss you many memories some good and others that will remind you how small we are in the big picture of things. The winds and temperature drop on Monday mixed with the down pours kept my boat looking for snow squalls. We had winds of excess of 30 mph and temps that dipped into the low 40 degrees. The good thing is that the water level is stabilizing and the water temp is now in the upper 50 so the big bite is not far off.
Pictured is Daryl with a couple of fish from Wednesday.
I had the privilege to fish with some quality people over the past week. On Sunday I got the opportunity to fish with Jeff Reese and his crew; you all nighter guys are some tough hombres. Jason and Greg I wished that I could have gotten us on some better fish. However, Greg it was great hearing the stories from Alabama, and sharing some boat time together. Also, Jason I hope that your pursuit of walleyes produce many nets full of wall hangers. Thank you guys, take care until our paths cross again may all your seas be smooth and productive.
On Monday through Wednesday I teamed up with Marty Hahn (Hahn’s Guide Service). I shared my boat with some great southerners, Daryl Neeld and Denny Rausch. We were targeting a lot of rock pitching jigs and cranks. We changed up presentations often plastics, hair, with bait and without. We also took some fish trolling shallow back water cuts. The bite was very slow and the winds made the light biters hard to feel, however our persistence resulted in a couple fish each day. Not very good for our very productive Mississippi River but some times Mother Nature just wins out.
I have to say that a T-shirt that states I survived a Minnesota fishing trip is in order. We really did have some brutal conditions to fish in and the production on my end was low. On a side note I simply had a blast fishing with you two guys hope your next trip on the water is a net filler. I hope you guys are wearing shorts and enjoying a nice cool one.
Pictured is Roger Kosto out of Marty’s boat.
Yesterday 10-13-07 I got the chance to share my boat with Brian Lyons and we started out on fire. However from 10 am on we covered water and did a lot more fishing then catching. We were pitching cranks and jigs and about everything else that we had in the boat. Cranks and hair jigs were our producers on this day. We ended our day with a couple nice fish and that was it. We did find a few pods of nursery fish.
There are tons of shad schooling every where and as the water temps drop we should see more fish heading into the river and the bite taking off. The water temperature yesterday was 58 degrees and that is good to see it dropping again.
Say Brian you should see what my Igloo cooler can do!!!! Thanks
Pictured is a 25 incher taken on a number 5 rapala cast to rock about six feet of water.
Good luck out there and hope to see you on the water.
Here are some other photo’s from the week.
Sounds like some tough conditions to fish in.
Still, you guys caught some real nice walleyes.
Nice report Greg!
Boog
Greg,
You sure had challenging conditions! High dirty water and unpredictable weather. Kudo’s on the results.
Greg,
Good talking to you yesterday. We found a few sauger but they are still scattered. We caught them from Hay Creek all the way to the Y with no one spot giving up more than one or two. This weather should get the water temps going in the right direction and the sauger bite should take off very soon. There are fish to be caught but they seem to be scattered and lethargic, at least to our boat. Are you fishing the tourney next weekend?
Rich
Nice looking Walleyes, Greg.
Jack.
Thanks John and Joel. But I tell you I am spoiled on this fishery. My boat averaged 2 fish per day for four days,and that stinks in my book.
We had some great conversation and plenty of laughs, what else can a guy do.
Hey Redneck,
Yes I am going to fish with Jerrie Eckholdt, but I saw you and Chris jerkin them in two at a time the other afternoon I should probably stay home.
Heck it should be a fun time with plenty of jokes to go around. Tell Chris good luck this week and I might see you on the water Friday.
Greg,
We didn’t get out till noon but that was my first fish of the day when you saw us get that double. The boys put a whoopin’ on me that day. Saturday should be a fun day. Chris is headed down this morning for the week so hopefully he’ll pattern them by the weekend. I tried to talk him into waiting a day or two until the weather gets better but it was like talking to a brick wall. I’m headed down Wednesday evening so we’ll be around on Friday if you make it out. Good luck this weekend.
Rich
Greg – good report and kudos to you and the others for sticking it out under less than ideal conditions.
Good luck this weekend!
Hey Greg;
Perhaps slower fishing than we would like, but lots of laughs just same 
Thanks for letting me tag along! We had a great day to be on the water
say Vandy my frigidaire knows some neat tricks too