Well being land locked for 4 weeks, I had to get my string stretched. So John Stears and I headed up to Everts. Dean has the ramps in great shape. The weather was great for us on Monday; temps may have made 30 degrees and a slight south west wind. The great thing was the sun was out and you tuck up out of the breeze and it was down right nice out. John and I arrived at Everts about 10:15 and got all the hot tips from Dean and took off on our cold water adventure. Water temp when I put the boat in at the ramp was 33 degrees. We ran up to the dam and John had the first fish in the boat in less than five minutes. We weren’t there long and up come Dick Dorman with a nice walleye that needed a photo. Great fish Dick nice photo and release. He said it came vertical in 18 feet with a catalpa ring worm. That was to be the biggest fish John and I would see for the day.
The water visibility is excellent, when I launched at the resort I could see the bottom and my depth finder was reading 6 feet. The flow is very slow and bite is going on all presentations that we tried on this day. The forecast looks good so if you are getting cabin fever get up to Redwing and catch a few whitetails. Dean has all the hot tips, baits and will point you in the right direction. Here is a shot of Johns first fish of the day.
We started our day pitching and took some fish with paddle tails and ring worms. The worms with chartreuse tails and oyster shell paddle tails were getting the nod on this day.
I swung out and went vertical with some Super Doos 16 to 24 feet of water. I was using 3/8 & 5/16 ounce orange tiger jigs tipped with white Super Doos and ringworms with a chartreuse tail. Did not seem to matter what color just needed a yellow tail. All I can say is hold on to your rod because they just blast it. Orange head white doo was best for my bigger fish. However we never boated anything over 19 inches on this day.
The next thing John and I tried was to pull some ringworms up current in 10 to 16 feet of water. We were using 1/8 and 3/16 ounce jigs; it didn’t take long and fish on. So the bite is not on fire but you can put your limit in the boat in a few hours with jigs any way you want to fish them.
The pitching baits were 1/8 ounce to 3/8 ounce. Our target areas were rock and sand transitions; we also hit the wing dams. We took fish in every area that we fished.
We ended our day at 4:00 pm and what a fine day it was thanks for the company John, it was fantastic as always. Boy it was just great to get the boat under my feet again, as long as the temps stay up over 20 I will be back.
A couple more pics.
Great report!
Sounds like a nice day on the water! 
Great report! You guys love that open water stuff don’t you!
Great report
You guys keep doing reports like this and I,ll be asking for directions on how to get to the landing. 
Maybe see if I can make it soon. From Jeff. 
Ooooh was it good to be back on open water!
Thanks for taking me Greg. Ice fishing is OK but it takes FOREVER to cut a trench to cast down. 
As Greg said, virtually everything we tried worked so you could fish your favorite way. Greg is “Mister Hoover” with the vertical presentations so I’d cast away from the boat and drag a ring worm. I got my share but he cleaned out the big ones.
The conditions couldn’t be any better. The ramps are in great shape, super clear water, aggressive strikes where you could see your line jump, no ice floating and the river is ice-free as far down stream as we could see. The best part was as we pulled up the ramp I swear I smelled someone baking chocolate chip cookies!
I went back yesterday with Mike Cayford (AlvinMack)and found the conditions the same but a little tougher bite. The fish moved so we had to stick to dragging and vertical jigging. The fish move deeper till the wind picked up and put a ripple on the water. Our best pass was pulling ringworms upstream in 13-14 FOW. It produced 7 quality sauger, including the 21.75” dandy in the picture. Mike is a big guy so if a normal size guy was holding it, would look HUGE.
Get up there guys the bite is hot!
Good to see some familar faces again!The bite has been as consistant as I have ever seen it!
Nice Sauger Mike.
Nice report guys!
Dang, you guys are definitely giving me the itch to get out in a boat again.
Mike Cayford is
“bigger than normal” 
Nice fish!
Great Report guys. Sure wish I had the chance to get the boat out this week while it was decent out. Nice looking fish!
Greg,
Great report, and sounds like a mighty fine day to be on the river.
Great Sauger Mike
Jack.
Cut it out John!!!!
I really need to concentrate on doing a little late season bowhunting…and I see you, Vandy, and the Mackster still banging P-4 fish and I JUST CANT FOCUS!!!
I wanna be there too!!!
Man…do I love jigging Walleyes…
The bite was still good today. Professor and I started fishing about 1pm and must of caught close to 40 this afternoon. Fsed mostly deeper than 20′ with ringworms and paddle tails. A quick jig of the bait and then a long pause in motion was what a lot of them wanted. Most would hit will the bait was held still.
We also moved to some shallow rocks towards dark to try some pitching. Just a few casts into this and it was clear the walleyes where there. Nothing huge but a lot of nice eaters.
Good luck to you guys that are getting out.
Mike took care of me real good today! First, he got me on open water! Next he ran the boat all day making sure that each drift we stayed on the fish. Then when I ran into that dreaded dry spell he made me slow down and hold the bait still after a soft pump and drop.Paddletails and ringies in a neutral pattern work the best.
And a good time was had by all!
Thanks Mike!
It’s nice to see you guys still hitting the open water
Good to see your getting out. I have not floated a boat in almost 5 weeks
. I am hoping for some mild weather in the first part of Jan so i can get back on the river 
Great report Vandy!
Dustin, I feel your pain, hope to see you out there soon!
Merry Christmas to all
Jeremy
Ahhhh….yes. Mr. Sausage Fingers
Fat drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son