January open water action on Pool 4

Open water fishing is in full swing on Pool 4 of the Mississippi river. Warm weather and a consistent bite make this a great time to visit Everts resort and tangle with fish like this.

I hit the river on Friday with my father-in-law Tim, and before doing anything, I had a long chat with Dean about locations and tactics. One thing that Dean brought to my attention was his new line of Everts custom jigs and plastics. He wouldn’t let me leave the shop without a pack of 3/8 oz gold glitter heads and some new smoke-colored shad-style baits with black flecks….it’s a good thing I listened to his advice!

Leaving the resort, Tim and I headed downriver to scour an area that is a consistent producer of mid-winter, low-flow fish. We made a couple of passes with 3-ways and stickbaits with no takers, and finally stuck a 15" eye on Dean’s recipe while drifting downstream with the current. I was working this combo much like I would work a paddletail: drop to the bottom, snap upwards about a foot, and then just hold steady a few inches off the bottom. My first legal walleye of 2008 thumped that shad-style plastic rigged on a gold glitter head with reckess abandon. It was a good way to start the year.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, Tim and I ran up towards the dam area. On the way past Everts, we noticed about a dozen trucks in the lot, and as we approached the dam, we started to see some familar faces. First was John Stears and his partner. Next was Stuart and his group. A few hours later, we chatted with Micah and Mike W. This reminded me that winter fishing out of Everts resort makes you part of a brotherhood of die-hard river anglers.

A few boats were fishing below the Y, but Tim and I headed up towards the dam itself, and started working the wingies, clam beds and sand bars. Our most consistent daytime bite was in relatively deep water, 20’+, fishing plastics and later blades. This next fish was our biggest of the day, a 19"+ sauger that thumped, you guessed it, a smoke/black glitter shad style bait with a 3/8 gold glitter head. You can see that head sticking out of this lucky sauger’s beak.

During the afternoon, Tim and I switched up between vertical jigging those same shad baits on gold heads, dragging plastics through that same deep water, and vertical jigging 1/4 oz blades. For dragging, we used 1/4 oz heads and ringies (firecracker chart tail and oystershell) pulled downstream just a hair faster than the current. This recipe was good for several fish, including the 16" eye shown in the third picture. Our best numbers, however, came on blades. Black, white, and red blades each produced fish, with white being best in the bright sun and black being strong as some high clouds rolled in. The first pic shows a typical blade walleye that hit a white 1/4 oz blade. Our experiences this afternoon reminded me of the importance of a significant pause (5-10 seconds or even more) on a tight line between upstrokes of the blade. At least half of my fish whacked the blade while I was tight-lining right on the bottom. Don’t forget to work that pause into your blade jigging cadence.

In my boat, mid-winter fishing usually consists of a moderate bite during the day and a strong bite as the day draws to a close. As the sun retreats behind the tree tops, my normal recipe is to drag ringies along the rocky shores or across sand and rock bars, focusing on the 8-12 foot depths. Yesterday was no exception. Tim and I experienced a strong dusk bite on chart/pepper and purple/chart tail ringies, rigged on 1/8 and 3/16 oz heads. The last 75 minutes of our day accounted for 18 fish, mostly in the 14-17" class. Here is Tim with a typical fish that posed for us before swimming away.

By day’s end Tim and I had 42 fish under our belts, about 1/3 walleyes and the rest saugers. All of those fish are still swimming in the upper reaches of Pool #4. Take advantage of the warm weather over the next couple of days, pick up some tips from the brotherhood at Everts, and enjoy our fantastic mid-winter open water fishery!