Pool 11 report

With the water on a steady rise and the temps hovering around the 43 degree mark my fishing partner,Jared Junk and myself decided to take the 10 mile run up to the tail waters of pool 11.

Cold and windy would be a slight understatement in describing the conditions today,the steady north winds made for a frosty ride.

Hitting a few nice looking slack areas on the way up river produced very little action on our ringworm and K-grub presentations so I wasn’t anticipating a hot bite after arriving at Guttenburg.

When arriving at the dam I wasn’t quite sure what to think.

The usually packed parking lot was void of the countless trucks and trailers and the waters ahead revealed only a few hardcore fisherman scattered throughout the system.

Jared and I glanced at each other,not quite sure if the fish were on a bad spin or the nasty conditions were keeping the week-end warriors off of the water.

Seeing the lack of boats made it easy for me to opt for some shallow presentations while anchoring up in a few prime areas.

Usually,fishing tailwaters amongst a crowd of people,anchoring in prime waters is not a welcome practice for my boat as it takes away alot of area for fellow boaters to fish.Today was an exception.

Dropping anchor two or three different times to get that perfect angle proved to pay off quite well!

Starting off with the usual suspects-ringworms,K grubs,and 1\4 oz.blades, the bites were coming but not hot by any means.You could feel the fish grabbing hold but for them to inhale it consistently just wasn’t happening.

Time for live bait!

Slimming down to an 1\8th oz.sour apple h2o jig matched up with a chartreuse superdoo with a lively fathead was the ticket for boating some very nice eyes.

Tossing up to the bank in 2 ft.of water and popping it down the shelf into 8-10ft.worked out well.

With the heavy,dark skies,it seemed the fish were steadily working shallow for most of the day. After catching a few fish things would slow down,but after a short time it seemed that a small school would relate to the bank again resulting in more caught and released fish.

15-20 eyes came to the net today,all ranging from 18-25"inches with a few saugers mixed in as well.

Before heading out this morning,I traveled to Prairie Du Chein to meet up with Dave Koonce at his shop.It still amazes me at the amount of plastic Dave can fit into his "little slice of heaven" store house. Not only will you walk away with some of the hottest baits on the walleye trail but you will also know that you just had a conversation with a truely dedicated fisherman too. Thanks Dave! BfishN tackle rocks!