Pool 2 report 10-17-03

The time of the year is approaching us quickly here as Pool 2 starts to show signs of the cooler water temps, shorter days and big walleyes. Joining me yesterday was Dan “Boone” Zillig and his good friend Bill Henderson. Together we got on the water about noon with the strategy to probe the wingdams in search of some nicer fish.

With about 6 wingdams of some of my usual milk run spots under our belts and no walleyes to show for our efforts, I decided it was time to shift gears a bit to try a different approach all together. We picked up and headed to some of my backwater trolling areas and decided to put back some small crankbaits behind the boat and troll shallow in 4-7 foot areas with quick access to deeper 15 foot areas nearby. Making several passes through a couple different areas and not much happening, Bill then scores first with a nice walleye running about 22 inches. After a picture and a release, we continued to make a couple more passes through this area with no more takers. It was time to shift gears once again and head shallow and pitch jigs and cranks to some riprap shorelines…. Bingo!! First cast with a 1/8thoz. Jimmy D’s white hair jig produced an average 18” fish out of about 7 foot of water just off the shoreline. To prove out this was not a fluke fish, I pitched right back in there and 2 casts later produced a nice fat 28” brute that gave me the thrill of fighting this fish out of 3 foot of water. This approach produced several more walleyes ranging 16-22 inches and a handful of sheepies as well.

The best environment we found to be productive on this outing seemed to be riprap shorelines with a bit of current and deep water nearby. What was even better about this area was that there was a small 3-6 foot rocky shelf just off shore before it dropped to 15-20 foot of water. Pitching the lighter 1/8thoz. hair jigs right up tight to shore and slowly swimming them back to the boat was clearly the ticket here. This spot again produced a nice fat 27” fish and a handful of nice average 16-19 inch fish that all fell victim to a Jimmy D hair jig. As darkness approached us, we headed to a nearby wingdam with the intentions of producing once or two nicer fish. Shortly after our arrival Dan scores big with hefty 27” fish that drilled a light 1/16th oz jig with a purple K-grub. Nice fish Dan!

The bite on Pool 2 is finally starting to turn on or at least show signs of definite improvement with nicer average fish beginning to put the feedbag on. Look for this bite to really get rolling in the next week or so. Every time I say this we get another hit of above normal day and night time temps. Very nice weather to be out fishing in, but I believe we need those over night temps to drop a bit before things really get rolling. The inevitable will happen, but putting a exact finger on the date is obviously out of my hands. So, in the meantime, wish for cooler nighttime temps and do not put that boat away for the year by any means! For now, I am back up to Mille Lacs for a couple more trips and then I will be back on Pool 2 for the rest of the fall.

Good luck.