Mississippi River Pool 4 Walleye Report, 7.23-7.25

Midsummer is a time of abundance on river systems all throughout the midwest. Abundant sunshine, abundant forage, and on the Mississippi River near Red Wing MN, abundant walleyes. While eater-size walleyes are widely distributed and almost constantly on the chew, successfully targeting larger walleyes in the presence of a significant forage base often requires an angler to employ specialized presentations and pay precise attention to detail.

I was fortunate to be able to spend three days this week with IDO guru James Holst, targeting large walleyes near Everts Resort on the upper portion of Pool 4. James and I did one thing for 3 days….drag light jigs tipped with live bait, looking for fish like the one I’m holding in this first picture. By paying attention to details and refining our locations and presentations, James and I enjoyed very consistent action on walleyes in the 22-28" class, with excellent numbers of eaters, cats, bass, whities, sheepers, and even big bluegills in the mix. I’m going to use this report to describe what we were doing, where we were doing it, and the tools we used to make our days filled with string-stretching action.

Dragging jigs is a technique that I really enjoy, and one that excels in the low-flow situations that we normally encounter during mid-summer and mid-winter. During mid-summer, fish use any available current to deliver oxygenated water and prey to them. To target larger walleyes, James and I looked for locations that could deliver these things to fish, yet allow them to expend the minimum amount of energy. Key locations for us were shoreline rip-rap with distinct current seams, deeper backwater channels with good flow and heavy cover, and main-channel clam beds and wing dams. If you think carefully about the river system closest to you, I’m willing to bet that you can think of a location or two that sounds just like the ones James and I fished this week.

One key piece of the jig dragging puzzle for us was the B-Fish-N tackle Draggin Jig. This is a lightweight jig that features an ultra-low profile, large hook and weedguard…these features allow an angler to deliver the bait in water 2-15 feet deep, get positive hookups on big walleyes, yet resist ever-present snags from rocks, clams and timber. I spent about a half-day dragging with standard ball-head 1/16 oz jigs, and I can’t count the number of jigs that I lost from snags in only a few short hours. In contrast, I may have lost 2 or 3 Draggin Jigs to snags during the next 2.5 days. Said quite simply, Draggin Jigs do exactly what they are designed to do, and they deserve to be part of your jig dragging arsenal.

James and I enjoyed success with a number of color and bait combinations, but the most prevalent were orange with a half-crawler and blue with a leech. In fact, nearly all of our larger, 26-28" walleyes fell for a blue Draggin Jig and a medium leech. It only took a lecture or two for me to finally follow James’ lead and spend more time fishing this very productive combination.

Unlike the plastics and hair jigs that I drag most often in winter, mid-summer dragging is the exclusive domain of live bait. James and I tipped our Draggin Jigs with either nightcrawlers or medium leeches. For crawlers, we would use anywhere from a half crawler all the way up to a yard snake. Using crawlers highlighted another benefit of the Draggin Jig…the light wire bait keeper that helps to hold the crawler tight to the jighead, and helps the bait stay on the hook even in the presence of tail-tugs from snags and light biters. We used strictly medium-sized leeches, not the jumbos that lake anglers are most accustomed to. Medium leeches are excellent mimics for the invertebrate life that is so abundant in the river, and really excel during and after mayfly hatches.

One tip I can pass on that will help keep your bait handy and lively in hot weather is to store your bait in Leech Tamers over ice. We would load up our Tamers with leeches and washed, dirt-free crawlers in the morning and them store them in a cooler over ice. A rinse of the Tamers once or twice during the day keeps the bait moist, and the live bait offerings remain in great shape when stored in Tamers in a cool, dark place. In addition, if you wash your crawlers before putting them in the Tamer, your fingernails and your boat’s floor will remain crawler-dirt-free during your trip!

James and I had the opportunity to test drive a Skeeter WX 1880 from Skeeter Boat Center in Eau Claire WI during our time fishing together, and we both found this boat to be an EXCELLENT jig-dragging platform. A typical dragging pass would have James in the bow of the 1880, using a pair of 7’6" St Croix Tournament Series rods, and me in the stern with a pair of 6’8" rods. This spread of rod lenghts in concert with the 95" beam of the 1880 allows a team of anglers to cover a nearly 16-foot span of water behind the boat, while minimizing tangles with each other. We would drag strictly downstream, moving 0.1-0.3 MPH faster than the current, pulled downstream by the bowmount trolling motor. When a fish would bite, we would feed the fish a bit of line in much the same way that a live bait rigger on a lake would do. After feeding a bit of line, any slack would be reeled up and the hook driven home with a firm hookset. After a fish was landed and a picture or two snapped, we would quickly return it to the water. Minimizing the amount of time that a fish spends out of the water at this time of year is critical to ensuring a successful release. James is featured in this last photo reviving a fish that briefly visited the guys in the WX 1880, and was then released back into the big muddy.

Jig dragging is a great way to cover water and enjoy some string-stretching mid-summer action. I will let the cat out of the bag by saying that we caught most of our fish, and exactly 100% of our 26-28" fish, within a 5-10 minute boat ride of Everts Resort. In a time of high gas prices, you don’t need to burn a ton of gas to have a chance at a tanker walleye…just pay Dean at Everts a visit, stock up on Draggin Jigs and an assortment of live bait, get a word or two of advice about the hottest locations, and then get out and stick a mid-summer pig. They’re out there, sitting on a current seam or a clam bed, just waiting for you. Don’t make them wait too long!

Some additional resources:

For the good read on the basics of jig dragging, check out this IDO fishing article: The Art and Science of Jig Dragging

For information about the Skeeter WX 1880, check out Skeeter Boat Center.

To order your very own Draggin’ Jigs, check out B-Fish-N tackle.

For another great tip about using Leech Tamers for mid-summer live bait fishing, check out this tip from IDO Pro Staffer Scott Steil.

To get yourself within spittin’ distance of some mid-summer piggies, spend a day at Everts Fishing Resort.