There’s been a lot of talk lately about how well the recently implemented slot limits have improved the fisheries in pools 12-14. IDO members Steve Krapfl, Trevor Wilkey and myself decided to check out Pool 14 on Sunday and see if we could hook up with some of these nice eyes everyone’s been talking about.
After checking some of the recent posts in the Mississippi River forum here on IDO we knew that others had been having good fishing on wing dams with cranks and jig/crawler combos and also on channel edges in 14-17 fow with jig/crawler. We started out fishing a wing dam with very strong current by anchoring and pitching 3/8 oz blue or glitter precision jigs tipped with half of a crawler. This technique took 3 nice "overs" with a few more fish coming unbuttoned in the heavy current.
After a while on the first wing dam fishing crawlers we threw cranks for a while to the top of the dam but had no takers. We decided to go try a drift that we’d seen a couple other boats on. We figured they had been jigging bait so we thought we’d just show the fish something a little different. We drifted the flat in 14.5 to 16.5 fow jigging One Eyes instead of bait. We were rewarded with some vicious strikes from some great looking walleyes. I’m a firm believer that presenting the fish with "something different" can be very rewarding at times.
We drifted the flat over and over again catching 1-5 eyes each pass for quite a while. Finally, the fish had either moved or just turned off so we moved to a second wing dam. This dam, unlike the first one, did not produce any walleyes on jig/crawler combos but we got 4 beauties off the top of the dam throwing firetiger Berkley flicker shads.
All said and done we probably ended up with 25-30 fish with most being too big to keep. No complaints here! The slot limit that has been put in place on these pools has definitely paid off big time!
Those are some nice lookin eyes fellas
hope to get out with you sometime in the near future!!
I still think the title should have been Pool 14 One Eye Walleye Wonderment!! Nice post Andy and boy did I get sunburnt!
Great job Andy!
Nice job guys
Good to see you getting on the water Andy 
Great report and fish Andy!
Nice report and fish Andy!
Glad to hear the fishery is making a come back down there.
Looks like you fellas had a good trip. Those slots sure are fun.
Nice report guys! Pool 14 in LeClaire is my home pool. I moved away from there about 10 years ago. I definately agree the slot has helped just by looking at your pics! Nicely done guys!!!
I’ll definitely be back there when the walleyes start to migrate upstream. P12-14 have had great reports and what I think is the best about it all is that, hopefully, fishermen in other pools that don’t have the restrictions/slot limits will learn by example and start to practice better ethics.
Nice report Andy and congrats guys on a successful day!
Great Fish Andy ! I was up there on Friday and caught alot of fish. Some nice overs that pool is awsome! Just joined on here so bear with me.
Welcome to IDO Glenn. Keep us posted.
Welcome aboard Glenn! You’ve found a great place to talk fishing!
Andy, great report. Looks to me like you had no trouble finding the fish. I hope we can keep some flow going for a few weeks and keep this great bite going!
Nice report.