If you’re planning on fishing the Red Wing Dam area anytime soon, expect the unexpected. The bite has been about as up and down as the sonars being jigged at the dam! The reports vary so much from day to day and even mornings to evenings. If you’re willing to stick out a full day of fishing, you can expect to get a good bunch of fish or even limits, but you MAY have to work for them. I can’t explain the delay in the fall bite this year. I’ve heard tons of explanations from the low water, low flows, increased baitfish populations, warm water……I’m sure all have played a factor in some way or another. I do know that the fish are up there, cuz at times it has been fantastic, but the next day they have lockjaw.
Of the fish being caught, there is a good mix of walleye and sauger. The overall size of the fish is excellent as well. I can’t remember seeing sauger as fat as these are already. And some of the walleye are shaped like footballs. I watched one guy clean a 18 inch walleye that looked incredibly fat. I had him cut the guts open to see if it was full of shad and it was empty….there was just tons of fat inside the fish! On a side note to this, you can already tell the fat females from the males. The females are full of eggs alredy, so practice selective harvest please.
As I mentioned earlier, you will see a vast majority of the boats jigging sonars up there. That has probably been the best method as of late…however thats what most people are using too. I had a chance to get out yesterday afternoon for a couple hours and had 5 nice fish on hair jigs casting the sand on the Wisconsin sandflat in about 12 foot of water. There was no indecisiveness in their hitting the hairjig! They hammered it. The majority of the fish seem to be in that 10-20 foot range on the breakline and the current breaks. I have also heard of a few nice walleyes being caught on crankbaits casting the rip-rap shorelines.
One last thing to mention is the crappies this fall. There are more crappies showing up this fall than I have ever seen here. Perhaps it’s because of the low flow and they have been pulled out of the backwaters. Either way, fishing the rip-rap tight to shorelines or the snags with light jigs and minnows or tube jigs will prodce some DANDY crappies right now. 12-14 inch crappies have been showing up almost every day. Good Luck to all.
Nice report, Steve. Imagery is excellent. “up and down as the sonars being jigged at the dam” Is that like up and down like a rodeo bull on a rampage? I understand these things so poorly.