Mississippi River, MN – Pool 4 Fishing Report

The best way to describe the bite on the upper pool 4 is inconsistent from one day to the next. The last 2 times on the water in the last week the bite has been better than it was a week ago. I have started to see better numbers of fish on the last outing as well with some darn nice fish making it to the boat. I have 2 different presentations working for my boat right now, casting hair jigs or ringworms to the shoreline rip rap has been the best for the better than average size walleye in my boat.

It has been a straight 50/50 deal on the hair or the plastic for me, one hour they want hair, the next they want the ringworms. Make sure you are ready to be versatile instead of fishing one bait for a long period of time if it is not putting fish in the boat. What I’ve been doing is keeping 1 rod rigged with a ringworm and another with a hair jig, making 3 casts with one, then 3 cast with the other. This has helped me figure things out a bit faster on the particular day I hit the water. I am finding my fish in 3’ to 8’ of water with an occasional straggler in the deeper water down to 13’. The best color on Plastics has been purples with the pro-blue a close second. Hair has been a toss up between solid black or purple with white or black head. Both of these colors have put really nice fish in the boat on the hair jigs.

The second presentation putting fish in the boat has been vertical jigging blade baits in the dam area. This bite is shaping up nicely with nicer fish making an appearance every day. I have not spent a lot of time in the dam area on the last few trips, maybe and hour to two. My customers and I have sacrificed numbers of 16” to 19” sauger and walleye that are the main stay of that bite right now, looking for the bigger fish down river. If a guy was to spend most of your day in the dam area you should be able to put a nice bunch of eaters in the boat by days end. Expect to work for them though as Steve Vick from Everts Resort said in his report because it’s been an on/off again ordeal.

The bite has been best for me in the am hours then falling off in the afternoon hrs on the last few trips. On Sunday of last week I spent the day with Les Wolfe and Andy Merical from the DesMoines IA area. We had a really good first hour of the day casting rip rap with ringworms and hair jigs. I am picture here with the best fish of the day taken on a pro-blue ringworm in the first 2 hours of the trip. The rest of the day we had to work hard for the very few walleyes we brought to the boat in the later pm hours. Thanks for making the long drive guys. Looking forward to fishing with you again next year!

Yesterday I spent the day with Dave Konkel. I told Dave in the early am before we got on the river that the chance of getting better numbers of fish was going to be in the dam area but we had a chance at some better fish in areas I had been fishing down river. Dave had purchased the instructional video “Mastering Plastics for River Walleyes” that James Holst and myself had filmed and was enthused about spending the day casting rip rap with the lighter style jig heads that we always talk about. Dave is an avid bass fisherman and used to do pretty well on the tourney trail, it didn’t take him long to pick this presentation up with his experience as an avid angler. Most of Dave’s time is spent on some of the southern pools of the Mississippi River, our day together gave him a good feel of what to look for on the pools he spends most of his time. It took us about 15 minutes to hook up our first walleye, the rest of the day we never saw a big flurry of walleye action but had a steady bite going with a nice walleye every 30 to 45 mins. The in-between time was spent catching numerous sheepies, some crappies, white bass, smallmouth and one 12” perch that Dave can be seen holding in the post below. This is the biggest perch I have ever seen caught on pool 4, nice to know there is some nice ones around. By days end we had close to a 3 man limit of fish with 6 nice eaters that Dave is pictured here with. The last walleye pictured in this report was of my best fish of the day caught on black hair jig. Thanks for making the trip Dave, I will see you next year on lake Mille Lacs for sure.

I am seeing just as many nice fish in the 21”+ range make it to the boat as I am eaters right now. As you can see in the pictures the walleye are feeding very well right now, so well, all the 25”+fish look like they just swallowed a softball. I can’t ever remember seeing every fish I catch in Oct/Nov look as fat as they appear to be right now. I know the big bite will happen, as it does every year, but with the system so full of shad right now, we as anglers have a lot of competition to deal with. It will be interesting to see what the intensity of the big bite will be this November, hopefully it will be just like any other November on pool 4 of the Mighty Mississippi, but it sure is off to a slow start!

Until next time, I’ll see you on the river!