The “Fall Frenzy” has begun on pool 4. The last 2 trips to the river have been great for numbers of walleye and sauger in the 16” to 22” range. A little bit of everything seems to be putting a few fish in the boat for everyone I have spoke to out on the river and those camping at Everts Resort. My best numbers bait has been vertical jigging sonar’s in the dam area. Chartreuse, purple, black, and white/red sonar’s have been my best 4 colors. When pitching jigs to the shoreline I have been juggling between ringworms, K-grubs and hair jigs. Not one has been better than the other on recent trips, changing up often seems to be the key for me as the preference of the fish has changed from spot to spot and day to day. I have yet to find a large concentration of walleye on anyone rip rap section of the river. With low flows, and the high forage base, those walleye are pretty spread out yet, for me anyway. The colder temps that have been here over the last couple of days will get those water temps right down in to the lower 40’s putting those walleye’s in to their wintering holes. I am hoping they will show up in better numbers along the deeper sections of rip rap instead of one here and one there, I got my fingers crossed!
Last Sunday I fished with Jeff Addison. Our goal was to look for bigger fish in the morning hours pitching jigs to the shoreline and then head to the dam and play the numbers game if the fish didn’t cooperate for us down river. The morning action was slow for us with a fish every so often casting rip rap but it was enough to keep our interest and stay in the game waiting for that one big bite. At about 1:00 we gave up the casting gig with only 6 nice walleye pitching rip rap, the biggest eye was a solid 23”. After that we headed to the dam area and worked blade baits in 12’ to 15’ of water, it wasn’t immediate success, we had to find what depth they were holding in and try to stay on them. It took us about 30 minutes and we found a nice little area that had numbers of sauger and walleye in the 16” to 20” range. I did take a few walleye and sauger on hair jigs in this area as well but Jeff was literally kicking my but catching 3 fish to my 1 on the blade bait he was using. With the fish we had in the early am, and the 4 hours we spent in the dam area, we had just short of 30 legal fish to show for our day with our catch being predominately walleye by days end. Jeff is pictured here with a limit of nice eaters he took home from our trip. Thanks for spending another day in my boat Jeff, I look forward to our next trip!
On Wednesday I shared my boat with Todd and Jim Olson. The start of the day found us on a large section of rip rap down by the head of the lake pitching jigs to shore. The wind was brutal making it very difficult for us to cast jigs with the control we needed but we stuck with it for about 3 hours. By mid morning we had 1 legal walleye, a few smallies, and one of those jumbo 14” crappies in this area. It just didn’t feel like the bite was going to get better for us in this location any time soon, so to the dam area we went to see if the fish were still willing to cooperate. It took us a bit of time to re-locate the fish in this area. On this day the magic depth was 21’ of water with an occasional biter in the 18’ depths as well. If I slid the boat out in the 22’ plus depths the fish ran a bit on the smaller side. Blade baits again were the hot ticket for these fish. Chartreuse was our best color on this day with a few on red/white and one mongo 4.5lb sauger on a purple sonar. I am pictured at the top of this report with that fish. This was the biggest sauger of the day and Jim is pictured here with one of the many sauger we boated. The sauger Jim is holding taped out at just shy of 20”, we had a few others in that size class as well. By days end we had more walleye than sauger again, biggest walleye taped out at 22”caught on a sonar. Most of our fish were running in the 17” to 19” range. By the time our 5 hours in the dam area was thru we had 27 legal walleye and sauger. Just before 3:00 we all headed for home where things were a bit warmer, it was cold out there on Sunday with those winds. Thanks guys and I am looking forward to our trip this Spring.
The biggest change on the river that I observed on Wednesday was the water clarity is much better that it was a couple of days ago. The water clarity looks just as it should at this time of year. I will be on the river most of next week and will be looking for a really good dusk/dawn bite in the shallower portions of the areas I find fish deeper during the day.
The saugers that have been coming to the boat look like little black and white foot balls. I can honestly say that these fish look just like they do in the Spring of the year prior to spawn. By looking at the last picture here you can see how plump they appear these fish were released after a quick snap shot The walleye are healthy as well but most of them in the same size range as the sauger don’t have the girth.
For those of you who follow the forums have seen, I am offering a “Free Guide Trip” to one lucky registered member of the site (details can be seen by clicking on the above link). This is just my way of saying thanks to in-depthangling.com for allowing me to be a part of a great website we have all come to love and read daily to better our selves in the angling world. I would also like to see more non-registered users sign up and contribute in the learning and sharing of information on a daily basis. The more the merrier! This website has given me a great tool that I have taken advantage of to promote my guide business over the last 3 years. Other guides on this site who consistently write reports and share information on the forums can attest to how powerful and effective this tool can be. If you are a guide and want more business, this is the way to do it, period!
Thank you In Depth Angling!
Wholly fat cats Dustin !!!
those saugers are fully developed
Glad to see your on’em !!!
Keep the reports comin !!
Love the looks of those big saugers!!! Thanks for sharing, hope to see you on the river soon.
Talk about SUMO saugers! Wow.
Good report buddy.
Have you tried snap jigging plastics at all or is it all a blade bite right now?
Steve,
I have snapped until my arm falls of with plastics and hair. I have caught a few fish snapping hair and ringworms but the blade baits must have the majic twitch to them cause they have been on fire
.
I don’t look for the blade bait bite to last much longer with the water temps dropping as fast as they have been. Once those temps fall in to the lower 40’s and upper 30’s, the plastic bite will be my mainstay
.
It could be those blade baits resemble dying shad better than ringies and do’s? A dying shad or any baitfish for that matter has an erratic motion that flutters and vibrates like most blade baits. I would be willing to bet when the population of shad lowers to normal fall/winter numbers the amount of fish being taken on plastics will increase.
Beautiful fish Dustin. Your making me wish I was up there right now.
If I get down there this weekend, I’m going to try the chubby darters also to see what kind of results they can produce. Look for a report on Monday.
Not to sound to dumb, but… What is jigging sonar’s?
Thanks, Scott
SHED10,
Heddon sonars are blade baits that give out an extreme vibrant action when jigged vertically. THe holes you see on the top of the lure are for tying or using snaps to attach to your line. The reason their is 3 is because they are strategically located to give off different levels of action so you can match what mood the fish seem to favor.
Here is a pic.
Thanks for the quick response Steve and Dustin. I’ve seen guys use those at Dam #9 about a month ago and wondered what the heck they were. They were catching a lot more fish than I was with my jig and plastics.
SHED10
Dustin ,what colors are the HOT ones in the sonar’s line ? Thanks Dustin .
I am having the best results on chartreuse, black, purple and white/red. Those have been my best 4 colors
Dustin,
Do you find that the Sonars out produce other blades like the Zips, or Cicadas? Or doesn’t it really seam to matter. Thanks.
To tell you the truth I am not a big blade bait fisherman so my supply is limited in the blade bait category. Most of my fishing this time of year is done with jigs/plastic but things have been a bit weird this fall so I opted to try something different and it has paid off for me thus far. I am not certain this bite will last much longer than another week. With this little cold snap we are having the water temps will most likely reach the upper 30’s and slow the blade bait bite down. On the other hand, it is fishing and things change from year to year,we are just gonna have to wait and see for sure I guess
The sonars I’m using were bought at Everts Resort and a few of them at Hooked On Fishing in Rochester. Both of these bait shops have a good supply of the colors I have been using.
DeeZee
Vandy reports SMOKIN’ the fish today snapping plastics! Looks like the drop in water temps were all it took to get that bite rolling… just like Dustin and others had been predicting would happen soon with the dropping temps. I dropped a link to the info below. Check it out!
Snapping Plastics
Fish on!
Sounds good to me! Would love to go.
dustin me and mike(auto glass master) were out on wensday we got our limit by noon useing red and white sonars purple worked also.we did try scartuse superdoos not much hit on this staying in 18 feet range for depth.Now the question the color of line how much if any do you see in the bite? Are fish color blind?thanks see you out on the river.
Good to hear you guys had a good day on Wednesday. Man it was windy and cold that day, then the rain came and did us in
. We had 8 decent fish when we quit at 1:00 with a bunch of dinks, 4 of those 8 came early pitching rip rap. Half of our fish were eyes that we had casting shorelines before the wind picked up and the other half were sauger we vertical jigged up with plastics in the dam area.
I was on the water the last 5 days and never had a 15inch fish come to the boat on a blade bait, the plastic bite was very good for me on most days. Fish are not color blind but some species see certain colors better than others. I have used the hi-vis solar lines since they have made them. Can’t say as I have ever had my catch rates suffer on the river due to the line color.
Those are some fantastic looking fish Dustin.