Mississippi River MN Pool 4 Walleye Fishing Report

I had the chance to spend the last 5 days on the big river during my favorite month of the year and what a blast it was. I started my 5 days of fishing last Sunday with decent numbers of saugers and walleye. The consensus I had come to by talking to all the boats out and about Sunday was a slower bite than the 2 days prior. The bite was a bit off compared to the last time I was on the river but fish were there to be caught. The fish had pushed out deeper on this day than previous days holding in 22’ plus depths and once a little active pod of fish was found trying to stay on them was the key to get um while the getting was good. Ringworms and superdoos where my best 2 producers for 15” to 20’ walleye/sauger. Most guys that know me know how much I hate to vertical jig if I don’t have to, since I was all by my lonesome, I headed off to pitch my favorite big fish bait this time of year to some of my favorite rip rap. My favorite big fish bait you ask? 5” K-grubs of course! I prowled around for a short time on some of my favorite spots this time of year and hooked in to the first fish pictured here that hit the scales at 10lbs 6ozs. Luckily for me, Tim Harms and his buddy Chad Kruse were fishing close by and were more than happy to take a quick snap shot for me. Thanks Guys! This was my biggest fish for the 5 day stint on the river, I tried really hard the rest of my stay to get a bigger one but it was never found. This fish was caught on a black 3/16oz H2O precision head and a 5”chartreuse pearl K-grub. I love those precision jigs, they make the odd ball sizes that are hard to come by in most sporting goods stores. Those 3/16oz heads have saved my keister many times on guide trips when jig weight make the difference in 2 fish or 10 fish.

The next day I spent with my good friend James Holst snooping around for another one of those big uns. The day started with plenty of action but none of the bigger fish made an appearance for us. After our pitching bite slowed we headed to the dam area to do the yo-yo thing. Our best bait on this day for good numbers of fish in the 16” to 20” was catalpa orange superdoos with bright craw a close second. We boated a few fish on ringies as well but the better fish wanted the superdoos on this outing. The day ended with us pitching rip rap again with plenty of action on walleyes in the shallower depths of 4’ to 8’ of water. This was the first time in months James and I have had the chance to share a boat, it was a fun day

James, we need to do it again soon before it gets to cold for ya!

Tuesday I shared my boat with Ken (rivereyes) Christensen and his friends Jeff and Mark. The start of the day found us pitching jigs to a section of the river we had taken fish off of previous days before. We saw some decent action right off the bat on a mixture of baits. K-grubs hair jigs and ringies all took fish for us. Ken is picture here with our biggest and last fish of the early am flurry caught on a purple hair jig. Once this shallow action slowed, to the dam area we headed. To my surprise we had plenty of company, there were more boats out on this Tuesday than any day I have been out all fall. We saw some good sauger action right away in 17’ to 20’of water on pro-blue ringworms on our first couple of drifts, we must have just caught the tail end of that bite cause the rest of our stay was a slow one. The high blue bird skies and all the boat traffic on this day held true to the pattern of days like this. It was a slow mid afternoon bite for us on the better fish, plenty of smaller stuff to go round but them little guys just get to be pests after while! We did a lot of switching up with baits and jig sizes with limited results, every time we tried to pattern a new presentation we would get one good fish and have to change up again. Once I was sure this bite was a dead one we headed back to our early morning spot and cast jigs to shore with steady results on walleyes in the 17” to 19” range right up until dark. Thanks for spending a day in my boat guys, I’m looking forward to doing it again in the future sometime.

Wednesday I shared my boat with Willie Kuecker. The started out nice with calm winds and mild temps, well, as we all know, that didn’t last to long. We had some fish right away casting jigs to the shoreline rip rap area I have been working with some decent fish to show. Once the wind picked up the casting bite was impossible to get done so we went to the yo-yo presentation in the deeper water around this area. We had some fish to show for our efforts but most were on the smaller side. We spent some time in the dam area as well right before the rain came, the rain mixed with snow and extremely high winds made it tough to fish the area I wanted but we made due picking up a couple decent sauger with a lot of small ones in the mix. At about 1:00, the rain, snow and wind had done us in, we called it a day with 8 eaters.

Thursday Tom Clearman and Dale Bingham spent the day in my boat. Tom and Dale stayed at Everts Resort the night prior to our trip. We spent the night before having a few drinks going over the game plan for Thursdays trip. Tom and Dale have plenty of experience at the vertical jig bite but wanted to learn more about the casting bite. It didn’t take the 2 of them long to catch on as Dale had a walleye his very first cast of the trip on a purple ringworm. We had some wind to deal with right away in the morning. Up sizing from the 3/32oz head that had been good to me on previous days to the 3/16oz head allowed us to keep control of the jig with the light wind that was present. We had good action for about an hour then the wind picked up even more making it harder to control the jigs the way we needed to. We made a move to the deeper section of this area seeing a few fish going vertical with 5/16oz jigs/ringworms. The bite in the deeper water slowed to the point that we were still getting bit but the hook-ups just weren’t there for us so we changed it up a bit and long lined lighter jigs in the 1/8oz size with ringworms getting a few more fish in the boat. The lighter jigs allowed some of those less aggressive fish, I call them tail biters, to pick the bait up and get in their mouth giving us the advantage for a better hook set. We still had some hits and misses but switching to this presentation with the lighter jigs allowed us to get a few more nice fish to the boat before heading in to warm up and eat a little lunch. After our warm up, the winds had subsided and the casting bite was back on with our light 3/32oz jig/ringworm combo. The later part of the afternoon never produced a big flurry of action but was very steady for us right up until dark. We ended the trip with 22 walleyes and one sauger. Tom and Dale are the last two pictures in the report with a couple of the quality fish we saw on our trip. Thanks again Tom and Dale! I’m looking forward to our next trip together.

This last paragraph is a mini review of the best presentations /baits that were the best for me in the last 5 days. Hopefully this will give anyone heading out in the next few days a good head start. In the low light conditions, early and late in the day, the best numbers of walleye have been had in the shallower depths of 10’ right up to the bank casting ringworms on the lightest jig you can get away with and still maintain control. Ringworms were my best bait for numbers of walleye casting or vertical jigging. Best colors were anything purple or blue with firecracker and tequila sunrise right in there as well. On days with bright sunny blue bird skies, ringworms and superdoos vertically jigged in water deeper than 17’ was the best for sauger. Hair jigs never lit um up at any certain time but were good to me on a few occasions while pitching jigs shallow when the bite was a bit off. The hair always seemed to pick up a couple extra fish for us but never had the magic power to produce a bunch more. Best big fish bait was once again the 5”k-grub. I didn’t see near as many big fish come to the boat in the last 5 days like I have in past years during this time frame but do know there right there with the rest of the fish. Getting them to bite is my top goal right now on up-coming trips!

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

Pictures can be clicked on for a larger view.