Mississippi River,Redwing MN,Pool 4 Walleye Report

The walleye fishing on Pool 4 is still the best it’s been all year, since this last Spring anyway. I have been out 2 times in the last 5 days with very good results pitching jigs to the shallows. The best bite on the walleye for me has been in 12’ of water or less . A very high percentage of my walleyes have come right up on the rivers bank with in the first 6’ from shore. Areas with 20’plus foot of water close by have been the best for me. I have found fish scattered on areas with sand, wood, and rock in the mix, but areas with direct access to the deep water have held the best concentrations of active walleye for me.

This first picture is a hefty walleye I took on Wednesday of this week caught on a 3/16oz precision jig head with an oyster shell ringworm. This fish was in about 8’ of water right tight to shore on a really steep break in to about 15’ of water. The other fish pictured here was taken right as the sun came up on a firecracker K-grub. These were the only 2 big fish I had for the day but the numbers were good with 30 walleye making it to the boat in the 17” to 19”range, plus the 2 big fish by days end. I only had one sauger for the day and it was about 5” long, it was a cute little thing!. The whole day on Wednesday was spent casting the shorelines. I saw good action right up until about 10:15am. At 10:15am the cloud cover disappeared and the sun decide to pop out and stick around for a couple of hours making it a little slow for the shallower fish. The first above fish was the biggest of the day and was caught right about 10:00am before the sun decided to show it self. I had a few more fish in the down time from 10:15 to 2:00 but they were far and few between. At around 2:00pm things turned on again with fish everywhere I went but not in big numbers. The more spots I fished, the more fish I had come to the boat, if I went 15mins with out a fish it was time to hit a different shoreline trying to find more active fish. The bite right about dusk was a bummer for me, this time of year I usually see a pretty good flurry as the sun starts to set but the fish fed good thruout the day and limited my dusk bite to only 5 walleye in the 17” to 19” range.

Last Sunday I started the day at sun-up casting the rip rap with positive results. I had 12 nice fish in the 17” to 22” range until the sun got high and the boat traffic got rolling about 8:00am the rest of the day was spent doing the sauger thing in 18’ to 24’ of water. Ringworms did the trick for me. I did see and talk to a lot of other boats doing well on superdoos but the ringworms were catching quality sauger for me in the 16” to 20” class so I just stuck with um. Anyone who was on the river last Sunday remembers the high winds we had making boat control a nightmare. There was white caps on the main river for gods sake! At about 2:30pm I gave up on the sauger bite and anchored up really close to a few choice pieces of rip rap and made short under handed cast with jigs in the 1/4oz and 5/16oz sizes to maintain control with the high winds. It paid off for me greatly with good number of walleye in the 18” to 20” class, no big fish on this day but the action was good with 27 eye’s making it to the boat casting shallow with ringworms. I had around 15 to 18 sauger during the mid day bite fishing the deep water as well.

If you are planning to hit the river this weekend don’t leave home with out the following colors. Oyster shell, straight purple, and pro-blue have been by far my top 3 colors on the Ringworms. Granted, I have not tried a lot of the other colors but in all reality I have not had to either.K-grubs have been my best bait right away in the am at sun-up with firecracker being the best. I didn’t fish a lot of other colors with the k-grubs, firecracker was getting plenty of action so I never switched up.

The walleye and sauger fishing is good, get out and get fishin!

I’ll see ya on the river!

Pictures can be clicked on for larger view.