Mississippi River Pool 5a

By mrcrappie 0

The past few days I got to spend some time on the river with some family & friends. With all the pressure that P4 gets I thought I’d start my year off on P5a & work my way up the pools to end on P4. My son-in-law to be (Ben) joined me on my first trip and got his PB walleye (29incher). Let’s just say he wants to go AGAIN!!

We were jigging BFT jigs in a wide range of weights (3/8 to 5/16th) depending on the current & the wind on the main channel edges. I started off on the deep edges (30ft) & worked my way in from there. This is always a great starting spot to find active fish. Ben’s fish fell to a Everts plastic (available at Everts) in 24 fow, while my fish fell to a BFT paddle tail in firecracker char tail in 20 fow.

Next to join me was my brother Tony (Tmuskie) who was excited to get in after seeing Ben’s pics. No big fish for this trip, but eater fish could be had in the same area as before. Tony and I were also checked by the MN DNR (Good to see them out). They made a GREAT point by reminding us that the water is very cold this time of year and to keep your life vest accessible and not to bury them with gear and extra jackets. (OOPS…)

My son-in-law Will also enjoyed his first walleye ever on the Mississippi River. Way to go Will!! We could call it his PB, but I know it will soon be broken.
It was great to be back on the water after being dry-docked for so long! I’m really excited about working my way up the pools and look forward to catching my PB somewhere between Alma and Redwing. (Dino, stash one for me and I’ll bring you my stash of cookies, lol)

0 Comments

  1. Great pics and report. I fished that dam as a kid back in the 50s. I got back there last year acouple of times to have some fun with bass and white bass. Drew s/w WI.

  5. Hey Doug,
    Great report ,hope to make it down there real soon.
    Some great fish for the rookie boys and Tony sure looks like he’s glad to be back on the water .
    Don

  9. Doug,

    Good to hear you’re back out there. I spent Tuesday on 5a but no quality fish. Numbers but on the small size. Fountain City offers a senior launching pass so I took em up on it. The point is I’ll be there more often.

    John

  10. Nice fish! We did well on Saturday, but nothing over 20 inches except a northern. We did get more keepers than we had been catching in the last 3 weeks. Nice to be off the ice and in the boat again.

  11. Nice fish Doug.

    I was there Saturday afternoon and while we got into some nice smallies, we did not do well on the walleyes. We kept 3 saugers for the pan but no legal eyes.

    I fish this pool a lot, I’ll keep an eye open for you.

    Dave

  12. We didn’t hit any smallies, were you fishing wingdams?
    I’ll be down there or on Pool 5 in the next couple days.
    Couple for the pan sounds good!

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