This report will be an overview of my short outing on Sunday afternoon. My partner for the day was Chef Swany. The two of us got a late start hitting the river right at 12:00noon. I new the casting bite would start off slow cause that time of day has been the biggest down time for me trying to pull fish from the shallows on my past 3 trips to the river. Things were just that until about 2:00 then it really picked up for us with a fish here and a fish there kind of deal. The wind was howling pretty good in most areas I wanted to fish so we kind of played the hiding game and stayed out of the wind as much as we could and still get those eyes to bite.
The biggest change I experienced from previous trips was the color of my Ringworm preference. On recent trips pro-blue, oyster shell and straight purple had pretty much held their own until Sunday. We stuck with those 3 colors until about 2:00 when Swany put on a fire an ice colored ringie and got 2 fish up on me, I wasn’t impressed with the results I was getting on the oyster shell so I quickly changed up and it was all up hill from there. The walleye’s change in color preference had me really confused, with the clear water we have now, I do really well on the above mentioned colors that are more translucent. On sunny days, I do really well on the colors with the glitter in them like the fire an ice and electric blue. The sun was not high and bright like it should be for those colors to be consistent producers but we literally could not buy a bite on any other color for the day except electric blue and the fire an ice. Just goes to show once you think you got those eye’s all figured out they throw you a curve. I guess that’s why they call it fishing and we keep doing it time and time again, it never gets to easy does it?
About 3:30 we found a large concentration of walleye right up on the bank close to 20’ of water, most of the walleye we took in this area came right up on the bank in 6’ of water and less, 1/8oz precision jigs worked like a charm. We saw steady action right up until the sun hit the tree tops and then bite intensified. We had fish every cast, to every other cast for a short period of time. Once the fish got really aggressive I went to my favorite big fish bait, the good ol’ K-grub in another glitter pattern, firecracker. The k-grubs started to out fish the ringworms just before dark. Our biggest fish of the afternoon outing was the above pictured walleye that hit the scales at 9 1/2lbs. It wasn’t long and we another good fish that Swany is holding, this fish fell victim to a firecracker K-grub as well. Just about the time the sun set, the wind picked up pretty good putting and end to our afternoon trip. By the end of our outing we had 32 nice walleye in the 17” to 21” range plus the 2 big girls that are shown in the above pictures.
I saw a lot of smaller sauger being caught out in the deeper water surrounding us but did hear of a few good catches in the morning hours on chartreuse pepper superdoos and ringworms. I talked to waterfowler and his buddy buckshot on the water. They were seeing lots of action on the purple superdoos with a good one in the mix every so often. It sounds like a few different colors are putting saugers in the box and they are more than willing to cooperate if targeting them. As long as those eye’s stay in the shallows, you’ll find me beatin’ the river banks looking for more of the big un’s!
I’ll see ya on the river!
Pictures can be clicked on for a larger view!
hey dustin, sounds like them wallys were snappin agian, ehh
;).
i was just wondering how long these bigger walleyes can be caught casting shallow like you do. will it start tapering off now as we head in to the deep freeze of MN winter, or does it stay a pretty consistant pattern all the way through the spring?
Every year things are a bit different Jake but as a norm, once this December full moon phase is over those bigger fish seem to go in to hiding
and don’t show up on a regular basis until late February. But every year is a bit different and only time will tell what this year is going to bring. I Have my fingers crossed in hopes this year will go against the norm and we will see big fish in the shallows all winter long 
Nice report Dustin. Awesome fish!!
Gator Hunter
Dustin, Another nice report, super fish. I do not tire in seeing you and friends holding so many big fish. holly smokes how many more could the ‘ol Miss hold that hasn’t gotten caught already by IndepthAngling staff. Dustin do you keep any records during the year, how many Walleyes over 5 pounds have come over the side (and back over again)have you seen this year. keep ’em comin. Jack.
Jack, to be honest with you I don’t know the exact answer to that question but with some time, and digging around, I could go back thru all my pictures from the past year and count um up I guess. No matter what the number comes to, it’s not enough, believe me!
Each year a guy learns more, including myself, about what to look for in search of those big mama eye’s. 
Great report Dustin, yours and James reports have made me a better angler. Some of yours and James techniques have worked great on the rock river. Thank You.
Your welcome Jeff! Good to hear that the applications we apply here on the ol’ mighty miss work in other areas as well
nice reports and pics i’ve seen you do Dustin! as you can see i’m a newbie on pool 4. what do you guys mean when you talk about the “y”? I’ve been talkin the ol mighty miss up alot lately to some of my friends and they want me to take them fishing this week…only problem is i want to catch some fish since i’ve been saying how good it is lately! what lure,baits,colors and areas would you recommend just for us to try for a day that would give us a good chance to get some eyes or saugers in the boat? thanks for any hints or tips you can give me…good luck to everyone!!!
Hi Newbie, welcome to the site!
on Sat luckily he was going slow enough I don’t think he did any major damage, but his prop is probably rather dinged up.
The “Y” is just north of Everts Resort where the river splits and goes to the dam on the east(right) branch and the lock on the west(left) branch.
I was down on Sat this last weekend and found good numbers of Sauger in 15-25 feet of water just below the dam all the way down past the wing dams.
As you are going up the right branch of the fork there are some wing dams on the west side you will need to avoid, the first one is exposed because of low water but there are a couple more that you need to watch out for. Saw a guy bang one
As for the bite…I was using 1/4 ounce jigs with Super Doos. Caught fish on several colors, green, grape/pearl, blue/pearl, pink/pearl and white. Those were the only colors we tried and we caught fish on all of them. No minnows, didn’t even have any with us.
The key to the verticle jigging is exactly that stay as vertical as possible.
If you do venture down, whoever is working the resort can hook you up with the plastics, they have a great selection, they also have maps or at least one on the counter they can point out the trouble spots. They are a great bunch of guys and have always been very helpful when I have asked questions.
John
Nice report Dustin!
I went out for a few hours yesterday monday the 22nd, and caught plenty of fish but most on the small side!
We fished the dam area, useing 3/8 ounce Zone-R Nuckle Ball Jigs and SuperDoo’s and I must say LOTS of action but not to much size. We did manage 2 fish over 3 pounds but the rest 15″ and smaller.
The best colors for me were an orange and yellow jig and chartruse Superdoo, and just holding them barely off the bottom was key for the bite.
Good Luck Fishing
thanks for the great info buckshot…i’m pretty sure i know where the wingdams are…i know where the one on the west is forsure….thats what i was thinkin the “y” meant…but me and my buddy were making sure you weren’t talking about the ymca lol! we’re getting the boat out this weekend, but does anyone know any good spots to fish the shoreline anywhere around red wing? anyone having anyluck on k-grubs? well i’ll be back with my boat and shore report…hopefully we can land a few…good luck to everyone else this week!!!
Pool 4 newbie,
You have been provided some good info already, I don’t have a lot to add. For bait’s you can’t go wrong right now with superdoos in the darker colors like purples and blues they will put fish in the boat on a consitant basis right now.
Good fishin!
we’ll we tried fishing from shore and didn’t even get a bite…we tried off the rocks at bay point park…tried superdoos,k-grubs,ringworms,fatheads,bottom,bobber everything!!! wish i had my own boat so i wouldn’t have to depend on my lazy friends lol…anyone catching any mama’s with size yet?
Hello to all!! Hey Dustin im a new user that has just found this site yesterday and you can bet ill keep comming back! I fish pool 6 alot but i fish any place I can this time of the year. I love to open water fish all year if possible. Can you or anyone tell me info on boat landings that are open now? And some genral directions. Not afraid to travel and im comming from gailsvile Wi
Welcome to the site! The only public access on the upper part of pool 4 right now is Everts Resort. There is a $7.00 launch fee but it is only about 1.8 miles from the dam. I am not sure how to get you there from your local but you can get driving directions from Redwing here on Everts website.
Hope this helps and have a fun trip
THANKS a ton dustin ill be up in the next couple of days tan and black crestliner maybe ill see you out on the water my name is tom
