Wabasha Wingdam Fishing Report – Lower Pool 4

I’m not sure how an angler just stops fishing an area that used to see that angler’s boat 150+ days a year but somehow I had found a way to steer clear of fishing lower pool 4 near Wabasha for the better part of 3 years when I was contacted a few weeks back by Jeremy "Doc" Frigo about doing some fishing in that area. My response to him was an honest "I haven’t been down in that area for years… but I’m game if you are!" Jeremy actually surprised me by stating that was exactly what he wanted to hear!

For those that don’t know Doc here’s the 30 second breakdown. He’s an experienced upper pool 4 angler, well versed in a number of techniques and always looking to expand his river fishing knowledge. Doc knew I started my guiding career down on the wing dams near Wabasha before shifting my attentions to the north end. As he told me early on in our time on the water he wasn’t looking to fish with someone that could take him to a couple hot dams and put him on some fish. What he really wanted to see was how someone that knew the area well but hadn’t fished it in a long time would go about picking through all the wing dams south of the lake and get on fish during the course of a day of fishing. Obviously Doc is a thinker and once I had a grasp on what he wanted to see out of our time on the water together I was all the more excited for this trip.

Tom P., a regular here on IDO, was invited along on this trip. Tom’s good with a jig stick as you’ll see in these photos but he’s HORRIBLE with a calendar! Tom crossed the wires regarding dates and, to make a long story short, got to the landing 2.5 hour late. That left him on the receiving end of a few colorful voice mails while Doc was trying to get him on the phone, the target of a few jokes and responsible for manning the anchor for the rest of the day once he did arrive! Tom I must say you did an excellent job of hoisting that anchor over and over and over!

Once we had all three guys in the boat the day progressed from the "stay close to the boat landing" mode we were in and moved on to the "now we’ve got to find fish and QUICK" portion of the day.

Water levels are incredibly low for this time of year which actually worked in my favor. Low water levels on wing dams are typically not good for the bite but on the flip side of the coin the lower water levels would leave very few dams holding fish. Although wing dams are very numerous on the river stretch near Wabasha knowing that only dams with good current flow and access to deep water would hold fish I was able to exclude a large portion of the available dams without having to fish them.

What we ended up looking for were dams with at least 15′ of water at the tip of the dam. And the dam would need to be exposed to good current flow. So… deep dams. Lots of current. Once you started looking at the Lakemaster map of the area it became very obvious where we needed to be looking and that was at dams located in outside river turns. And we would be fishing the 1st or 2nd dam in the series in that location as those dams received the most current flow. Once we had established our search criteria we had our targets narrowed down considerably.

Each dam was graphed prior to tossing the anchor with particular attention paid to the outside tip of each dam. I was looking for fish to be present off the end of the dams but I was also looking for secondary structure near the wingdam tips… scattered rock, wood or depressions in the sand around these dams would play a role in our success. Once the dam tips were surveyed we anchored carefully to ensure we would be able to get our baits right in the sweet spot which often was at the base of the outside tip of the dam where the river current was wrapping around the end of the dam before running off downstream. We found willing biters to be grouped up in VERY small areas on these key high flow dams. And if you could get a jig, tipped with a crawler or leech in that "spot on the spot" you were going to get bit!

And the average size of the fish was very, very good. We did have some under 20" fish but the majority of our fish were in the 22" – 25" range. Tom P. stuck a 27" & 15/16th inch fish that most people would have just called a 28. We would have too… but we’re holding him to the actual length for leaving us hanging at the landing earlier in the AM… lol

Right now an angler can get away with 1/4 and 3/16 ounce jigs due to the lower flows. The hot colors for us were black Precision Heads when fished with a leech and Orange Chartreuse when fished with a crawler. If you’ve never fished a Precision Head with crawlers… try it! You’ll love them. Thread the crawler up past the "plastics" keeper just like you would do to a ringworm and that crawler is stuck in place in a way you just won’t find on other jigs. It keeps the crawlers from flinging off when you cast them and it does a great job of keeping the bait stealers at bay.

With the river flows at summer-time lows the walleye bite on the wing dams near Wabasha should fall into predictable patterns regarding location and peak feeding windows. As the water continues to clear I would spend more time fishing early and late in the day and the further we get into the summer the more I would suggest having willowcats onboard as a third bait option should the fish start to turn up their noses at the standby crawlers and leeches.

We did throw crankbaits on all the dams fished and I must say I was surprised by how POOR the crank casting bite was on a day when the fish fed actively. I’ve also seen the same thing happening over the last couple weeks up on Pool 3 as well. the fish just don’t seem to want to chase cranks on the wingies right now. They will however take a well placed crawler or leech… and that’s all that matters.

Doc and Tom P., thanks for sharing the day with me. It was a true pleasure.

Good fishing everyone! We’ll see you on the river.