Mississippi River Pool 8 Report

With the weather patterns making a tip towards the spring side it just doesn’t feel right not spending every waking hour on the ice! This is the time of season where any day now the lips sported by finned critters will start inhaling baits.
Not getting out on the frozen waters as much as I’d like to lately the plan was, run to a community hole on the North end of the pool. There was sure to be a bite after talking with Mikehd who did well the day before with friends, and sortin’ out a few gills sounded like a great way to spend a day. Awesome job showing Sally the hard water world Mike You can read about Sally and company’s day in the ice forum

After the LazerMag made short work out of punching 2 feet of the hard stuff the puck was dropped into the ice silo and the MarCum spun up to see what things looked like in 15 – 18fow. The bottom 5 feet was stacked with bait stealing watch fobs. The next couple of holes investigated were in 22fow and then 25fow. The deeper two holes were the key to finding some of the keeper gills.

Keeping the baits at 10 – 12 feet pulled some 7 – 7.5 and a couple 8 inch gills out of the cluster below. Dropping into the cluster would produce stolen baits or 5-6 inch gills at best. Gold/Black Ratfinkee and a Froggie Diamond jig kept my hands wet while de-hookin’ gills. Like mentioned above, with a lot of sortin’ a dozen gills ranging 7.5 – 8 inches made the trip back home to Sparta….might have slipped two 7’s in the bucket No big bruisers were found this day but they will be showing up soon!
These two CJ&S jigs also produced two fine Ultra Lite tackle testing green fish
A doubled over 24inch UL rod and 2lb smoothly spooling off the Pflueger President spinning reel puts a BIG OL’ SMILE on my face every time

I noticed some run off from sun covered banks around noon; this is the first step of the thaw to come. The sign of the thaw leaves me with mixed emotions, the hard water is going out in a few weeks but, as the oxygen levels pick up….so does the bite
With active Bass and some thicker gills perking up, the day marched past in fast forward. A still wind with warm temps made hole hoppin’ a breeze while being outside soaking up a great winter day.
Make sure you get out and enjoy the last of winter and a hot bite to come.

Good luck fishing people