Mississippi River Pool Four

Last Sunday I got a call from Joe Jacobsen and he said that his group trip to LOTW for ice fishing was canceled do to unsafe ice. They wanted to get out and fish this week. He also said he had a party of four, I told him no problem as I’ve got the new guide boat, an Alumacraft 195 Tournament Sport and that it can handle four people and me.

When the group showed up it was Joe and his fiance Beth Schanzenbach, Her father Larry and sister Ana. They said that the group always has a team fishing competition where Joe and Beth (they young couple) versus Larry and Ana (father and daughter), basically the team with most fish wins. These competitions always add a bit of drama and some trash talk, I think they are great, and there was some talking.

Larry started the day off with the first picture fish, a nice 22inch walleye crushed his ringworm and got caught in the current and provided a very nice fight.

Ana and Beth teamed up for a double (report image 19 and 21 inch fish), one sauger one walleye, where the second fish hit moments after the hookset on the first. I had to judge by the pole bend which one to net and older sister Beth showed little sister who catches the bigger one ( I am paraphrasing here, but that was sentiment!).

Ana’s revenge she lands a sumo sauger (report image)that stayed deep and came up after a very good fight. Some guys could learn how to fight big fish, by watching Ana not rush the fight and not horse in the fish. Well done. This one was likely longest and for sure the heaviest of the day.

Larry strikes again; he sat on the boats wide gunnel in rear right in the far back and sniped another picture fish (23 inch) on a boat turn.

The guide caught a nice walleye as well (22 inch walleye), though I was outfished, but who wants to see the guide catch all the fish?

There were about five lead changes, back and forth like a good final four hoops game. Joe and Beth won the competition 40 to 38, we lucked out and caught more than 90 fish total in the trip, they got to take a pile of fish home and the crown of most fish.

We used techniques listed in the below report. One key when fishing with multiple people such as three or more, is I use 8 foot 3 inch rods that keep the jigs spread for the front two anglers and the rear anglers use shorter 6 foot 9 inch rods on the inside. In theory this is the same set up that trolling guys use for leadcore or trolling in general, where longer rods are up front and shorter ones inside. Spreading these jigs really makes a difference. The key with these rods are they are medium light spinning rods and not trolling rods. Also just keep the jig just off of the bottom for most hook ups.

03 30 10 Mississippi River Pool Four fishing is very good for numbers of sauger and walleye. Many of these fish are from 15 to 19 inches, plus there are 20 to 23 inch walleye in the mix. Some of these saugers are obnoxiously large and weigh over five pounds! Jig fishing either vertical or dragging in 12 to 20 feet of water is the ticket currently for these fish. Fathead minnows and ringworms on jigs are catching fish. They absolute key is to work the current seam between fast and slow water. Catching big fish in the flooded trees is a large challenge right now, but with the falling water that will be a possibility very soon. Purple, chartreuse pepper, and firecracker are hot colors, big paddletails also turned fish. Water flow at Red Wing Dam 78,600 CFS, Water temp 44, and Stage is 11.83 going to 9.4 by next week. The water is clearing very fast.