Mississippi River Walleye Fishing Report 4-16-10

This report will be mostly an overview of my time on the river last week and the beginning of this week. My time on the water was a typical late pre-spawn/post-spawn bite. We would whack um and stack um one day, then left scratching your head the next!

On trips late last week we were still boating really good numbers of fish dubuqe rigging plastics/bait and casting ringworms and paddle tails to shoreline current breaks. We were seeing 20-40 good fish a day with most of the catch sauger in the 14"-17"class with an occasional 17"-21" male walleye in the mix. All though the numbers were good we were not seeing those big saugers that we were catching the weeks prior. With the water temps in hovering right around 50 degrees this led me to believe the sauger bite would be on the down swing with the spawn in progress. Of Course once the sauger bite slowed, I turned my attention to targeting those big post spawn walleyes.

Once my attention was focused on those post spawn fish casting ringworms and paddle tails did see some success on certain days but 3-way rigging crawlers on deeper water current seams was much better for my boat than casting plastics. With the water doing the slow fall, big walleyes were on the move daily, here today, gone the next ! Plastics will still get good numbers of fish if you find an active school of feeding fish in the next few weeks but if you hit the river I highly suggest taking some bait with you.

Big fish honors for this past weeks trips goes to Jim with a 30 1/2 inch walleye weighing 10lbs 12oz. This big eye was caught 3-way rigging a crawler. Ufortunately this was the only bite we had this day but it was the right one. We were targeting an area that we whacked um and stacked um days prior but most of the big eyes abandoned this area and we were unable to relocate them on this day .

Thanks to all those groups that fished with me over the last week. I look forward to fishing with all of you again in the near future!

More big walleye pics from trips over the last week will be posted below.

I’ll see you on the river !