Pool 4 Mississippi River Walleye report

Pool 4 is starting to warm up, with the water still high and the temp still in the 50’s the bite is starting to turn on. The flows have been high but the dragging bite is starting to pick up in eddy areas. The crank bite is in full swing. I have been concentrating on jigs and dragging. I had some time on the water the last week. Jeri Eckholdt and I fished the Wabasha area on Thursday and this is his best of the day. This fish came on a buck tail jig and crawler. We had limited success on big fish but caught a lot of drum and white bass

Friday I had the privilege to fish with Leroy Howard from Detroit lakes. We spent the day dragging jigs with crawlers and had pretty good success. We were targeting water in the 6 to 8 foot range. With the wind and waves we were using 1/8 ounce draggin jigs orange and gold were best for us this day. We finished the day early afternoon, cause I had forgotten to plug my batteries in the night before and I ran out of power with the heavy winds. This photo is his limit of very nice eaters. Leroy’s big fish this day was a 21 incher.

Saturday my boat saw the addition of Brad Laabs, we also saw brief thunder storms and lots of rain and wind. My game plan for the day was to use buck tail jigs and crawlers on rock points and see if we could find some eyes. Well the wind made it very challenging to say the least. Brad got the first fish on a black buck tail and a crawler. We were in 22 feet of water, with the wind picking up it was time to change the program, so we went to larger jigs and Dustin’s Pro Blue paddle tails. Bingo Game on the next hour was a hoot.
This photo is of Brad with number one of the day.

With the heavy jigs I moved the boat to 24 feet of water and we were swimming the paddle tails along the bottom and we fooled five more nice eyes to the boat. We jigged up six walleyes in an hour that went 28 ½ inches, 27 inches, two at 26 inches, 25 inches and our smallest was 24 inches. This was an hour that dreams are made of, a deep water vertical jig bite and they whacked it good. Big head shakes all the way to the boat.
Here is the photo of four of the six fish. We estimated the six fish went close to 35 pounds. Never weighed any just used CPR.
With the water temps’ raising the bite is just going to get better. So get your dragging jigs ready.
Yes all fish were released to be caught another day.
Thanks guys it was a hoot as usual.