Mississippi River Pool 4

I was able to get a few days away from work and my to-do list to make it out on the river this past week. The river has been ever changing daily since the spring, and change isnt always a bad thing. When the water temp, flow and stage change be sure to adjust your plan accordinly and you should be able to stay on the fish.

A variety of presentations have been putting fish in the boat over the past few weeks. Depending on a few factors, trolling, dragging jigs, and 3-way have been the top producers. We decided to focus our efferts on trolling and dragging.
We spent the majority of our trolling runs in 6 to 13 feet of water, going both against the current and with it. Our fish came on a variety of lures with the top producers being #7 red craw flicker shad, and a #5 blue jointed shad.

Our dragging efferts were focused in the same areas as our trolling passes with a few other locations thrown in. We would troll first to cover some water and pick up the active fish. Once that slowed down we would work those areas over with bait, dragging jigs to pick up a few more fish. A 1/16th oz orange b-fish-n dragging jig tipped with a healthy leech put most of the fish in the boat. On the bright sunny days blue seemed to out produce. Crawlers also put a few fish in the boat if you could keep the sheephead off of them!!!

Be sure to watch the stage and flow and adjust your game plan accordingly. Walleyes seem to stick relatively close to where you caught them last week, but will move according to the flow and stage, so you must move with them!!

This was my last time on the river for the next 2 weeks as I will be headed to winni for the cabelas NTC tournament. So save a few fish for me!!!!!

I hope everybody has a safe and enjoyable memorial day weekend.

Until next time…………