I thought ol’ man Winter was never going to leave us! With the warmer temps we have encountered this week I had the chance to hit the river for a day. Upon my arrival at Everts Resort I was informed of the horrible bite that was taking place. The reports came to be of the same consensus from everyone I had spoken to on Tuesday night when I rolled in, no one was impressed with the bite. Since I was there and the weather was so nice, the bad news wasn’t going to turn me away from getting my boat on the river come Wednesday morning.
With the reports of the slow bite I began my day doing something a bit different and out of the norm for myself. I started fishing with light jigs/minnows and had another rod rigged with a split shot rig and a plain hook/minnow. I had my hopes high that I would be able to coax a few of those lethargic fish in to biting and I did right off the bat. I had 2 sauger in the 18” to 18.5”range in about 10 mins fishing in 13‘ to 16‘ of water. From there is was all down hill on the minnow rigs for me. I proceeded to work deeper down to the 20’+ depths with out success I then took my presentation to other areas that I was confident the fish would be holding. This resulted in one more dink Sauger.
After about 1.5hours with out a fish on my minnow set ups, I then switched gears to do what I love to do best, fishing plastics! It wasn’t long and I found a good school of male walleye willing to snap at my ringworm offering. Pro-blue was the color of choice being best by days end. I had a couple of other fish on oyster shell, fire an ice and electric blue as well but more than half my walleye on this day came on the pro-blue color. I found 2 areas holing fish on this day, the bulk of my eye’s were holding in 13’ to 16’ of water with a couple fish a bit shallower.
Late morning proved to be the best bite for my boat. Between 10:00am and 12:00noon I had 8 of the 14 walleye I caught by days end come to the boat. My walleyes were in the 17” to 21” class. The first picture above was the largest walleye on this day, a nice male just going over the 21” mark. No females on this day except for the 2 decent Sauger I saw right away in the morning. As you can see from the rest of the pictures I was able to get Mr. Holst in to the boat for about 1.5hours before he had to get his but back to business running Everts Resort in Steve’s absence. Thanks for the company bud!
Over all the bite was slow v.s what it was when I was on the water the beginning of January but it won’t be long and things will really break loose. We experience this late winter lull every year and will for the next 100. If the weather forecast remains as predicted the river is a good place to be enjoying the day. The walleye and sauger aren’t jumping in the boat but they are there and some of them can be caught.
Until I write again, I’ll see you on the river!
Nice looking fish Dustin. Your client sure looks happy.
Just wondering how you rigged and fished your ringworms?
I enjoyed your report, Thanks.
Hey Dusty, how much did you charge your client for the guide trip? [couldn’t resist that one James]. lol. Too good to pass up.
Thanks, Bill
Dustin…I managed eight fish yesterday…all on plastic. @ sauger and the others waldos. Nothing real decent with only one in the legal bracket. It was slow and a tough bite.
Thanks for sharing the info Dustin!! I’m hoping to get down there very soon. Can’t wait to get the Crestliner in the water again.
James does look pretty happy doesn’t he? I think he was as excited to hit the water as I was on this day, it was starting to turn in to a long winter.
Tom, it was good to see and talk to you out on the water, i’m sure i’ll see you soon
Things can only get better from here on out until the post spawn lull.
toadsuck,
When I rig my ringworms I just thread them on the jig like you would a twister tail. Jig sizes run in the 1/8oz, 3/16oz and 1/4oz. I just make a controlled drift down river slowly lifting and dropping my bait on the bottom of the river. You’ll know when you get bit. The fish I had on Wednesday hit pretty good when the clouds were out. When the sun was shining bright the hits were not as aggressive.
Dustin, dont you be giving James any tips until after we have our trip in March. Let the poor guy figure it out for hisself. We do want to win the much coveted “TROPHY”
Let me figure it out for myself?
Uh, yeah. Ok.
Actually, I think I’ll likely get by just fine… even all on my own… lol
Those are pretty long ice rods you guys are using!
Forget the rods, it took quite the effort to make a hole big enough for the boat!
I’ll go ice fishing if the opportunity arises but for me, there’s just no substitute for casting with a St. Croix and getting WHACKED by a nice eye and fighting it back to the boat. The water is SO CLEAR right now you can see the fish head shaking and twisting 4 – 6 feet down and that makes for quite the sight! I wouldn’t mind a little bit warmer weather but I do very much love this time of year on the river.
And today, there’s not a single boat here at the resort.
ooooo man !!that sounds like fun…
With all the warm weather coming and the rain we had today the ice will get nasty soon….
I’ll see you guys for the FYB..
take care !!
Nice to see open water Dustin! Boy that must of been a tough customer to deal with.
We have 15″ of snow here since this morning and its still snowing!
Fished until just after 2:30 today
. The walleye bite was a lot slower than it was for me on Wednesday 
. Spent most of the day working the 16’depths and shallower with little success, finished the day with just short of a one man limit of eye’s in the 16″ to 19″ range 
I did see some sauger getting caught on the outskirts of me in the deeper water, 20’+. A vast majority of them were on the small side, but we did see some decent sauger in the 15″ to 18″ class caught as well during the limited time I was watching. Spent a little time in the deeper water my self with only 2 sauger to show for my effort, a 15″ and a 18″.
Maybe I should have stuck with the sauger bite, couldn’t have been any worse than the walleye bite was today 
Hey Bud, at least you were able to be out on the water fishing. Quit complaining and enjoy it.
I’m jealous! Thanks for the reports. With warmer weather [its almost March believe it or not] it won’t be long before the 3-ways and casting plastics will get hot again. 
Thanks, Bill
I heard that blade baits have been the ticket this past weekend. Any truth to that???
The guys I talked to fishing blades said the fishing was horrible. We have a couple boats of “regulars” that fish nothing but and they were pretty miffed. They did have some saugers but no ‘eyes. I didn’t talk to all the boats of course, there weren’t that many to begin with, but from the few I did they didn’t seem to have had much luck on the blades.
Who knows though. A general rule is that no matter how bad the fishing is, somebody always catches fish! I do know that some fair bags came from the scour hole but in my opinion, with all the little ones a guy has to sort through and kill to put anything legal in the boat, those fish almost don’t count.
I talked to guys that spent their time fishing in 60+ feet of water over the weekend!
I realize that people have the legal right to pull these fish out of that deep of water but I have a major moral problem with it. Just the thought of killing 5-10 small fish for every one that is kept is enough to keep me far from the deep water when fishing.
I’m not coming down on anybody who prefers to fish that way but it is not for me.
Gator Hunter
James;
the reason I asked is because a buddy of mine was down there on Saturday, and he watched a guy hammer them on blade baits. He didn’t have any, so obviously, he was a bit dissapointed. He did say the guy was fishing deeper water.
Gator Hunter, I have to agree with you a bit. In the scour hole, you know that the vast majority of those fish are going to be dink saugers, so why even chase them. I would rather catch eater bluegills, than to say “I caught 50 sauger today”, keeping out the point that all of those 50 sauger didn’t break 12 inches.
Jerking those fish out of 40+ feet of water is really hard on them.
Again, to each their own, but I’m not the type of guy that has to keep up my ego by saying I caught massive amounts of the beloved walleye/sauger, just to look good, even though the fish are comparable to the suckers you buy in a bait store.
About the guy doing the hammering…
Was he getting solid fish? I had one group come in twice to the shop on Saturday to get minnow. 3 scoops the first time, 3 more the next. At the end of the day they didn’t even have ONE legal limit.
Most of the fish getting caught, the 15″ – 18″ stuff that is coming in to the resort, is coming from guys fishing the 25 – 30 foot range around the edges of the deeper water.
Hey Guys!!!! My Dad and I Fished Pool 4 this last weekend. Saturday was slow but sunday we did really good. We started to fish around 8am. By noon we had 10 of our 12 walleyes. Then it took us 2 hours to catch our last two.By 2pm we were done. it was really slow after noon. We caught 50-75 small walleyes. The ones we kept were 15″-18″. The bigger ones were in about 20 feet of water. We fished all day at the dam. We only caught one fish on plastics. That was our first time out to the Mississippi River. We usually go to the Missouri River. We r thinking of goin out there this next weekend. If anyone fishes this weekend keep me posted!! Thanks!!
Welcome to the site Walleye King! Nice looking fish you have there
. Is that one of the fish you had on Sundays trip?
Good to see you you and your dad caught some nice fish. Did the 2 of you pick up any sauger or were they all walleye on Sunday?
Never been to the Missouri river myself. If/when you make a trip to the Missouri river let us all know how the bite is out that way
I caught that fish last spring at the Missouri river. 7 of our 12 were saugers the rest were walleyes. All of the small ones were saugers. We might be going to the Missouri river this weekend. I will let u know how we did.
Cody