Mississippi River Walleye Fishing Report 10-25-10

By dustin_stewart 0

I was fortunate enough to spend October 17th thru the 24th on the big river guiding. First off, I want to thank the eight groups I fished with over that time frame. It was a pleasure to fish with all of you over my eight day stretch on one of the best walleye/sauger fisheries in the upper Midwest!

The beginning of my week found me doing what I like to do best, casting jigs tipped with my favorite plastic combos. It didn’t take long to realize that the fish were not schooled heavily in some of the areas I like to target in a high water situation. I could tell getting consistent action casting jigs was not going to happen right out of the gate. The only pattern I could find to the jig pitching bite was to do it right at sun-up. At sun-up every day I was on the water we were able to boat 2 to 9 really nice walleye in the first 30 minutes of our time on the river. Once the fish went away from the morning bite we we would transition to trolling cranks baits and jigs. This was the most consistent pattern throughout the week for me and many other that I know. Thanks to friend Marty Hahn for the tip on this fun bite!

All though the pitching bite had its highlights, the trolling bite in 5′ to 10′ of water was the best way to go. Trolling allowed us to boat 25-55 legal walleye and sauger every day my boat hit the water except for two . Right place at the wrong time on those two days.

Best plastic colors for my boat over the past week were ringworms in the firecracker/chartreuse tail and chartreuse pepper patterns. Best paddle tail colors were pro-blue, chartreuse pepper, and firecracker/chartreuse tail. Best precision head colors for me were chartreuse/orange, sour apple, and black.

Right now it appears the water levels have stabilized but are projected to make another rise here soon. Even though the walleye and sauger fishing has been very good over the past week, I still believe the best is yet to come for numbers of fish !

I’ll see you on the river!

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dustin_stewart

When not at work I'm busy playing fishing guide on pools 3 and 4 of the Mississippi River.I will fish Lake Pepin but the bite has to be really good on the lake to get me off of moving water.

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  1. My day on the water with Steve and his friend Bill was good in the early morning hours with 2 really good walleye making it to the boat pitching plastics. The second fish pictured here is the same big walleye that is pictured above in the report. The rest of our morning was spent casting jigs tipped with various baits with out success. The middle of the afternoon found us trolling with good numbers of fish making it to the boat.

  2. Thanks for the just-in-time report, Dustin. Should be on the water at the crack of dawn to morrow. Maybe see ya this weekend.

  3. Dave and I started our day casting jigs and cranks. Dave struck first with what was to be our best walleye of the day caught on a crank bait. Did the trolling bite for a couple of hours with fair action and then headed off to do some more casting with out success

  4. Myself, Andy, Rochelle, and Fran all had some nice walleye action right away in the morning hours casting jigs and cranks. Although we never boated a sumo walleye on this trip we did boat some real dandy walleye in the 22″-23″ class. After the casting bite slowed we headed off to troll with well over 50 legal fish making it to the boat on this day.

  6. Jeff and Mark had the golden spoon on their trip! We boated 9 fish over 23 inches on this day. Along with some sumo saugers in the 4 1/2 pound range. We had a very good morning pitching plastics and just kept the ball rolling with bigger fish on the trolling bite . By days end we had over 40 legal fish make it to the net!

  7. Al and Jim spent two days on the water with me this past week. The really big walleye eluded us but there was no shortage of fish catching action. One day trolling was best for us. The other anchoring on a little current seam pitching paddle tails worked it’s magic!

  9. Sounds like some fantastic fishing. Its hard not to get excited about chasing big river walleyes this time of year.

  10. WOW….. way to go Dustin sounds like you had some great clients to fish with along with some very good fishing for most of a week.

  14. I drove by last weekend and saw your boatless rig. I said, hmmm I wonder if Dustin has the big fish dialed in?

    Question answered!

    Nothing like 8 days worth of smiles!

  15. Awesome fish Dustin!! Have to love a plastic bite like that!! I can’t believe the stomache on one of those saugers pictured!! Must be a belly full of…….Paddletails!! You CONTINUE to rock it out pal!!

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