Pool 4 10/5

Ouch. Got my a$& handed to me today. Son and I tried jig/minnow then switched to cranks. One small eye. Mostly tried from red wing north.

Big drop in water temp from a week ago. 55 degrees.

Good luck.

same for me fished from lake city to redwing she was tough out there today! but that’s what keeps us coming back!

Ditto. Out Yesterday all day from the dam down into the lake, tough tough day

I fished Friday morning for a couple hours and got one three inch walleye on a crappie jig. I think Friday was the first time I saw whitecaps on a small, protected backwater area….the 40 mph gusts were real. If I happened to be casting when one of those came up I got some serious distance using a 1/64 head and plastic.

Same here. Fished both Saturday and Sunday and just a few eyes and sauger. Going to try for a few more hours Monday and head home.

Wow, that was a rough day for my boat as well. 7 hours of jigging, pulling cranks, Dubuque Rigs, Denver Rigs, back trolling, and pitching hair. Could not buy a bite. This was my first trip on the river and the current was much stronger that I expected. I learned a bunch but only opened up more questions.

1.) If you want to just drift with the current and jig, what are the reccommended jig weights?

2.) Quite a people pulling cranks on Sunday does this technique still work into the fall?

3.) Now that the river temps are at or below 55 degress (the dreaded turn-over temps on inland lakes). What will change on the river as far as movements, locations, and presentations?

wasn’t to fast of action for us either but early before the wind kicked up we thought we had it going on with a quick start but she fizzled off pretty quick on us in the lake pitching.

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Nathan Grahl wrote:

1.) If you want to just drift with the current and jig, what are the reccommended jig weights?

2.) Quite a people pulling cranks on Sunday does this technique still work into the fall?

3.) Now that the river temps are at or below 55 degress (the dreaded turn-over temps on inland lakes). What will change on the river as far as movements, locations, and presentations?

I am no expert and I have a lot of bad days on the river (with good ones too), so take this with a grain of salt:

1. Get a bunch of different sizes of jigs. I try to “slip” downstream when jigging. You want to stay as vertical as possible. The current will tell you how much jig weight that will take.

2. Cranks can work in the fall but slowing down seems to be the name of the game as fall progresses. They will bite on cranks at 55 degrees though.

3. There is no real turnover on the river. The colder it gets, the more fish move up to the dam. We are not at ideal temperatures for the good dam, fall bite.

I also ate a little bit of humble pie yesterday on the river. Launching out of Prescott WI on Pool 3 we ran down river and pulled cranks in back waters by the casino. We also casted a few wing dams with cranks and plastic on the way down and way back. We were out maybe 7 hours and only caught 6 walleyes and two that could be kept. We did run into a nice school of smallmouth (caught a dozen or so in 10 mins) but otherwise it was a very ho hum day of learning with bellies full of cookies, gummie bears, and humble pie

Well, it makes me feel a bit better seeing that I wasn’t the only one who had a very slow day. Seems like amongst all of us we pretty much covered a lot of area and techniques. I don’t know if all the wind and sharply lower air temps the last week or so is messing stuff up, but that’s my current theory. Just heard from a buddy who’s out right now (Monday afternoon) and it’s still slow, he says. Gotta turn on eventually I figure, so might try again in a couple days.

These are tough situations, we’re smack dab in the middle of an abrupt transition. Sudden cooling patterns and higher flow than normal have fish in less predictable areas. There are guys finding good fish, but even they are catching fish as they move by instead of sitting on pods. Give it 2 weeks and everything will be much easier.

What he said ^^^ thumbsupemoticon

We found the water at 50 degrees this morning on Pepin. Crappies were the targets and we did OK using plastic and Gulp. Beautiful morning to fish.