August Showdown – Lakes vs. Rivers

August traditionally is a tough time to get a good bite going for most walleye lakes I fish, but there’s definitely options and ways to get it done.  Usually, this is when Salmon and Smallmouth pique my interest, as great opportunities exist for these species right now.  That, and I’m not a huge fan of kissing up to fish I know will be more than cooperative in a month or two in a variety of locations.  Still, you can’t fish for “August-fish” during the whole dog-days period, so I thought I’d give walleyes a try while being open to other opportunities should there be an opening.

DAY 1

A good friend came to town this week, and we had two full days to fish, so the only question would be “where.”  We kept our options open leading right up to the split in the road that would take us either to Grand Rapids or Walker.  We chose left, so Leech is where we’d try to find some walleyes on an ultra-calm and rather hot day for the north-country.  In hind-sight, we maybe should’ve elected to go bass fishing.  Leech lake is a fish-factory, and there’s no doubt that the fat arcs on our sonar indicated plenty of walleyes happily swim these waters, but in August with no wind to motivate some feeding, these fish were fat and lazy.  We get an “A” for effort, as we pulled bait in a variety of ways, both on snells and spinners, casted cranks, pulled leadcore, and maybe even went through a few other techniqes I’m not remembering.  In the end, slowing it down, stripping the rigs bareback with little else but bait, and sticking it in their face for prolonged periods of time with multiple passes put about a fish an hour in the boat.  Slow, but we knew what we were signing on for.  Upon cleaning a limit of eyes later that night, we found full bellies and plenty of 2-3″ young-of-the-year perch stuffed inside.  Life is good for the walleyes in Leech lake right now.

DAY 2

My buddy Brandon Eder grew up near Aitkin, MN, and one of his favorite places to fish is the Mississippi River reaches from Brainerd, all the way down to the north metro.  Knowing his affinity (and my own) for small rivers, we had decided after giving Leech a go, we needed to get back to some “roots-fishing” down on the river.  While we never planned to do a still vs. moving water comparison, after our day-one experiences, we knew we could do better.  We had some old spots in our back-pocket that Brandon had fished years ago, and that, combined with traditionally low August water-levels would make finding and catching fish easy in-theory.

Well we were right about the fish part, but water levels were way high as evidenced by the one-foot layer of mud covering the ramp down the water.  Flood-levels on the Upper Miss. had receded, but they were still 2-3 feet higher than normal.  Rocks didn’t stick out as well anymore, so navigation was a bit more treacherous as we meandered up and down-river trying our best to stick to the outside turns with deeper water.  This gets tougher Brandon says as the water continues to drop, but it also makes the fishing better.  Better it was as we started off drifting jigs through 6-8 foot holes for eyes.  We had a number of different jig styles to try, along with a variety of bait and plastics to throw at them.

The general program was to find these holes on the outside bends of the river, drift them with jigs, and then pull up through the exact same locations with cranks.  A pretty solid one-two punch that yielded immediate results.  Early on, #4 Shad Raps in Bleeding Blue Shad and Firetiger were the clear ticket, as we took fish after fish on the upstream pulls.  Most were healthy eater sized fish, but there were a good number of over-zealous fish-sticks that went back too.  It’s amazing what a difference a foot less of dive can create for you in the #4 vs the #5.  The holes we fished saw that #4 ticking bottom at 6FOW and running pretty clean in 7FOW.  If we pulled any holes in that 8FOW range, the #5’s would do better.  These fish are holding in some decent current, and they literally have a split second to eat your bait…or not.  Pulling upstream alongside them, as they face upstream, leaves little room for error when it comes to depths.  If that bait is radically bouncing off of rocks, you simply wouldn’t get bit.  This effect could be nullified by holding your rod tip straight up in the air during shallower stretches, then dropping it back down or letting out more line to achieve greater depth during the deeper parts of the run.

Just like there was a knack to the crank bite, the jigs required a bit of fine tuning too.  I started off with a Draggin’ Jig, tipped with a crawler, then a leech, then a minnow, in that order.  It’s a great jig that I’ve used successfully in several small rivers, but not this day.  Too much current wouldn’t allow it in the zone as long as using a bigger hunk of lead closer to the boat.  Like almost right below it.  Minnows proved to be the clear choice, primarily due to their compact size in my opinion.  The other bait would get hit, but not engulfed, leading to poor hooking.  Brandon caught fish after fish until I started tying VMC Mooneye jigs with him, specifically in the 3/8oz variety.  1/2oz was a touch too heavy and snagged more readily, and 3/8 got you down yet kept you out of most rocks.  Braid is nice for this, as you’re going to wedge some jigs in a rock or two along the way.  All part of the program.

Off To The Sides

While the first part of our day included some successes in the deeper runs, we were ignoring all of the shallow fish surfacing to the slower sides of the river.  We assumed them to be all bass, until an errant drift put us up closer to some shoreline emergent veg.  I had a jig with plastic on, and pitched it up shallow, only to see 3 different flashes chasing the bait and each other.  Underwater mayhem.  Eyes?  Probably not?  Pike?  Maybe?  Another cast and I hooked up with a powerful 30″ river pike.  Fun on a spinning rod, that’s for sure.  The next 2 hours had us landing nearly 20 of the toothy critters on everything from Skitter Pops, X-Raps, Buzzbaits, and jigs.  Topwater was the most fun, and buzzbaits seemed to aggravate them into striking best.  It was an absolute blast fighting fish like that in current, and though we lost 3 baits to bite-offs, we recovered 2 of the 3 by catching the same fish later (an X-Rap and a jig).  Phenomenal!  Along the way we found some chunky rock bass, and a few really nice smallies.  What a great way to round out the experience.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of these smaller places.  Part of the quality of the experience for me lies in the solitude of the day.  Not seeing another boat for hours at a chunk, and fishing in ways that most people pass right by is for some reason, especially satisfying.  So too then are the fish that come from these harder-to-get-to and out-of-the-way locales.  They hold a special place in my heart, and give me hope that as long as there’s rocky runs, dense mosquitos, and sticky mud to keep them slightly more out of reach, there will continue to be places more un-touched than over-handled for many years to come.

 

Joel