For Multi-Species River Fisherman

I am curious as to how all you folks did last year on the river. I fish mostly Pools 5, 5A and 6, probably about 40-50 times a year. Normally every year something great happens. For example in 2004 during a bass tournament, which I was not in, I hit a large group of Large Mouth Bass and must have caught 40 or so all on topwater baits. The year before my son caught a 12lb, 2 oz Walleye in Pool 5 and also a 37lb mudcat along with a few big sturgeon. And in 2002 my limit of nice Walleyes in a 1/2 hour or less just trolling through a slough in 5A during a family fishing tournament.

Anyway, last year was a bit of a dude. We caught some decent fish, but no real great days. Probably my best day was a friend of mine from Northern Wisonsin and I caught some absolutely hugh sunfish on a warm low water day below the Whitman Dam. For those of you that fish there they weren’t caught on the rock pile but below that on the sand flats. His response was they don’t grow them that big in Northern Wisconsin. I didn’t fish Trempleau because of the construction on the boat landing.

What I am curious about is how was your year.

It was all in all a o.k. year I wouldnt say my best year.The walleye’s were definatly a challangeing year.I did boat some nice fish but had to work for them.But that is ok it makes you an honest fisherman that way.The pan fish were on fire down here on pool 9 last year a great time for the kids.I also did ok on smallies in may and june.I would say it was an ok year,had to run alot to find fish.The water temps and the flow down here made it tough last summer.It was a good time to learn new things on the water.

Pool 5 was on fire last year for largemouth and smallmouth. With the lower water, a person had to be willing to look for different spots than the fish may have been otherwise. Lots of big smallies and largemouth. The two times I was fishing it was a lot of fun to catch quality fish and lots of ’em (30+ over 4 hours). I only made it twice since the extremely low water with lots of stumps/logs and high flow messed up my trolling motor the first time.

Didn’t try the walleye or panfish on pool 5. Fishing should return to normal this year on pool 5 with the drawdown complete.

I usually hit the river pretty hard from Feb, to April. I fish mainly pool 10. IT was very hard to consistantly get good numbers of walleye last year. i never hit the huge fish, but did do well with 5 to 6 pounders and eaters (15 – 18 inch fish). I guess I did well enough to keep comming back but not so good as to be able to bragg.

I fish mostly Pool 4 and above, including the Croix… had the best walleye year ever in that area… really put together the early (walleye opener) till early July bite.

Big ticket was sand bars, adjacent to deep water and using electronics (Croix). Multi species note: when we fell off the bars and got to rock / sand in deeper water we also did very well on smallies and some realy nice crappies. Also got some decent catfish when we were using jig and crawler…

I keep a fishing log of when, where, flowage, water level, etc. and have since 1985 I just went through it for 2005 and the Smallies did rule. Secondly, we caught some hugh Sunfish last year in Pools 5 and 5A. Nonetheless, for me personally the fishing was off a bit. Nothing hugh, not a lot of line breakers, things like that.

I mainly fish pools 8,9, and 10 and last year i thought was an excellent year for pretty much every specie we fished for. I cannot complain. Starting off this year as well i don’t think it is going all that bad.

I think the grass hurt a lot of peoples fishing down here last year.