Awfully quiet on here this week regarding these tailwaters/pools! 
Anyone been out at da GUT? DBQ? or Bellevue this week? I might be heading to Dubuque tomorrow morning-got a freebie kitchen pass from my wife!
Been skunked twice out now, I need to turn this streak around! 
Regards,
Joe
Joe,
The only report I have is from a couple friends who went out at Bellevue the night before last. They didn’t hit the water until after 7pm. If I got the truth from them they did quite well. I guess one of the guys caught a monster. I’ll be out again at DBQ tomorrow. I will more than likely be concentrating on some walleye haunts downstream a mile or two from the dam. I hope the weather cooperates.
Eyehunter
Hey Corn i did pretty well on 13 last Sun. stayed a couple miles down from the dam. Wont be able to make it out this weekend to many honey do,s. The fish liked the electric blue ringies.
Remeber keep your lines in the water were all in this together
According to the COE http://www.mvp-wc.usace.army.mil/cgi-bin/boromir?site=ld10&sku1=46&days=7&prod=curr&fmon=JAN&fday=1&fyr=2006&lmon=DEC&lday=31&lyr=2006&usot=1&x=14&y=10, the water temperature below the dam at Guttenberg is up to forty-five degrees as of today. The magical forty-six degree mark is when walleye begin spawning. And once the walleye start gettin’ it on, they stop eating for a week or so, which makes catching them very difficult. With the forecast, it is likely the spawn is going to start very soon at Guttenberg and points south of there. The fish don’t seem to all start and stop at the exact same time, as you can always catch a few while the spawn is on, but the action definitely slows way down for that week or so. This is something to keep in mind before hauling the boat sixty or eighty miles to the tailwaters.
On a related note, does anyone know how to get water temps on-line for lock and dams south of Guttenberg?
thanks to all you guys for chiming in! it helps to know what’s goin’ on out there! 
Vike:
Very good question…one that I was trying to figure out myself, and I may have an answer for you. 
I was also contemplating staying much closer to home and trying the tubes below C’ville (according to the gauge I was able to query online a few days ago, the water temps there were 43 degrees) for just the reason you point out. However, I love being on the big river-so much room, and in general, I do so much better.
If you go to “rivergauges.com” (I think that’s the site) you will want to select the Rock Island Corps district. Then, you select the Mississippi river and passes. In there, there is a list of gauges. The ones that have water temp are the “MET” (meteorlogical?) gauges that are downstream of the dams. I like the St. Paul district’s set-up much better, but don’t get up that way to fish very much.
The sole keeper sized sauger we caught last week in DBQ had her egg sac starting to poke through, so I suppose we are getting really close. However, these are river fish that are in moving water-my theory is that they need to eat more than lake walleyes, so as you say, there’s always catchable fish.
I will probably mull over it this evening and decide on either DBQ or Bellevue. I enjoyed my time last week at Dubuque and really want to learn more about that pool, since its the closest to home.
Also, not sure what this front is gonna do to the fish…but you can only worry and plan so much! If I let every frontal system that went through dictate my plans, I don’t know if I’d ever make it out! 
Last Sunday below Bellvue the water temp was 39 deg. on my fish finder.
Remember keep your lines in the water were all in this together
Joe,
I was out on Pool 14 yesterday morning. I hit the water about 6:00 a.m. and fished for about 4 hours. The action was not fast and furious but I did catch some decent fish. I fished sand and rip rap and all of my fish were caught vertical w/ paddletails or superdoos. Most fish were coming from 15-22 ft. of water. I got quite a few short strikes and several paddletails coming back with no tail. I can not get a shallow pitching bite going at all this Spring. I probably caught a dozen or so. The biggest was a fat 23″er. I kept 3 around 15-1/2″ for supper last night. The rest were released for someone else to catch. My Lowrance showed a surface temp of 43 degrees. Good luck if you get out this weekend! Congrats on the freebie kitchen pass.
Interesting Mark about the tails bit off. I fish pool 6 a lot and this is pretty common with paddle tails for me. I’ve found when this happens and I switch to supper doos I start catching a lot of small saugers. Don’t know if its the small saugs. or not. Any input on this. Have tried ring worms when this happens but don’t seem to get the hits.
Pinch em!
I was back in NE Iowa this weekend and was able to hook up with two buddies and do some fishing. We decided to go to Bellevue instead Guttenburg and Dubuque because it seems like we always boat at least one nice slot fish. We were on the river by 7:00am and we didn’t boat an eye or sauger for the first 2 hours, in fact we were debating putting the boat on the trailer and heading to Dubuque but we decided to try a different spot and I’m glad we did. We ended up getting our 3 man limit of 18 eyes/saugers. We had 3 keepers eyes, one in the slot at 21.5″ that went back and 15 saugers. All of the eyes were males and so were 10 of the 15 saugers. We didn’t see very many caught but we were lucky enough to be in the one spot they were biting but we still went long periods of time w/o boating a fish. Talked to the biologist when we trailered the boat at 4pm and he was very suprised that we had our limit. He told us that he was there all day checking fish and only measured 27 all day. I would say the was anywhere from 45-60 boats out. Not a great day, but nice to catch a limit once in awhile and have the best mess of fish for a change. Water temp was 46. Tried many different baits, but blades where the only one that would put fish in the boat.
Two of my buddies were out Saturday at Bellevue. They each pulled their limit. Nothing big, but nice eaters and some shorties. They were pulling raps.
They’ve been doing well most days, but have also had some real tough days so far. I’m almost ready to brave the crowds, but not quite yet.
Jeff, you gonna wait till the flow eases up some,it sounds like the waters really smokin down through there right now.When do you think the slabs will start biting? 
Have you seen how much water is coming down and how fast? I have some spots that would be great for crappies right now, but I’d have to dodge all the junk flying down the river right now, or keep the Explorer at ramming speed all the time, just to get to the spots. I’m opening things up at the lake this week, and am on call next week, so I’ll hit in a couple of weeks.
Anyone have ideas when this thing is going to quit rising? And how long it might take it to drop down some? 
My fishing expereince this year has stunk 
According to the river forecast the water should crest in Dubuque sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday barring any additional rains to the north. I haven’t checked to see how far north the river is still rising. This is usally a better indicator of when we see a crest here. For instance, the river might “crest” here in DBQ and might even begin to fall but if the water is still on the rise further north then we end up having a second, higher crest.
The Iowa DNR’s surveys have indicated that the years with the highest spawn success were years with higher water so maybe this rise is a blessing. The fishing is not the best right now anyway. I fished a tournament yesterday (Sunday) out of Marquette and the bite was almost non-existant. My partner and I did manage to bring a in a limit but the bites were few and far between. We casted jigs all day. About half of the boats in the tournament did not bring in any fish and only a couple had a limit. Needless to say I would not have been out fishing had I not been in this tournament. There was a spawned-out female over 8Lbs caught at Lynxville on Saturday so I guess the spawn is well underway.
Eyehunter
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