Crankin’ and spankin’ on Pool 4:

Recently, I have had a few friends ask if the crankbait bite has come around on the upper end of Pool 4. With a few hours in hand yesterday afternoon, I set out to find the answer….and the answer is YES! While the fish still seem to be in recovery mode and scattered from last weekend’s cold front, they are definitely getting ready to pop again.

With some sage advice from Dean Marshall from Everts Resort in hand, we headed down to the upper end of Lake Pepin to pull cranks on some relatively well known early-summer haunts. The first fish to the boat was the deep-bodied eyeball shown in the first picture. She smacked a jointed red-craw SR5 in 12 fow. We were ticking bottom occasionally and adjusting distance back constantly to stay in the hot zone. Key speeds were a touch over 3 mph (GPS). The second fish here is a 22" saugzilla that hit just as we pulled off a 12′ flat into deeper water.

Covering water was a key for us yesterday. While I dropped waypoints on every bite, we never picked up more than one fish in a given spot. We cranked over LARGE areas and tried depths ranging from 8 to 17 fow for a mix of eyes, saugers, white bass, sheepies, and gators, including this 30"-class fish. As the weather stabilizes, I’m hoping that the fish will congregate in these areas once again.

We did try our hand at a little live bait dragging as well. 30 seconds into our first pass, my partner Tim contacted this nice eater-size eye. We were dragging crawlers on pink heads in 3-6 fow, in an area just off the main channel with a fair amount of current. It sounds like Dustin, James, and Vandy have these live-bait fish dialed in, so if you’re interested in dragging and pitching to some shallow-water piggies, drop one of those guys a line!

I’ll close by saying thanks again to Dean for his advice and also for loaning me a new rod to try out. This was my first opportunity to wield a St. Croix tidemaster 7’6" moderate action rod for cranking, and I must say that I am impressed. It has a nice soft tip with enough backbone to direct some bigguns to the net. If you’re in the market for a new St. Croix, be sure to stop in and see Dean and take one for a test drive. I don’t know of any other dealers that offer this opportunity, and it sure sold me. Thanks again Dean, hope you get back on your feet again soon!