The walleye fishing on the upper part of Pool 4 has been pretty darn good for numbers and some bigger fish have made it to the boat as well. I have only had the chance to get out 2 times since my last report so not a lot of time on the water for me. On Sunday the 3rd Tom Beirl and Todd Quillman spent the day in my boat. We started the am hours fishing with light jigs and small split shot rigs tipped with leeches and crawlers only to find the smaller fish were on a tear in the areas we focused on. Later in the morning we pulled in to an area I had done well in the previous week with high hopes. The smaller fish were still willing to bite but we found the better fish to be right amongst them in that shallow 2’ to 5’of water, just patiently weeding through the smaller stuff paid off for us with a nice bunch of eaters. At around 2:00 we had the eaters we needed and then some, so we headed to some of my favorite rip rap areas to troll crank baits and it paid off real quick like as you can see in this first picture. Todd is pictured here with the 27” eye he took on a #5 firetiger jointed shad rap. Nice fish guys! I hope the rest of your stay at Everts Resort was a good one and I look forward to fishing with you again in the future sometime.
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to have Brian (BigB) Lyons and his wife Linda spend a day in my boat. The morning found us spending a lot of time in an area I had a lot of confidence in this time of year, we found the early am bite to be a bit off , we did have plenty of catfish, sheepies, and small walleye to keep us busy re-baiting but we only managed to get 3 legal fish in the boat before 9:00, I decide to start jumping around in search of a better bite and to my surprise about 11:00 we were still looking. After fishing a few other areas I headed back to my confidence area and the fish were there waiting for us in 2’ to 5’ of water. Once getting the right presentation put together we managed to get 20 legal fish in the boat by right around 3:00 with the best fish of the day, caught by Linda I might ad, sorry Brian, going just short of 22”. The fish definitely wanted the split shot rigs on this day, I fished a jig rod side by side the split shot rig and only had 2 decent fish take the jig all day. This was a big change from the last outing I had with Tom and Todd the fish would take both that day but Wednesday they were a little more selective about what they put in there mouth. We hated to leave this area since the fish continued to bite but I wanted to head for some of the rip rap areas that has produced bigger fish for me trolling cranks. We were duped by a big sheep head but that was it for our trolling bite. Thanks for spending a day in my boat and I’ll see you 2 at the EFN get together next weekend.
With the lower water levels I have been looking for areas with a bit heavier current, sand flats with decent current have been better than flats with very limited current on them, same stands true for the rip rap I have been targeting, more current has been better for my boat. The WI back channel has become very risky, even if you thought you knew where to go, the area below the bride to the high lines has a lot of really shallow water right now.
That’s all for now. I hope to see a bunch of you at the up-coming get together.
I’ll see you on the river!