I could feel the jig and K grub tumbling in a slow arc toward the deeper contour break when that unmistakable “crunch” of a biting fish traveled up the line and through the new ES 6’10” St Croix spin rod. I snapped my wrist back and the dogged headshakes of a good one put a smile on my face… moments later my friend Mitch deftly netted a nice 20” Sauger…
It’s November on Pool 4 and time for some great fall fishing!
The weather couldn’t be nicer, but the water is still unseasonable high and a tad warm, meaning “ya gotta work a little for em!”
This was my 34th trip to Everts since booking a guide trip with James Holst back in 2001… I am hopelessly addicted to the place…and have passed that along to several of my “Yooper” friends from the Upper Peninsula.
Sunday afternoon saw lots of boats up near the dam…we spent some time scouting up there and didn’t see any hot action. Slipping down river and vertical jigging in 15-23 fow, we managed to catch several “short” walleyes and sauger. Anchoring on a current seam downstream we finally put together a pattern on firecracker/chart tail ringworms. By dark, my friend, Chef Mitch St. Amour (he really is a great chef!) and I boated about 20 fish, keeping 8 nice eater Sauger for fillets.
Monday we started out by pulling 3 ways and different rigs up near the dam and clambeds… though we picked up a few undersized fish, it wasn’t working too well. I will say that my Minnekota I Pilot is really sweet… either on Auto Pilot or a track run. I love the foot pedal free operation! We returned to our Sunday plan and again found some nice fish, including a fat, 21” sauger that ate a 7/16 ounce Deans “Saugercide” blade. Our other two fishing partners , Al and Ron had a good day also. They caught several sauger up to 20” pitching hair jigs and minnows while working near the mouth of the Vermillion River.
Tuesday and Wednesday the wind howled upriver, making casting anything very difficult…
We took an early morning trip down to Youngs and the head of the lake, but we could only muster a couple small walleye at Youngs and the lake was too rough, The lake fishing is still good as the water temps were 46 Wed and that tells me the “big girls” have not started the annual migration up to the dam… but I sure think that will happen soon.
I was planning on trying out some of the new St. Croix Eyecons… but Dean’s first shipment sold out in a few days and he had none left in the bait shop! There will be another order coming in shortly, call Everts Tackle shop to arrange a test drive.
But I did pick up a new Legend Extreme ES 610 MXF while stopping at the St. Croix plant in park Falls, WI. The new 2011 Extremes have NSI… Here is an explanation from them…
St. Croix is working with 3M to further the performance of their high end rods. The 3M Matrix Resin is bonded to the high modulus or high strain graphite fibers in the following rod series – Legend Elite (casting, spinning, fly), Legend Xtreme (casting and spinning), Bank Robber, and Legend Salt. The Legend Elite and Xtreme rods with the 3M Matrix resin will be available January 2011. The Legend Salt and Bank Robber will be available in late October 2010.
Look for this NSI label on the St Croix rods to indicate it has the 3M Matrix Resin reinforcement.
The new 3M Matrix Resin is unique because it uses nano-sized (ultra-microscopic) spheres of silica as homogeneous, non-abrasive filler between the carbon fibers of a graphite rod blank, which results in a much stronger finished product. With this material St. Croix is able to provide a stronger rod without increasing its weight and the nano technology does not affect the rod’s action or power.
Bottom line…the fine diameter tip section of these ultra fast Extreme rods are much, much stronger… in fact, the salesman took the tip and bent in back in a sharp angle… I winced, but it did not snap! I found the ES610 MXF to be a perfect “middle” between the ES69MLXF and the ES68 MXF. Very sensitive but with plenty of leverage for bigger fish.
As the week wore on the Shad starting showing up more and more… and we saw an increase in bites on K Grubs and Shad bodies… best K Grub colors were Firecracker, Shad, and Cotton Candy on bright days and Gold, Goldcracker Chart/ tail, Purple, and Tequila Sunrise on dark days.
We found that if we had to go heavier than ¼ ounce while casting jigs, we were in too much current… by moving to a seam or closer to shore we could throw a 3/16 and our catch rate skyrocketed. Though we didn’t catch any monsters, we managed plenty of fish, had a great time fishing in 60-70 degree weather and had fabulous food!
(Dean will verify that!)
Get out there because its only going to get better!
Tight Lines!
Tom Gursky