How most fish the river...?

[JigginIsLife]

Well I have "Officially" moved back down to southern mn and I live over by Kasson. I miss the up north fishing, but its time to move on to other challenges... On saturday my buddy and I hit the river went out of the park at red wing...(where all the pros were going out of, so probably a bad choice) but we fished around there for awhile, and I have literally never had such bad fishing ever in my life. And its not the body of water to blame, its the lack of know-how on how to approach the river. Most guys we seen were cruising up and down with bait casters and raps on... is this how most fish the river?? I have been a die hard lindy rig kind of guy, and it seems practically impossible to do that except with huge weights or running a three way swivel and large drop weight. any advice on how to even approach this dilemma would be great thanks a bunch in advance.

[james_walleye]

A lot of people do troll, whether its in the river or down in the lake. And there are a lot of people who run three ways with raps or live bait. I'm a lindy rig guy as well. What you will find is very soon the bite down on pepin will kick into gear. Then you will be able to run your rigs. I do very well running rigs on the lake.

[old timer]

Welcome to fishing the river. What worked yesterday may or may not work today. It is very frustrating when you first start. Very different than dragging a lindy. We mostly fish pool 2,but hit 4 in the spring when it floods up here, (not the case this year).We have never fished Pepin. Vertical jigging ice out till spawn, cranks and 3 ways till the water gets really warm, then 3 ways with spinners and crawlers, slow and deep. Be patient, see what others are doing, check out the old posts. If you stick with it, the Mississippi will give up some awesome fish. You can bank on it.

[IceEyes]

Jiggin, I live about 15 miles west of you. I've been fishing the river for 10 years, fished every month and nearly every presentation in which there's a lot of them. Primary techniques are jigging, rigging, and cranks. What's different from lake fishing is that the current causes you to modify these presentations in order to put them in the right place at the right speed.

Two things were working against you...one the river fish are totally keyed on two things right now current and post spawn transition. That likely why you seen a lot of trolling going on. It's just covering water trying to put the bait in front of as many fish as possible and hopefully picking off some aggressive ones.

The cliche "here today gone tommorrow" rings true as soon as the spawn is done as the fish begin to transition toward summer patterns. As well as "so close, but so far" when it comes to getting a feel for getting on current seams especially when there not as easy to see/find on low water years.

Learning the river fishing techniques will also make you a better lake fisherman once you become confident in there effectiveness.

If your interested in splitting gas I can help shorten the learning curve on river walleye/sauger.