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I was on the river last saturday, we had limited success. My buddy caught one nice sauger 19". And a few small male walleyes. I didnt catch a single thing. He was using a jig a minnow and i was experimenting with a jig and gulp. I had never used it before and heard it was all the rave, so i wanted to give it a whirl! I found water temps to be around 35 degrees.

Has anyone been there lately? Just wondering if it has warmed up any yet, with the warmer temps this week.

I am hopng to get back out there early Monday morning! I cant wait!

Any other tips or pointers would be appreciated!

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  • markkstanley

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I have had my best luck 3-way rigging to catch the big girls. Use a 3-way rig with a 6-8 inch drop with as light of a sinker you can get away with. I use a 1-2 foot fire line lead with a plain hook or a hair hook. I would suggest using a line counter reel so you can see how far back you are running. When you start catching fish you will know how far back you are running.

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 Originally Posted By: peterson71
I have had my best luck 3-way rigging to catch the big girls. Use a 3-way rig with a 6-8 inch drop with as light of a sinker you can get away with. I use a 1-2 foot fire line lead with a plain hook or a hair hook. I would suggest using a line counter reel so you can see how far back you are running. When you start catching fish you will know how far back you are running.

You are joking, right?

We are talking river fishing, not suspended fish, so why would you need a linecounter for tracking fish in a "zone".

Running 3-ways is suppose to be about contact with the bottom.

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To answer your question Cooter - almost any presentation can do the trick. This week the big pigs were caught dragging which is almost always NOT a big fish presentation. I saw a 10lb 13oz eye caught on the infamous hair jig n minnow last Sat. Dean swears by blades. Most big fish hunters prefer to pitch jigs for them. The overriding key is location and feeding windows. You have to be where the big fish are staging and that changes by the hour. Then you have be there when they are feeding. This spring is very unusual as the nighttime bite is kicking out big fish as well as the usual sunset hours. When I hit the river I am ready to to go with any presentation but I plan to be either dragging or pitching jigs.

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Thanks much fine sir. You think the night bite is good due to clearer than normal water? And I'll be the first to admit I'm not quite sure exactly what 'dragging' is - or more likely how to do it properly. Also, when pitchin I'll assume a jig and minnow? Thanks again, be sure to post a pic of any big girls you guys land.

I'll be down with a bud for a weekend in the next month or so - planning on a fish fry Fri or Sat night, all are welcome, will be at Everts.

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Big G the reason you should use a line counter for 3-way rigging is the current is slower in some spots and heavier in others. So its nice to know how far back you are in every situation. I

would take a 3 way rig this time of year over any other presentation. Im not saying that hair jigs or plastics aren't great lures but pulling 3 ways rigs up river as slow as possible gets the lazy girls to bite. So to answer your question is no i am not kidding about line counters, try them and you will be amazed. You can also run 3 way rigs, or bottom bouncers for suspended fish also. A great book to have in your arsonal is the presicion trolling book. This will help you figure out how far back to run your lures and sinkers for suspened fish.

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I would agree with peterson, with the water being clear it is nice to get your 3-ways rigs as far away from your boat as possible. I like to run my rigs about 80 feet back but you have to use a light sinker so you dont get hung up on debirs.

Good luck Ike

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Water is not abnormally clear so I am not sure why the night bite has been better than usual. Walerak and I were catching some nice eys dragging all the way to midnight last Sat. Maybe he'll post some of the pics. Dragging is a simple presentation. Pitch your jig a medium cast behind the boat and start moving. If going downstream go no faster than the current, upstream is a very slow troll about .5mph. You do not want your jig to actually be on the bottom but a foot or two above it. It's OK to tick bottom now and again. As it gets darker you can move to lighter jigs and shallower water. If fishing 10ft or less try 1/8 to 1/32. Deeper than 20ft 5/16 to 3/8oz. Move through the different depths to find where the fish are and concentrate on current seams. Color also matters so switch it up until you find the right one. FOr the night bite purples and camo have been the better colors. During the day natural colors like Pro blue or oyster sheel. I always try to have a little chartruese in my plastics.

I never use live bait. Gulp is a close as I will get. I tip my hair jigs with a shortened ringworm and it does the trick. I will switch to 3ways or vertical jigging when the current picks up and you need to be more precise in location. But in lower flow situations like now dragging is the way to go.

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Thanks for the information Mark. I am headed down there this thursday-Sat and I am pretty pumped. Staying at Everets...

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Bring Dean cookies!! He'll spill all the beans for a bunch of cookies. Peanut butter or choc chip. I'll be on the river for most of Sat from 7am until ???? Still trying to get my 10+ for the spring. FYI pitching blades is starting to get good. Dean's the expert there so pump him for info since you are right there.

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Well I hope the last storm is behind us.its hard to belive but the walleye and saugers were really bitting during the storm.a few fish over 29inches were caught alot of big saugers in the 18 to 25inch range.the three best presintations were IKES hair jigs tipped with a fat head minnow.ring worms in brighter colors.also sonars.fish deep in 18-30 feet.stay vertical or drift using your motor to slow you down.ill try to keep you updated.for more info call the store or stop in. GOOD LUCK IKE.

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How has the walleye/sauger bite been down there the last couple days? I was thinking of heading down there in the am. Thanks.

Randy

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well the wetherman was wrong again.on wed. the fish were hopping in the boats.a lot more walleyes are being caught.as the water warms up it will even get better.fish in 12-30 feet of water.the walleyes have been in a shallower.use a 3/8oz ikes hair jig tipped with a fathead.also ringworms and sonars have been working good.a good place to start would be around bay point park and the mouth of hay creek.if you need more info call the store or stop in. good luck IKE

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any particular color as far as the jigs or ring worms go that have been working the best?

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Purple with chart. or white tail has been working well as of late, but as water levels and turbidity change, so will the preferred color-set. Dean stays on top of the daily pattern changes with all the anglers he has coming through, so you might want to pick his brain a bit.

Joel

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When you walk into Everts look on the counter. Dean will have the colors of the day for both jigheads and ringies. If the hair jig bite is going he'll that color out too. Purple with chartruese or white tails has been going good for over a week now. During the day I would make sure to give oyster shell or Pro blue a try. Firecracker with chatruese tail is also a good daytime color.

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I can't report on any color beside purple this week. The two best fish that came in my boat this week just happened to come on purple. The fish have been coming off of both sand and rock but sand seems to have a slight edge on size.

Purple Blade

joel1a.jpg

Purple Ringworm

mike3b.jpg

mw

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Nice fish guys. Looks like the bite before or after dark is good for the larger specie.

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Many and most are coming during the day. I just have been going after work.

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those are some nice eyes,

does anyone use fuzzy grubs anymore two weeks ago all I caught them on was char fuzzys tried many other things but the fuzzys were my fail safe that weekend.

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Yes, we went on Friday and it was slow as well. We have done much better the last couple of weeks. As far as I could tell, it was very slow for most others as well. A lot of people moving around and a lot of people giving up. My group did end up with 7 over 16" and a few small ones. We tried up by the dam with way too much current up there, and then all the way down river to Red Wing. No place was better than another. How'd everyone else do this weekend?

By the way, I've been meaning to ask whether the weekends are much busier than the weekdays. Thus far, I have avoided the weekends all together, but that kinda limits the options as far as weather goes.

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Stick to week days if you can. Zoo, circus are words that I have heard and experienced over there on weekends...especially if it is nice out!

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We had a great day. We used IKES hair jigs and ringworms in the red with the white tail. We mainly fished the haycreek area. We boated atleast 25 walleye/sauger mix. The red w/white tail produced the most fish for use. We used nuckle ball daybright jigs with our plastics. We pitched and vertical jigged all day. Thanks for the tips IKE

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We also had a great day and saw a bout a 30-50lb paddlefish caught. I burnt up my last fuzzygrub that I had in my box caught a lot of fish with it thou then gave it to the river bottom (got more today) caught five spieces of fish yesterday. eyes, saugers,10lb channel cat, sheephead and a carp. The carp came towards the end of the day and at first I thought I was snagged on the bottom then my rod started pumping then the drag started singing and the fight was on we followed this fish down stream around 200yrds ,with the motor. finally got a glance a found out that this fish was tail hooked and around 30lbs. man that was fun.

Caught some eyes and saugers on the sand breaks with bottom bouncers and plain hooks and fatheads thats also how the cat bit.

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We spent the weekend in the wing, it was slow sat, but pick up a little on Sunday. we seemed to hit more fish when the sun was shining.

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Fellow FMer Federline and I hit Red Wing on sat and sunday. We tried several colors of ring worms and other twister tails with no luck. We had a some short takes on hair jigs with fatheads but no catches. We added a stinger hook and got a couple small saugers and some more short takes. We switched to a 3/8 oz gold jig with stinger and fathead and that seemed to work better. We would have only cought about 1/3 as many if we did not have the stinger as many were caught on the stinger. We ended up with 7 on sat. Federline caught a 30.5 inch walleye that had to go 11-12 lbs. Along with that we got 2-19" saugers, 1-13 inch walleye 1 14 inch sauger and 2 12-13 inch saugers in 8 hours. On sunday we caught 4 12-13 inch walleye/sauger, 2 catfish, one being about 5 lbs, and I caught a sturgeon that was somewhere around 30-33inch and maybe 5 lbs all in 3 hours. Boy those sturgeon fight. That was a first for me. Fishing was slooow but a lot of fun and definitely worth going. Thanks to Ike of Ikes tackel and Dean at Everts for the helpfull tips.

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We fished Thursday afternoon-evening, Friday all day except from about 12-3, & fished 7-10 on Saturday morning for our boat of two. 3 of our buddies fished the same hours Friday & Saturday. Our boat kept 5 Thursday, 6 Friday, & 4 Saturday. Best bite we found were the last couple of hours by the dam Thursday night. We caught a total of about 50 fish in our boat for the three days. Snagged a small sturgeon, one tiny cat (10"s), & a 6-8 pound carp. The rest were eyes & saugers, mostly saugers. Biggest fish was a 22" sauger on Saturday. We primarily jigged vertically while drifting the current with jigs & minnows, 20-30'. We fished 3/8's oz jigs pretty much exclusively. Bright colors did better, but hair or not didn't seem to matter much. Caught a few on ringies, but not many, most of those were keepers though. Kept 2-3 saugers in the 13-14" range & one 15" walleye. Everything else we kept was from 16" on up. Caught a lot of 11-12" saugers. Very few fish actually hit it in our case, most of the time it would feel heavy/line would be tighter, you'd lift a little to test it & you had a fish. Seemed like we had a fair number of foul hooked fish. We saw other boats that did too.

It was very busy on Saturday. Friday was moderate, Thursday the boat traffic was low.

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