Mississippi River Pool 4 Fishing Reports Pool 5, 6, 7 , 8 & 9

[jignmaster]

[PoorWordUsage] this past saturday and the only thing we caught was a 9" walleye and the girl friend caught it. alot of people out there though

[jignmaster]

was out on pool8 lock and dam this past saturday and the only thing we caught was a 9" walleye. the girl friend ended up catching it but it was still fun out there. quite a few people out there also.

[hart0670]

Fished parts of Lake Onalaska on Saturday noon-6. Set up shiners on a half dozen tip ups and did a bit of jigging - was pretty slow. We caught one upper 20s northern, missed one other flag, and heard of a few guys who caught bigger fish, but no one caught more than one or two. I also heard there have been fishing derbys going on down there the past three weekends (and there was one saturday as well) so maybe they have been pulling out some of the bigger fish.

Beautiful weather though, so no real complaints

[Joe]

Mississippi River Pool four Report 02 –27-10 With the present winter water conditions of low flow and high water clarity, it is no surprise that the best bite in the day is found vertical jigging. Last Saturday Joe Rule and Tom Schultz wanted to learn as much about how to fish the spring on the Mississippi as possible on their guide trip. We started the day catching fish vertically and did well catching good numbers of sauger with the biggest being a big belly 20-inch sauger. We vertical jigged for roughly two hours and caught fish on most every drift plus a few doubles on drifts many of fish where keepers between 15 to 17 inches, and mainly sauger though a legal walleye was also caught vertically. Best depths where 24 to 28 fow. The fish that are active are not wide spread and are in small little spots. This will change soon and all the good sauger holes will fill with very active fish. When will this change you may ask? When the flow starts to increase.

Joe informed me weeks ago that he wanted to see as may productive presentations as possible versus just go and catch fish. Why was that smart on his part? Because in early spring as the water level rises, what works one week may not work the next. Not only for spots or places to fish, but how to fish (i.e. presentations).

The big four presentations I feel an angler needs to know down on pool four are vertical jigging, casting jigs, dragging jigs, and trolling crankbaits. We spent most of our time casting jigs and dragging with a little trolling mixed in. Casting and dragging are also working very well now but during the low light and after dark periods. A huge 13 pounder was caught last Friday. In the day it is tough to get a lot of action casting or dragging, but that will change soon.

Best baits for vertical jigging was plain jig and minnow plus ringworms, and jr. flukes. Good luck.

Flow 8,700 Water temp 36 Stage 3.0 @Red Wing Dam.

[waterfowler10]

Went out of everts today and went up to the dam caught alot of smaller saugers right before suset in 20-24 FOW saw a couple sturgeon caught with one being 57" and a forty five minute fight, all in all a pretty good day with a nice mixed bag of fish caught

[Tanker]

Very nice. Thanks for the update.

[SneakAttack]

Fished today from 8:30 to 1:30 and launched out of the WI channel ramp

Boated about 15 fish, and missed about that many, all saugers with a few that were quality keeper size

Used bright color jigs with minnow and tried some plastics with little luck, fish were caught from the dam down to the vermillion in 20-28'

[mudslinger]

Around 20 smaller saugers boated today along with 2 sturgeon. Lost a large fish by the dam early in the day. We found small groups of biters but when they were biting they were chomping it as soon as it hit bottom.

[Gordie]

mudslinger what was the water temp and how was the current.

[mudslinger]

Elwood, I remember seeing 37-39 degrees depending on where we were. Two weeks ago I saw 34 degrees so it is progressing. I have seen no increase in water depth or any dramatic change in clarity from the past two weeks. Current was goofy at the dam today. Stronger on the sides and it sort of sucked boats into the middle then back towards the dam and fishing was made harder with large chunks of ice following me everywhere I went. The lack of current was less than desired for a few spots I wanted to fish.

[james_walleye]

The website i check every morning had the water temp at 40 at 8am this morning with the flow up a bit.

[Jesse Drummer]

James, whats that web site? email me [email protected] thanks, or if you can just post it on here?

[JIvers]

Rivergages.com, the Corps of Engineer's website, is a good source of information for water levels, flows, and other such information.

The COE's web people, for whatever reason, change the settings on a regular basis, so you need to play around with the settings on Rivergages to get the information you want, including water temperatures...at some locations.

Even with the quirks and changes, it is a valuable site for river fishermen.

[james_walleye]

Yep, thats the one i use. I have a journal i've kept for years and i went back and looked at every entry i had from pool 4 and i used this website and wrote down the flow, water temp, and river level for those days.

[rattleL]

Was down tuesday and wednesday looking to come friday, rain all afternoon yesterday and now pouring as we speak what is this going to do to the flow and clarity for friday. Will the fish be all mixed up?

[Gordie]

rattleL i will be down on friday as well. were in my 18ft catail camo jon Good luck

[rattleL]

elwood ill be in a 16ft tan lund with a johnson 30 on it.

[james_walleye]

Hey guys i'll be there as well in a black crestliner fishhawk with a yami motor.

[mudslinger]

Oh man, I wish I had time fri. Good luck fellas

[rattleL]

just back from river caught around 50 fish today from 7-17 inches and one sturgeon. Pretty fun time most fish were in 25 fow with bucktails.

[james_walleye]

Just got done eating fresh pool 4 fish! We spent the first part of the day searching out a big bite to no avail. The walleyes we were on last weekend were not to be found today. The current was a bit heavier, maybe that contributed to that and moved them? We caught just a ton of 13-15" saugers though. My friends dont get on the water much so i wanted to make sure we caught fish. We caught a bunch of smaller fish on jigs/minnows but i ended up going to a superdoo and started catching nicer saugers on that. Best depth was around 23-28'. I kept my 6 and just finished cooking them up for my mom and pops and my kids. We also had a sturgeon in the boat. The day was ended with a 1/2 hour fight and a 50"er in the boat. First time i've seen one landed in my boat. Quite a large fish.

[mnhunter79]

headin over in the am. hopefully it treats me better than the last two yrs. (o in 2) not very good! If any one wants to help me out on a spot or two feel free to e-mail me

[email protected]

[tj417]

I'm looking to launch off of the MN side - Where are the open landings around Red Wing?

I would imagine Baypoint is still ice locked.

[DTro]

Just got back from P4. Caught several small saugers, a few for the pan came home with us. Did a little exploring up the Vermillion and had some technical difficulties. Thanks to the guys that tried helping us out.

Watched another boat land a 50" class Sturgeon, that looked like fun. I even got a little video of it.

We honed in on a nice school of saugers, and pretty confident we could have caught a ton of them, but it's tough to sit on them with all the boats around. We settled for a couple on each drift.

Not much water coming out of the Vermillion, but the Cannon was really dumping in.

[DTro]

[Matt C]

Last week both rivers (cannon and vermilion) were very slow. Good to hear at least one has picked up!

I'll be back on P4 Monday. I'd be happy with a warm up sturgeon before the excursion!

[james_walleye]

bunt i'll be there again as well in a black crestliner with a yamaha.

[Matt C]

cool. I will be there by 9amish? White Alumacraft trophy w/ a yami.

Give me a call Monday 507-384-2249, or drop me an e-mail [email protected] . Will find a place to meet up and compare notes.

[Jesse Drummer]

How big was teh Crestliner with that got the sturgeon? Mine is a 1850 and I know its rated for less than 6 people.

[DTro]

How big was teh Crestliner with that got the sturgeon? Mine is a 1850 and I know its rated for less than 6 people.

Not really sure.

But then again, I really didn't care if they had 10 people in there.