Mississippi River Pool 8 Fishing Reports by FBMH

[gloomiseye]

Nice fish!

[FBMH]

Wow, this high water is getting the best of us, but finally the water is dropping. Boats are starting to make their way out of the garage for some, but for others the fishing has yet to get good. Today was one of those good days! For the first actual outing of the year, it was a blast. We nailed the perch on simple, easy rigs. Hook, line and sinker was all tipped with a crawler. The best way to catch these fish were to just simply drag it on bottom, no jigging, or jigged along current on the outer sides of it. Bridges especially provided fish for us! Rocks also were a good location. Water temps were about 45 and most fish were caught in 13-16ft of water with the biggest one coming in 22fow. Please try to let the big 12in perch back. most that had eggs or milk were released! Its time for the fishing season to come into fullswing with the dropping water! Good luck out there fellas!

[FBMH]

fishing is heating up fellas! The past two days 4/21-4/22 have been outstanding for our boat. Fish have been biting on everything and quality of fish is even showing up. There are still many 10in who think they own the water though, of course. Fish have been biting on purple paddletails or orange glitter ringworms with a .5oz gold jig along or on the current side of current seams.. Havent pulled three ways yet this year but with warming water that will be sure to come around!

Get out and enjoy the bite while you can! The weather sure doesnt help! See ya on the water,

Cody

(dont mind my face in the last pic. I obviously wasnt ready haha)

[Tanker]

Awesome job on the walleyes.

[FBMH]

After searching around for the last couple weeks for ice fishing spots with little people, but lots of fish, i scouted out an area that was holding a good amount of perch. I fished this area a couple times late ice and early fall and did really well on the panfish and figured itd be worth the try during this unseasonably warm winter the area is having. After drilling a couple holes and figuring out the depths and bottom cover, we setup on a 18ft flat that was followed by a quick dropoff. The perch seemed to be setup on the flat chasing shad and other bait as i watched on my vexilar screen. The fish were INHALING the smallest sized, green slender spoon tipped with a minnow head. Most fish were in the 11in range with a few 14in and a few smaller ones. We only kept 9 for the trip home, as throwing some of those bigger perch back will help the population and local fishing spots here on the river. All in all, the panfish and bass bite has been unbelieveable to start the year. Ice isnt forming very good at all with highs in the 40s, but this week should end that.

If you get out there, Good Luck and Be Safe!

Cody

[catchnothing]

gotta love them perch.....

nice catch

[DENVER06]

Nice to see you gettin into those big perch I noticed when I was down last year and hearing from my sister that the perch have made a huge comeback in that area. I remember when I was a kid we used to catch them big ones but then they disappeared quite a few years. Nice job!!!!!! I miss fishing my home waters down on pools 8 and 9. But also remember pools 3 and 4 are awesome fisheries. Good luck out there!!!!!!

[FBMH]

Hey folks, fishing has been fantastic here on the river the past couple days. With highs in the 40s and a very strong storm front rolling in, i finally made the trek to my favorite backwater northern spot.

This particular spot is a sand flat, surrounded by thick weeds. Often times, shad will come of the main river channel or from other areas, focus in on this sand flat, and hangout. Northerns in particular will hide in the thick weeds and attack when ready. As i watch on my vexilar screen, many times ill watch these thick red marks attack the baitfish, similar to what i saw in my perch report. This spot is only about 6ft max, which to me is very good northern territory.

After setting up 2 of our 4 tipups, we had our first flag, and boy was it a good one! After a good 7-10min battle, she was on the ice. It was a good 12.4lb, 38in hog! She didnt have the belly i thought i was gonna see on her, but the length and fight made up for that.

After that first fish, we had many flags and misses and what not. We ended up landing 2 14in perch that we caught on tipup/shiner combo which was a bit surprising to me. We ended up hooking into another nice northern, this one being about 34in.

All in all, the northern/bass action on the river is phenomenal! Fish seem to be very aggressive and in the feeding mood! Im sure that storm front helped out a lot yesterday as the bigger fish were the ones we were catching! Cant wait for saturday, we'll be after the gators again!

Cody

[Mr Special]

Congrats and great report

Any pics of those jumbo perch you caught

Being from Devils lake,ND i love seeing chunky perch. Sometimes i wonder how they even manage to swim. lol

Congrats again

[Crappielester]

what area is pool 8? Friend

[FBMH]

La Crosse Wi is usually the city associated with pool8. However, it does stretch a ways south, how far? I'm not exactly sure, I think to genoa?

[FBMH]

Hey folks, fishing on the river has been mediocre here the past few weeks. We've been out after northerns and panfish with decent results. Last week we hooked into a couple nice northerns, including a 38in 12lb gator. The northerns were running really well before we got our first snow on the ice this past week. They've been hitting on basic tipup/shiner combos along with two northerns coming through the hole as we were jigging for perch. As far as panfish go, the perch have been biting well. On Sunday, me and my buddy went out for the evening walleye bite. The walleyes never really showed, however we did miss two fish which seemed to have some weight to them. The area we were fishing was a 14-17ft flat surrounded by deep water all around. The baitfish were running strong on this flat, which is why we fished it. We ended up with 10 very nice perch, and a 16in sauger. Overall, fishing will get better here the next couple weeks I believe. Once these fish get used to the colder temps and snow cover on the ice, they should start hitting strong again.

Good luck and good fishing,

Cody

[pigeonator]

Great job guys, seem like you guys hammer the jumbos. Boy, i would love to catch jumbo that size. Forget about going to millelac and hole hopping. I usually fish lake pepin in lake city but never that far down the river, how's the ice conditions?, where is there a public access for pool #8, is there ppl out there too. I feel more comfort when there is more ppl on the ice. But Great job guys, show those jumbos who is boss.

[FBMH]

Ice Conditions down here are good right now. Theres a solid 5-8in everywhere and now with this cold front, the ice will lock up and start making hay even on more current areas of the river.

As far as access goes, theres a TON of spots to fish here in La Crosse. I personally put in my work and fish away from all crowds at all times. However, sometimes its impossible to avoid the people.

If you ever come and fish this area, got to Bobs Bait and Tackle on French Island or go visit Tony at Schafers Bait and Tackle on Lake Onalaska. They always have up to date info on the fishing and ice!

Good luck,

Cody

[Rugbyguy]

Any recent ice reports?

I am going to be staying in LaCrosse Saturday evening and would like to fish the area Saturday during the day. I have a MN fishing license, so I would be restricted to fishing between the tracks. I have never fished the area, so any help would be appreciated. A safe access point where I can park my vehicle would be very helpful. If any one from the area wants to team up and do some fishing let me know.

Thanks!

[TapsBug]

The ice in the Winona area was from 6" to 14"...but it was over 40 degrees yesterday, today and probably the rest of the week.

With the increase in flow from the run-off .....and the temps.....it's going to get iffy quickly!!

[FBMH]

Any recent ice reports?

Thanks!

Fishing is slow slow slow. Havent hooked into any pannies lately, and havent really found any more northerns. However, if i were you I would go to Lake Onalaska and talk to Tony at thebait shop. I've heard good things about the northern fishing lately, and theres always chances of catching really nice gills. I haven't fished it yet this year though. Sorry im not to big of a help, i havent been out much myself lately.

[westchannel]

Perch are coming from deep onto the flats (6-8ft water) hitting minnows,worms & swedish pimples. Monday buddy & I kept 15 11 + ", tues 9. Fast action for 5 min. then nothing for 30-45 min. 6 walleyes in the 10-12" range. Watch the ice....... 14 on Monday was 10 on Tues. No sunnies, been getting Northerns on smelt. For perch try the bay by # 7, the French Island Clinton St. bridge, & La X boat club have produced. Bob @ the bait shop in La Crescent knows where.

[FBMH]

Hey folks. Pan fishing on the Mississippi seems to be picking back up again. This past weekend was pretty productive and we finally got back on the fish again. The first spot we went to Saturday morning held some very nice sized perch and even a couple of crappies. The bellies on most of the perch were very round (and full of eggs) which is normal for this time of year. The biggest perch of the day measured just over 13". Colorful spoons tipped with a minnow head seemed to do the trick and although the fish weren't attacking the jig, the bite wasn't too bad. Later in the day we headed to a backwater spot with some deep water to try to find the crappies. I dropped down the Humminbird to see an area about 7' off of the bottom jam packed with fish. The fish were a little finicky to begin with but it picked up and we ended up taking some nice sized crappies. You really had to work the fish and use your fish finder to see what the fishes tendencies were. We will most likely had back to the crappy hole this weekend and see if we can pull a couple more through the ice seeing how we were scrunched on time the first time we fished the area. After all, this is usually the time of year that the crappy bite turns on!

Good luck and good fishing,

[FBMH]

Hey everyone,

Fishing reports from around the area and different people seem to be pretty low and slow this year. However, I've gotten some excellent fishing this year. Between the northerns we've caught, and the excellent perch fishing we've experienced, i'd call it a success.

Sunday morning found myself and my buddy 'Elk' chasing a sought after species, the perch. The perch population here on pool 8 has made a miraculous comeback since 3-4years ago. The size and numbers of them are above and beyond. We've been targeting them all winter, and have been very successful! On sunday, we got onto the ice at around 630am, drilling the ice into swiss cheese. We started fishing in the 10-16ft depths, and iced only a couple keeper perch. As the morning went on, we moved out into deeper depths. Here, we found anywhere from 18-22ft, and the fish were stacked! To see what was down there, we just started out by jigging a slender spoon from CJS. We pulled 4 10in perch through the ice very fast, so we figured we'd setup camp and put a few tipdowns on the ice. We were using a basic setup with the tipdowns: hook, sinker, tipped with a rosie red. Throughout the entire morning, we kept ourselves busy by chasing tipdowns and just relaxing. We fished til noonish and called it a day as we had a good number of perch to take home.

This weekend will find me and the Crew up north, fishing a couple lakes on the Canadian border. Our dad is searching around these lakes today, seeing if he can get on a hot bite. We will have a video report of the northwoods bite next week, so stay tuned!

Thanks and good fishing boys,

Cody

[FBMH]

The action sure has seemed to pick up quite a bit in the past week or so in and around the Pool 8 area. Despite hearing a lot of reports of slow fishing around the area, we have had pretty good luck on panfish action and tip up action. After a long week of school, Saturday morning finally rolled around and we were headed for the ice. We got out to the spot around 7 a.m. and found ourselves fishing anywhere from 4-6 FOW. The best action was about 6 inches off the bottom, jigging small diamond heads or gill pills. Orange, green and gold seemed to be the hot colors of the day, as they have been all year. It was a hole hopping kind of day but within a couple hours, we manged to ice our limit of pannies. Our catch consisted mostley of blue gills, but we mixed in some perch and a couple of crappies also. There were definatley some big gills down there and it sure was nice to finally get back to some pig fish. The tip up action was also constant throughout the day and we got our workout chasing flags. Overall, we caught 5 bass and a couple of Northerns to go along with that. The big fish of the day was a 5lb. bass coming at about 10:30 on a tip up tipped with an active shiner. We're hoping to get out tommorow after school to try and get on the crappies. Sorry about the lack of posts lately, school sure does find it's way of keeping us busy!

[FBMH]

Got down to dresbach dam saturday and sunday in the boat for the first time this year. Saturday started out pretty slow. Around 10 we started catching decent sized saugers pitching purple/chartruese paddletails and 1/2oz lead jig to a current seam. We ended with 3 saugers to take home saturday. On sunday, we tried something else. We started by pulling an old school tactic. We were using a plain hook behind a 3ft leader tied to a barrel swivel with a 1/2oz egg weight above the barrel swivel and it worked! Pulling these along the calm side of current seams where there was less current seemed to produce nicer and more quality fish. We ended with 5 walleyes, and 2 saugers on sunday including a 25in walleye that was let go. I lost my camera, so i have no pictures

Im very excited for this weekend as we will be seeing 50deg temps all week. Hopefully fishing picks up by this weekend!

Good luck and good fishing out there fellas,

Cody

[FBMH]

This past weekend, found us below Genoa's Lock and Dam. We showed up at about 8:30am to 15 other boats fishing. Fishing was a bit slow, with every fish being a short. We ended the day with at least 30 fish, none of them being keepable. Once again, we were pulling slip rigs and that seemed to produce most of our fish. I also saw many guys catching fish on blue/white hair jigs tipped with meat. Many guys tied up to the float and they were having a pretty steady perch bite. Walleye fishing is very slow right now. Hopefully with this warm weather the bigger fish will show up and a more consistent bite will form.

Nothing to show for this weekend besides this 34in northern.

[FBMH]

With this weird spring the area is having, walleye spawn has been kicked off and some walleyes are even spawning already. Throughout the weekend we targeted walleyes and saugers below lock and dam 7. For the most part, fishing was slow. We had a pretty good perch bite going pulling slip rigs along wingdams on saturday morning, however it was nothing consistent. Saturday night we headed out to walleye fish at 10pm and did fairly well. We pitched moxies and light colored paddletails to wingdams and current seams and were greeted to many fish. We still didn't get the size we had hoped to get out of the fish this time of year. We ended the "night" around 3am the next morning, keeping a few nice saugers.

[FBMH]

This year has been tough on walleyes from my section of the river. I havent had the size or numbers i usually expect to catch this time of year. However, last night proved me wrong. Started out by pulling slip rigs and were rewarded with quite a few fish, but nothing to size. Right around 6 we switched gears to trolling, and man am i glad we did! There was a pretty steady pod of active fish that we found and we picked em apart. We trolled firetiger and shad colored stickbaits at about 1-2.5mph. Actually, we seemed to have better luckj trolling in the upper 1mph range to 2mph range. All fish came from 15-25fow off of sand/rock flats or transistion areas. All fish were released except two perfect fryers!

Pictures arent uploading?

[FBMH]