River Levels Dropping!!

[Guest]

Wow! I saw on the USGS site that the River dropped a foot yesterday! That is a pretty drastic decline. I come up to the area next week and am worried about the fish being shocked a bit by the dropping levels, will this affect the quality of the fishing at all and if so, how?

Thanks for any info!

[Tom Stay]

River has dropped considerably since last week. Makes it more fishable, if you know what I mean.
When levels are dropping the fish tend to relocate to areas that are "safe" for the fish. Deeper water is where they go until things level off, or quit dropping. Seems like a day or two of stable current and flow that they again will position themselves for the feed.
Very surprising to me is the fact that we caught walleyes in the river yesterday that already had a nice little batch of emerald shinners in them. That was encouraging to see. The first fish was a hard fighting 24 incher that nailed a crawler/spinner combo in 10 ft. of water, all the rest were smaller fish but nice for the frying pan.

The next couple of months, Aug. & Sept. are my fun months on the river. Stable levels provide an abundance of fishing opportunities for everything that swims in the system. In Oct. the big girls swim in to play from the lake, jigs and big minnows are the ticket then for some great fall walleye action.

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Gonzos Guide Service
http//GonzosGuideService.com

[Guest]

I generally fish the Mississippi river along the Iowa-Wisc border and approach walleyes the same way most do down here - cranks and/or live bait setups around the wing dams. Where do the walleyes gather in mid summer on the Rainy? I may not spend much time next week on them but it would be nice to know where to start if the bassin gets slow. Thanks!