frusterated

[mdzika]

Hi everyone, I just got done trying to fish the minnesota near Mankato. I went to three of my hotspots, and they weren't fishable. the water had to be up ten feet. i even tried a 5 ounce weight, and the current carried it away like it was a split shot. this is my first year of serious cat fishing. to all you veterans out there, how long can we expect the water level to remain like it is? will it eventually do down in the next couple weeks, or am i in for a long summer? thanks in advance, mdzika

[rushing]

I'm not an expert by any means but yes the river will come down and has already alittle. The fish are still biting but dont try to fight the current cuz the fish dont really wanna. Use a lighter weight and swing your bait up near shore. The baitfish cant handle the current too well so they are pinned against shore or in slack water areas. Seen a few nice fish hunting right against shore last week. So close when they made noise it was scary lol

I'm from the kato area too so if you see a red nissan pathfinder thats me.

good luck
rob

[DARK30]

If your gonna fish the Minnesota River, You must be able to deal with frustration! Its pretty rare for fish to be able to sight feed in the river itself. Catfish will find offerings in dingy water more often than not but when its really high and dirty like it is now, even they will be a little more evasive. Like Rob said, find places that offer a break from the fast current like eddies, creek channels off the river, and certain shoreline areas.

I've been fishing Walleyes up in the creeks and finding a few now again from 18 to 23". I will be headhunting starting next weekend with the start of the Belle Plaine Catfishing League's 04 season...Time to hunt up some big live bait!

WET NETS!

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cast,cast,cast,cast......

[korn_fish]

rushing said the key phrase. "pinned up against shore".

I do my best whenever we get high water and when it starts to drop. In an early post I mentioned that my best time was when the kato stretch was between 10 and 13 feet and dropping. I don't cast out into the current, but find current breaks caused by irregular shorelines on the outside bends. I place the bait right on the current break which is usually only a rod length away from shore. It doesn't have to be deep as baitfish will run up stream along the inside of the current break. Flatheads will follow them right up this break as well. That is why it is very common to pull many many flatheads from the same area in high water. Set up correctly in high water and it isn't uncommon to pull in a flattie every 15 to 20 minutes all night long.

As far as how long the river will take to drop, look for the river to drop nearly a foot per day if there isn't any rain in whole MN river basin including feeding rivers and streams. The MN river stretch by Morton is already dropping one foot per day and has nearly dropped 1 foot already today. The stretch by Kato has dropped half a foot already today and I would guess it will drop about a foot or more by end of day. So with that trend, and no more rain, the kato area should be back to 8-9 feet by next weekend. Hopefully a little higher than that for my liking.

Here is the link that most of us use to tell what the actuall river levels are.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mn/nwis/rt

I use it a lot to determin if the river will be rising or falling and by how much based on information from further upstream. It's also good so that you know the exact stage of the river if you keep logs on certain spots being productive at specific stages.

[This message has been edited by korn_fish (edited 06-05-2004).]

[mdzika]

Thanks for the replys everyone. I have a good spot where there is a nice cut in the bank. I will try it next to shore and let you know how I do. Thanks again, mdzika