Pepin on Friday

[jiggin' fool]

Well, I told you I would let you know what happened. For starters, the river is UP, and it is pretty dirty. Bright orange and chartruese cranks disappeared in less than a foot under the surface. Lots of little debris interfering with lines. The bite for the little guys was there.., just could not find any decent sized fish. I again spent probably 3-4 hours pitching small cranks, and black/brown 1/8 oz. bucktail jigs into flooded willows, both at the tail of the lake, and in the area between Maiden Rock and Bay City on the WI side. Caught everything BUT walleyes and saugers. LM bass, SM bass, white bass, northerns.., even a channel cat, but not an 'eye to be found. And the baitfish are there fellas. They are swimming around those willows in schools, just thick. And not once did I see any activity of fish chasing minnows. The only thing scaring them was the "kerplunk" of a jig or crank. We caught an easy 20 small 'eyes and saugers, but all of them while trolling, and again, between 10-14 FOW. I marked a lot of fish in those depths, telling me the fish were in the neighborhood, but obviously OFF!!!! I believe the mile-high blue skies, and total lack of wind, has put a wee damper on things. OR.., could be mayfly larvae. I did see some evidence of the beginning of the mayfly hatch. This weekend, with the passing of this front, and a return to southerly winds, could change it all overnight.

Let us hope!!!!!!

[MIDNIGHT777]

Jiggin, I was out there friday also from 9:00 to about 3:00. We only trolled cranks. Mostly along the WI side, but did try the MN side for about 45 minutes and only picked up 1 small eye. WI side was better. Think we got 12 eye/sauger mix with biggest 22 inches and a few sheepies. One big sheepie I thought was a huge eye till I saw it. I have to agree with about everything you said. HArd to complain about a beutiful day, but I think it had an effect on the fishing.

Thanks for all the reports and keep them comming.

Matt

[feverpetal]

We launched just north of Lake City at about noon Saturday, and didn't get anything for the first three hours, until we moved 50 to 100 feet from the Minnesota shore, and we pulled in a couple small walleyes, with one 17 inch that we kept and one fish roughly 21 inches that "glomped off" at the surface. The 17" was pretty beat up, too, so maybe they've been wrasslin'. Leeches seemed to work best, along with the chartreuse jigs. I'd recommend stingers, also, as the bites were light and lazy.

f

Also, I look like a boiled lobster. It was definitely a nice bright day out. Remember your sunscreen.

[james_walleye]

We tried pitching the MN shoreline today where we've had luck in past years, it was the first time we had been down there this year. We didnt have any luck doing that, we didnt catch much period doing that. Normally we catch all kinds of smallies and sheepies and other fish but not today. So we started trolling at about 9:00. Before my buddy had his shap rap on i had a nice sauger on. Found them in about 10' right away. About 11:00 it slowed and we slid out too 12-13' and we got into them again. We had too leave by noon and ended up keeping 6 nice 15-18" saugers and eyes. We threw 3 nice ones back because a half dozen is all we wanted too keep. And we threw back about 4 little ones. That was in less than 3 hours of trolling. Also had a big northern take my only #5 firetiger shad so that torked me because my buddy caught every fish after that.