st.louis this weekend

[walleyewacker]

We are making some talk about coming up this weekend. Could anyone give any rough info on patterns or locations used recently. Are there fish to be caught on the big lake or is it all river fishin? Advice would be great! Thanks.

[RIVER RAPTOR]

I haven't fished the river this year yet because I don't like to deal with the big crowds and playing bumper boats....I am going to get out in the middle of the week next week though. I have learned a lot on the river from personal experience and by reading posts on this fourm. I found that lindy rigging with a crawler and bright hooks work best. I also had good luck trolling while jigging and bouncing the jig off the bottom. You'll just have to get out there and try your arsonal in your tackle box. You'll have to work different spots until you find them!!

RR

[Guest]

There is plenty of room in the river if you don't like traffic. I was all by myself catching waldo's on sunday not a boat around, maybe because it was hailing out! Just an FYI there is a two day walleye tourney on the river this weekend. Last I heard there is at least 40 entries so this might add to the crowds in spots. As far as rigging right now you can really use whatever you are best with. Jig/minnow or lindy rig just depends on where abouts you are on the river. Good luck to everyone this weekend, I hope we don't get stormed off the pond.

[black max]

I was just up fishing the river and the big lake yesterday with a buddy of mine. We started out fishing the river in the morn. and were able to find walleyes after about a hour of experimenting, we found 1/8oz fireball jigs with chubs or rainbows to be the best. We took home our 4 eyes that were 20-22in. and caught a bunch more that were from 12-20in.throught the morn. I had a great time on the river esp. since it was my first time fishing it. My buddy even caught a 4lb. smallie.

Around 1pm we left and went out to fish on superior for salmon and lakers, sadly our results were not the same as we had on the river. The river was around 56 degrees and the big lake was 38-41 degrees on the mn side. We ended up with no fish on the superior, even when we headed over twords the wisc side out a couple miles we found a temp break in the dirty water that shot up to 51 degrees and I was marking fish all over from 30ft down to the bottom in 90 ft of water. Nothing, not even a release. I tried trolling from 1.4-2.7mph with spoons, stickbaits, dodgers+flies, all on a combo of trying dipsies, downriggers and planer boards.

I trolled the beach right out of the duluth harbor, out to 80ft, over on the ne shore of mn, out in deeper water and over twords wisc. Guess the fish just weren't bitting, nice day to be out there though. Hopefully I'll have better results to post the next time I fish Superior.

[Guest]

Black Max,
Not sure if you are heading back out on Superior any time soon but it sounds like you were out just a bit too deep this time of year. Oh well sounds like you had a good time on the old St. Louis. Was there last weekend and am looking forward to fishing it on fri/sat/sun!

[outdoor ran]

Blackmax, I talked to a couple of guys who were on the pond yesterday on the WI. side and they got skunked also. They have been fishing out there alot and it was their first time they didn't catch a fish this spring.

[black max]

Yea I figured that the fish just weren't going to bite for me that day around 5pm and we went back in the river. I started out fishing in 15 fow and moved out from there until I started marking fish and tried trolling different directions and speeds. Figures the one slow day of the year so far was the one I was up on. I'll prob. be back to fish the big lake in a couple weeks when it warms more.

Once july rolls around and the inland lakes warm up and shut down, the big lake is just heating up and you can't beat the fishing. Can't wait for those days when your getting a fish every 15 min.