07/22/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:78 Level:5.25 Flow:23,300cfs

We have typical summer river conditions except for the higher than normal water levels. Still some Mayflies to deal with but over all good conditions.

Fish the last three days on the river have shown a strong interest in jigs drug downstream and no interest in cranks pulled any direction. Decent numbers overall and a few dandies have have turned up while dragging jigs tipped with crawlers, leeches and even minnows. Higher flows have still kept me out of the main river and concentrating on tributaries just off of it.

Dave and Diane Preston are shown in the first couple pics with our two best fish from Monday. Good numbers in this half day trip along with these two over 20. Diane's is 25.5"s.

The third picture is the Cooling Gang from Marengo. Dalton, Ray and Dakota are shown with some eaters from Tuesday. I'm pretty sure Ray released the big fish of the day before we got a visual on it so we'll leave the size up to his imagination.

The last three shots show Jake Orth and his dad Michael and were our best fish from Wednesday. The slowest day of the three for numbers but the size wasn't bad. The fish in the next to last frame went 28.5"s.

Thanks to the Prestons, Coolings and Orths for joining me the last three days.

07/09/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:75 Level:7.27 Flow:37,700cfs

Conditions on the river are somewhat stable. Flows, levels and temps all remain stable but recent rains have kept enough debris in the water that crankbait trolling can be a chore in certain areas.

The river has given up a few fish on my trips in the last few days, all of which have come dragging jigs. The kids entertained me for a few hours each day on Tuesday and Wednesday. We were able to catch a few fish from 16 to 20 inches and Bridger managed to boat his best walleye yet at 27.25 inches.(first picture) This one was caught on a blue jig/crawler. All of our fish came out of cleaner water away from the main channel.

Cody Lubeley and I spent Thursday from the top end of the lake all the way to the dam in search of some biters. We found that the drum were chasing our boat around on this day as we couldn't escape them. They showed up just about every spot we fished. Walleye numbers were pretty skinny but we did manage to catch a few in our travels with Cody shown below with our best fish of the day.

On a couple of side notes, take a look at the markings on both fish. You can really see that Bridger's fish came out of clean water by the dark coloration. Cody's fish has that washed out look that they get when they hang out in dirtier water. The last pics are the flies we have been dealing with for a week or so. A pretty big hatch in the river itself over the past few days.

06/28/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:75 Level:7.77 Flow:37,700cfs

River levels are up and still rising. Flows are following suit and getting stronger as well. We gained back our water temps and with that came a large mayfly hatch.

Trips in the last ten days have all had one thing in common and that is walleyes that are not very social. Dragging jigs, pulling cranks and throwing cranks have all put a few fish in the boat during this timeframe but nothing that I could say was smoking hot.

Larry Haynes and I were able to grind out a few good fish last Tuesday dragging jigs and bait. Our best fish was the one pictured below and fell for an orange jig/crawler.

Also spending time in the boat was my dad on 15th and 17th. Michelle Degree and Cherryl on the 16th and John and Denise Neiderhauser on the 24th.

One thing is for sure on the river, whether you like the bite or not you don't usually have to wait very long for conditions to change. High water will likely bring flooded willows into play on both the river and the lake. Time will tell.

06/14/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:68 Level:4.1 Flow:27,700cfs

The river is still in good shape although some changes in the last week. We have lost about 5 degrees in water temp and flows and levels are on the increase.

The easy numbers we had a week ago have declined along with the water temps. The cooler water temps have made us work harder for what we catch but the quality of fish is still good. Dragging jigs with crawlers and leeches and pulling cranks have still been my main presentations for catching fish. Jigs have still taken most of the bigger fish shown below.

Justin Sunderland is shown with his first walleye. We endured a half day of steady rain but were able to catch a number of fish pulling crankbaits on shallow sand. As you can see by the bait in Justin's hand, red was the dominant color on this day. Thanks to Susan Sunderland and her bunch for joining me on this soggy June day.

Bo Arnold and his grandson Joey joined me on the fourth and are shown in the next couple frames. Joey with a 28" fish that he caught soon after we got started on a jig/leach and Bo with a decent eye caught on a crankbait. Oh by the way, this was Joey's very first walleye ever. Wow did he set the bar high!

Next in line is Annette Canarr from Farmington with a 23 and 24 incher. One on a jig and one on a crankbait if I remember correctly. She and her husband Les were able to take home a few less than twenty inch fish but these went back for another day.

Matt and Vickie Trongard joined me on the ninth but the camera didn't. We spent the day pulling cranks as the wind was pretty brutal. Vickie gave us a lesson on the value of a blue jointed #5 shad rap as she caught most all the fish on this day with the biggest at 22 inches. Thanks to both as we really earned our fish on this day.

The last frames are from a three day weekend trip with the Howard group. Randy Stevens and I teamed up and fished with this group for a Friday-Sunday trip. Fishing was far from easy but we were able to put together some decent fish as you can see from the pics. Mind you these are some of the better fish from my boat as Randy had a highlight reel of his own. First is Jason Earl with a 20" fish from Saturday. Next is Earl Howard with a 26" followed by Ryan and Earl with a pair of mid 20 inchers and last is Merle with our best fish, a 27 incher caught on a jig. Thanks to Randy Stevens and the whole Howard group for a great three day excursion.

When our water temps again climb back into the 70s we should have a more consistant bite. As you can see below, even when the fish are a little off things can be pretty good on pool 4.

06/02/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:73 Level:3.75 Flow:20,000cfs

The river is in great shape with warm water and normal flows.

My time has been spent lately in the river itelf. Dragging jigs has been the dominant presentation for my boat. Brief periods pulling cranks have also been very productive but all of our better fish have come on jigs. Orange,blue and lime green have all taken fish and it's really a coin flip between crawlers and leaches as both have taken numbers and quality.

Last Tuesday Mike and Jeff Hoag joined me for a half day trip. We fished a couple non productive spots before finding a nice pod of 17-21 in fish. We caught fish on jigs and cranks but the two quickly decided that the jigs were the way they preferred to catch fish. We managed to catch a great bunch of walleyes in that range in just a couple of hours.

Friday and Saturday my son Bridger, his buddy Nathan Simon and I were able to spend some time on a walleye hunt. Again, most all of our time was spent dragging jigs and bait. Many fish in the 15 - 20 inch range and a good showing of fish from 23 to 28 inches made their way to the boat. I can't remember catching a fish any deeper than 10 fow on any trip in the last couple weeks. Nathan took top honors with a 28.25" fish that was a new best for him.

Mike Hoag,Bridger and Nathan are shown below with a few fish from our trips.

05/21/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:60 Level:6.3 Flow:34,100cfs

River levels came up about 2.5' in the past 10 days and our now slowly going back the other way. Water temps are climbing and the water clarity is still very good.

Just a couple days out since my last report but since I had a large gap between my previous reports I am making up for lost time. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent trying to intercept some better fish as the river was on the rise. We concentrated our efforts Tues. on rigging in some prime areas that typically hold fish when the river is on the way up. We found a couple good fish (24 and 26 inches) willing to eat a rigged leach and a few shorties to go along with. The short time we spent with cranks turned up only one sauger worth a mention. A great day to be on the water as the weather is finally cooperating a little. Thanks to Dustin Stewart for a great Tuesday.

Wednesday was a half day venture with John Check (Manitowoc, WI.). John and I put together a great morning dragging light jigs tipped with a half crawler. We found our fish in 8-10 fow and although the bites were pretty suttle the fish were bigger than their bite. John is shown below with a number of fish that range from 22 to 27 inches. The last picture is a pair that went 25 and 27 inches and the latter was a new personal best for John. All fish shown are still swimming.

As the water warms rapidly in the next few days I would expect the crankbait bite to get into full swing as well.

05/16/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:56 Level:5.27 Flow:32,700cfs

Flows, levels and temps are all on the increase after the recent rains and warm temps. Conditions remain very good as the water clarity has held it's own even with the increases.

I was able to be on the river quite a bit this past week and found a few different methods that would catch fish. Some changes were out of necessity and some were just by choice. Dragging jigs with bait, rigging bait, longlining cranks and leadlining cranks all took some decent fish over this time frame.

Wednesday and Thursday I was joined by Bob Wilson and Donavon McNaughton. This grandpa-grandson team from Iowa has visited before and like last summer had to endure some wet weather to put their fish in the boat. We spent the better part of Wednesday dragging jigs/crawlers and put a nice bunch of upper teens to lower twenty inch fish in the boat. Thursday we found the bite a lot tougher and jigs along with cranks coaxed the few fish we did catch. Blue and orange were our best jig colors while firetiger cranks was the only color of crank we could get bit on. The two are pictured below with a sample from each day.

My Father in-law, nephew and son spent Friday and Saturday with me searching for those river walleyes. Friday we dedicated our time to strictly three-way rigging leaches and crawlers. We stayed in the river and found a couple areas we were able to coax a few fish. We started our day by having a big fish come unbuttoned before the netting took place. I hate it when that happens but it's all part of the deal. Most all fish on this day came on crawlers and not a lot but some decent fish non the less.

Friday we decided to head for the lake and try and find a trolling bite. After a couple of shallow runs and no takers we slid out to deeper water and right away marked fish and caught fish. Pulling #5 hot steel raps on leadcore in 20 fow was the combo that worked to catch a decent bunch of mostly saugers. It was critical that speeds were kept between 1.5 and 1.8 mph as too fast got no takers for us. The three are pictured with fish from Friday and Beau and Bridger are shown with a couple that were put back for another day.

Water levels are predicted to go up another foot but a steady diet of warm dry weather should be a good recipe for good things to come in the coming weeks.

05/1/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:58 Level:4.47 Flow:25,500cfs

Falling water levels and flows and stable water temps are the report on Pool 4. Things are in great shape on the river.

Last week I spent Wed. and Thurs. on Pool 3. Denver McKinnon invited me to spend a day in his boat on Wednesday. We used Dubuque rigs to catch a great bunch of saugers and walleyes in the 14 to 18 inch range. Firecracker/Chart. ring worms fished on the jig or a plain minnow on the back hook got the most attention. Thanks to Denver for letting me ride along.

Thursday I took my Iowa crew back to the same areas and we had similar results. A slow but steady bite in the morning turned into a fast steady bite right after noon. Many different baits took their turn being hot. Randy Soedt started us off with a few on fc/chart tail ringworms, Randy Starr took his turn with patriot hair jigs and a minnow and Curtis Assenmacher was pretty steady with a gold head and a purple/chart ringie. I think I got a couple along the way as well. Thanks Randy, Randy, Curtis, Brian and Jeff for coming back up to see me again. Hope to do it again soon.

This past weekend I had a brief outing between rain storms. Bridger and I handlined for a few hours on Saturday and found some willing fish rather quickly. Floating #9 Firetiger Raps were the bait of choice. The fish showed us without a doubt that that was their preference as other baits fished side by side got snubbed. A 21" sauger and 22" walleye were our best with some other fish in the 15 to 17 inch range in the mix. Shame on me for leaving the camera in the truck today. A cardinal sin with kids in the boat.

I made a solo run on Wednesday of this week. Although I did troll up a few saugers on the lake, I would have to say the fish did their best to avoid me on this day. Many areas fished with only smallish fish to show before finding a few saugers in the 14-16" range willing to chase # 7 raps fished on leadline in 16 fow.

With the forecast of highs in the 60's and lows in the 40's, be prepared to mix it up to see what they want. Cranks will have their days but it is too early to put all your eggs in that basket. Bait either rigged or jigged should play a big roll in catching fish for the next few weeks. Be openminded and let the fish tell you what they want and be prepared, some days you have to listen pretty hard.

04/19/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:58 Level:6.23 Flow:33,800cfs

Dry weather has helped the river levels and flows to decline steadily. Water temps have continued to increase as warm temps have been the norm over the past month.

This past week has found me fishing from the dam down into the lake and many areas in between. The bite is very typical of the postspawn period. Fish are quite nomadic this time of year and can be here today and gone tomorrow. Numbers for my boat have been down compared to the prespawn frenzy but the size has made up for fewer fish. Some quality fish most every day have been showing up along with some eaters as well. My presentations have covered a wide scope as well depending on who I have in the boat and what size of fish we are chasing. Throwing jigs/plastic, rigging bait, deadsticking bait, pulling raps on three-way rigs, leadlining cranks, flatlining cranks and handlining have all taken fish over the past week.

Jason Papenfuss is shown in the first couple pics with a couple of our better fish from last Thursday. Rigging crawlers and throwing jigs both took fish on this day.

Next is a 21" male walleye posing with the #7 rap it tried to inhale. Dave Lasche and "Big Fish" Carl Lamar show off a couple of Friday's catch all of which were caught three-waying original floating raps.

The last two frames are the brothers Snyder (Clair and Ken) from Breda Iowa. Their fish both were caught lonlining cranks in about 6 fow. They were in on a trip with Ron Victor who I believe had the best fish of the day come off just before we got a look. Sorry Ron for the pilot error by the guide but we'll do better next time.

Thanks to all of the folks who have spent time with me in my boat this spring.

04/11/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:50 Level:8.0 Flow:42,600cfs

Conditions remain in great shape on the river. Falling water levels and stable temps have been the order for the past week.

I started every day this past week working on the upriver sauger bite. It has continued to be a great way to put huge numbers of fish in the boat. Dragging Dubuque rigs or raps have been the only tricks I have had to use to get these fish to cooperate. It seems the more I fish the Dubuque rig the more I see it's versatility. You can drag it with plastic or bait. You can fish it sitting in one spot while using a lift and hold or lift and drop. You can cast it from an anchored postion. You can put a stick bait on the back end and the list goes on and on.

I do think the upriver bite has got to be getting close to tailing off as Friday saw us have to work a lot harder for the fish we did catch. The fish will soon vacate the area to set up shop in downstream or lake locations.

The back part of my days have been spent chasing walleyes that are now pretty much done with their spawn. Some success here and there but quite a bit of time spent for the fish caught. Jeff Matura and Wendell Fowler are shown below with a couple respectable eyes caught casting platics to flooded rip rap.

The last frame has got Macky Medley and Mike Donovan with a few of their catch from Thursday. The first picture is what you'll find on rip rap out of the current. The high water has these fish pushed into very specific areas as well.

There should be more great fishing on the horizon as we chase these fish downriver to their warm water haunts.

04/04/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:49 Level:10.45 Flow:64,000cfs

Water is still high but on the decline. Water temps are going up quickly and water is now very fishable with little debris to contend with.

Quite a bit of time on the water since my last report. The vast majority of my time has been spent chasing the number of saugers that have been very cooperative as of late. The best presentation all week has been the Dubuque rig with raps and throwing also taking their share. 1/4 or 3/8th oz jigs in either orange or sour apple with ring worms in pro blue, chart pepper or purple/chart have been the favorites on the dropper and a plain hook and a minnow still takes it's share on the leader. Favorite depths as of late have been 8-12 fow and occasionally dipping down to the 20 foot range depending on the area.

I won't give a run down of every trip as to shorten the report but will hit the high points. Jason Papunfuss and Randy Richert are shown in the first three frames with a decent eye and a couple of jumbo saugers. The sauger that Jason is holding is in both pics but was worth a double take at 5.1 lbs. The one Randy is holding wasn't far behind at 4.8 lbs. Both Dubuque rigged fish.

McKade Kerr is shown with a sturgeon and a sauger that he caught while fishing with his grandpa Dan Loving in my boat on Thursday. McKade also had his first walleye and lost another dandy boatside. McKade has a great start to his fishing career at 8 years old and a great grandpa to take him on a trip like this. Thanks guys.

Next is Brian Luethmers with a 20+ inch sauger that he caught while in my boat with Gary Hawkins on Friday morning. Another highlight of this day was the fact that we were off the water when the rain and lightning hit. A good day made better by a rare good decision to get off the water.

And last is Jeff Troop with a big ol male sauger (21.5 "s) that sucked up the minnow part of a Dubuque rig on Saturday. Jeff and Chris Sample spent a very warm/windy Saturday with me on pool 4.

By all indications we are smack dab in the middle of the spawn. Most every sauger I have caught still has eggs and the walleyes that are showing up are split between with eggs and without. This week should be another good one but time will tell how the bite progresses.

03/28/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:40 Level:12.8 Flow:91,000cfs

The river has finally crested and is cleaning up a bit. Flows are still very high and water temps are starting to climb.

Trips this week saw things take a turn for the better. Wednesday I was able to jump in the boat with Greg Vandemark and Randy Stevens. We spent most of the mid-day checking out spots that typically have fish this time of year and found out that this is not a typical year. Most areas had no biters but a great day non the less. Thanks to both for letting me ride along on a pretty nice March day.

Kory Isley and I had just a morning to kill on Thursday so we thought we would make the most of it. We started at sun-up and were off the water by 11.00 am and had some decent results. Although it felt like winter with temps in the 20's and winds in the 20's we were were able to put together a good bunch of saugers and one respectable walleye. Dubuque rigs were the ticket for our success with the bare minnow on the back end of this rig getting the most attention.

Saturday I was joined by Sean Sullivan, Peter Yawn and Dion Brandt. The first hour was a little slow but as soon as the sun hit the top of the trees the action picked up. Dubuque rigs again were the ticket and after Peter showed us that purple paddletails were what the fish wanted we were off and running. Everyone was getting in on the action and about ten fish into the morning Sean commented that he may need the net that he had a better fish on. That was an understatement. He is shown below with a 28.5 inch 10.2 lb dandy that sucked up one of those purple/chart paddle tails on an orange jig. You may notice a little blood on the gills but after a little live well rest she gave us a big splash as she headed back to the river bottm.

The rest of the day was filled with spurts of action and lulls. When we would encounter a lull we would change just a little and it would seem to trigger more bites. Peter is shown in the last picture with a 25" saugeye that fell for a firecracker/chart tail ring worm and Dion in the previous picture with the business end of a big sauger. Dion just happened to be in the boat last year when a 13+ pound fish made an appearance. I might just have to hire him to come along on every trip.

The first picture below is of Randy and Vandy in search of something in what used to be the driveway at Everts Resort. Just shows how high that water really is. Hopefully there will be more big fish in the near future.

03/20/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level:10.58 Flow:60,000cfs

Big changes have taken place on the river. Water level and flows are way up and clarity and temps are way down. Red Wing levels are supposed to crest mid-week.

Fishing in general has been on the tough side with conditions changing daily. I have been on the water three different times in the past week with only a handfull of fish each day. Dubuque rigs and light three way rigs have accounted for the fish my boat has caught in those trips.

As the river crests this week and temps come up a few degrees the stage should be set for a great spring run.

03/11/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:39 Level:2.2 Flow:12,000cfs

Change is starting to take place as the spring run off has arrived. Clarity is still good but is changing as I write I'm sure.

The evening/night bite has been something you could set your clock by for the last two months. Daytime fishing has been hit or miss but has been pretty good for my boat the last couple trips.

A short trip about 10 days ago proved pretty entertaining. Fish viewing and catching were both pretty good. My son and Frank Bartyzal spent most of the afternoon with their faces glued to the screens of the underwater cameras. Not all areas that we viewed had fish but some had many. By late afernoon we were ready for some catching and had action right away. Dragging jigs upstream in deep water did ok till the evening fling began at which time we promptly moved to water under 12 feet deep. Good numbers of eaters came on a variety of colors all pulled on 3/32oz heads. The pair is showing off some of their catch in the second picture.

Wednesday, Dustin Stewart and I were able to spend a few midday hours looking for a few willing biters. After striking out in a couple of spots, we found some saugers willing to eat. Dustin cast 3/16th oz jigs while I drug 1/8ths. This was a pretty good combo for a quick dozen or so fish. Oystershell Ringers and purple/white tail ringworms both produced, although Dustin's ringer came out on top in the end.

We were then joined by Dan Meyer(Chippewa Falls, WI) and Pat Reeve(Plainview, MN). You may recognize Pat from TV fame. Pat and his partner Nicole Jones are featured on their own show called Driven TV. Check them out at www.drivenhunter.com
The four of us spent the rest of the afternoon/evening pitching and dragging our way to a pretty good bunch of fish. Dan and Pat are shown with a few of our catch and Dan alone with a dandy sauger caught after dark.

Stay tuned, in the next month the big females should come out of the woodwork.

02/21/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:35 Level:2.2 Flow:9300cfs

Flows are normal and water clarity is at its winter best.

I have been on the water only a few times since my last update. Some of these trips have been camera work only but have tested the bite on a couple occasions. The bite during the day has been iffy. One day pretty good, the next pretty tough but always a few willing biters. Holding baits very still just off the bottom while staying vertical at just the speed of the current has been the trigger for my boat.

Now the evening bite is another story. Fish that are neutral or negative during the day go on a feeding mission every evening it seems. Some evenings the window is only about an hour and others it goes off and on all night.

Friday afternoon was spent chasing saugers in deep water with some success. Natural colored flukes on glitter jigs were our best bait. Late in the afternoon we switched our plan to a shallower dragging presentation. Instead of 20 - 30 fow we concentrated on water less than 12 feet deep. This bite was nothing short of phenominal as darnkness fell on the river. Brightly colored ringworms pulled slowly upstream in shallow water provoked many aggresive strikes. Numbers of fish in the upper teens to low 20 inch class made a showing with the biggest fish hitting the tape at 27 inches. We ended our night about 7 pm and the bite was still going strong.

As we sit here in late February, I expect the current conditions to hold steady for a couple of weeks. Sometime in early to mid March we will see the big change start to take place. This will mark the start of the spring season on pool 4 that everyone waits for every year. Until then plan an evening trip to the river and get in on some of the after dark fun that goes on there.

01/14/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.2 Flow:9300cfs

Conditions are great on Pool 4. Water clarity is about 5 feet and flows are normal to a touch above.

I was able to spend the last two days on the river after about a month in drydock. Brian Paulson and I put the jigs to the test on Tuesday. We had our best luck staying vertical with small plastics. Dragging jigs upstream was also attempted but much floating frozen foam made this a tough venture. We managed a few smallish fish doing the upstream thing but didn't get a very good read on it due to the conditions. Orange 5/16th oz heads with a small green and white 3" fluke was our most consistant producer. We did stay for a quick check of the evening bite but only one 18"er was all we could muster in the area we tried.

A pretty decent numbers day was just what we both needed after the long spell off the water. A very enjoyable day for both and at the end, no fish to clean as all went back to be caught again.

Wednesday Tom and Jessie Klanchnik and I did an afternoon/evening run to see if we could find a few of those fish we turned loose the day before. A few more boats on the water made the afternoon bite a little tougher than Tuesday but being persistant and staying vertical we coaxed a few fish for the box. Successful baits were much the same as the previous day.

With the evening bite being slow in the area fished on Tuesday we chose a different spot to finish on Wednesday. A good move as we experienced a somewhat frantic bite for about 45 minutes to end the day. Oystershell ringworms on 3/32oz heads did the damage for a nice bunch of eater sized fish.

With a good stretch of warmer type weather in the forecast we will hopefully have frequent reports in the near future.

01/04/10--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.2 Flow:9300cfs

2009 Recap

We started the spring season with pretty normal conditions. Early March found us catching good numbers of saugers dragging jigs while the water was still low and clear. The river rose as it normally does at the end of March but what I remember most about this year was how long the water stayed cold after the raise. We relied on Dubuque rigs for about a ten day stretch when the water would just not climb out of the upper 30 degree range. This old method really shined as baits had to be moved at a snails pace for any results. When the water temps climbed into the 40's, throwing jigs or pulling raps were solid producers as is the case most years.

The post spawn/early summer period was filled with a ton of tournament activity on the river. Huge weights were the norm for most all weigh ins. Three-waying bait and pulling cranks on leadline were the most productive methods for me during this period. The water temps did not break the 70 degree mark until mid June, the mark at which I consider to start the actual summertime season.

Summer brought its normal flurry where huge numbers of fish were the norm. Pulling cranks or dragging jigs with bait are and were the best ways for me to put fish in the boat. As I look back, the bite seemed to wane a bit when the water temps fell back into the 60's after a cool down in the weather, but rebounded and stayed very good through the end of July.

Late summer was typical as some days were darn good and others were down right tough. The real salvation was that while numbers seemed to fall off, at least one big fish per trip was pretty common. By mid September the crappies had taken off and were a big part of many trips and rolled us right into the fall season.

Fall hit like a bang this year as water temps that held in the 70's through late Sept. fell into the mid 50's by Oct. 8th. The sharp drop in water temps along with an increase in flow brought a wave of fish. Like a switch flipped, the bite took off and lasted all the way through December. Early in the period pulling raps was the key and as time progressed and water temps dropped below 40 degrees jigs became dominant.

I have included below one highlight picture from every month from March through November. We had many personal bests again this year including my own. In the second picture is a 13.8 pound fish that was caught at the end of March and is the heaviest walleye to date for me. Another best for my boat came on Sept. 26th when Doug Kohoutek landed the 31" fish shown in picture 7. No doubt another great year on Pool 4 behind us and by all indications another one ahead as well. Thanks to all who gave me the oppurtunity to help them find a fish or two.

12/14/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level:2.8 Flow:6100cfs

We have finally hit winter time flows and water temps. Water clarity of a couple of feet right now and gaining inches every day.

Not a lot of trips as of late but the ones I have taken have been very good. Winter time tactics are taking good numbers of fish each trip. Vertical jigging plastics or dragging jigs and plastics are probably my two favorites. The evening bite has also been going strong for a couple weeks. If you have just a couple hours to fish I would target the last two hours of daylight each day. This proves to be as predictable a bite as you can get through the cold winter months.

The pictures below were taken on December 7th out of the back of Tim Hutchison's boat. These were shot just off of "Point No Point" in Lake Pepin. I'm pretty sure we were the last boat on the lake for this year as the ice was already a couple inches thick in spots.

Hopefully I will do one more report before the end of the year if weather permits. If not look for an end of the year wrap up as usual.

11/23/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:44 Level:3.3 Flow:19,400cfs

I have been on the water three full days in the last two weeks. Trying to stay versatile and mixing up presentations have been the goal. Pulling double raps, single raps, Miller rigs and ring worms on three-ways along with casting and vertical jigging have all taken some fish on these trips.

Last Tuesday Scott Krakow,"Vandy" and I set out to see how many we could catch "Pulling". We had a double rap rig and some sort of a ringworm rig in the water at all times. After a slow start and a little switching around it became evident that a #9 firetiger rap fished on the front of the double rig was REALLY what they wanted. While Scott banged away at fish with this rig, Vandy and I expirimented with other colors and rigs. Oystershell ringworms on the bottom end of the Miller Rig gave up a few fish as did other rap colors but the ft #9 was steady all day.

This would have been a fun day with these two even without the many fish that came to the boat.

Scott and I put away the pulling sticks on Wednesday and concentrated our efforts casting. We sure didn't catch them everywhere on this day but found a couple areas we coaxed a few decent fish. Pro blue paddles and ringworms seemed to be the ticket in the morning as we found a few upper teens to low 20" walleyes.

After leaving this pod of fish we struck out in a couple areas before finding another bunch to finish out the day. Purple paddletails were what we settled in on for the afternoon bite. Mostly saugers in this bunch with just a couple eyes caught a touch shallower.

Sunday proved the toughest day of the three. Mark Turnquist and I really sorted through a bunch of presetations to catch our fish. One of those days when you catch a fish and then switch.

We started our day pulling, swithed to vertical jigging, went casting, back to pulling and ended casting. Top producers by days end were small firetiger raps, catalpa orange superdoos and purple paddletails.

I would consider the bite right now kind of day to day but with the cool down that is coming it would be a good idea to get yourself to the water. There is usually a great bite in December and I expect this year to be no exception.

11/11/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:46 Level:4.32 Flow:25,900cfs

Over the past week I have been out about every other day and have seen some definite changes in the bite. In the middle of last week we were still in the suicidal mode. Many fish on many different presentations. Over the weekend fish got tougher to come by but were still willing given the right bait. Yesterday was kind of a happy medium with good numbers but far from what we saw last week.

Early last week I spent the day with Dale Pike and his crew. We spent the whole day fishing double rap rigs in 15 to 25 fow. We had a short lull or two but found steady action most of the day. Hot steel and purple descent were our best colors but many others did catch fish. We did notice that #9 baits fished on the back of this rig got the most attention on this day.

I helped Kelvin Langmaid and his bunch look for some "away from the dam" spots to catch fish on Thursday. We fished quite a few areas and caught fish in all but about two. Most all of our fish on this day came on firecracker/chart.tail something. Paddletails and ringworms both caught fish if they were this color. Nothing huge but a good bunch of upper teens to low twenty inchers and mostly green.

Saturday proved to be my toughest day as of late. Mark Turnquist, Eric Biese, Dave Jeffrey and I did manage to coax a few decent fish highlighted by a 21" sauger that Mark caught on a blue/white #9 rapala.

Mike Stori and I spent the day Tuesday working on the 3-way bite. Rapalas early in the day and ringworms later on both proved pretty effective. Brighter colors seemed to be the preference for both methods on this very sunny day. We found a few different colored raps that would catch fish but quickly narrowed the ringworm preference down to chart/pepper after one quick test run.

In my eyes we have experienced our first wave of fall fish. With stabalizing water temps the fish are in somewhat of a holding pattern and should be ready to explode again as soon as the water temps start to again decline.

11/02/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:46 Level:4.33 Flow:24,700cfs

Conditions remain good even after a long rainy spell. An increase in levels and flow and a slight decrease in water temps have still left pool 4 in great shape.

Many days on the water since my last report. I will just touch on the high points to keep this report under 10 pages. Pulling double rapala rigs has been the only method needed to put gobs of good fish in the boat each day. Gold has still been the dominant color for my boat although most every color in the box caught some fish at one time or another.

10/24,10/25-Jack and Joe Palek and Dominic Marchese spent the weekend in my boat. These guys have the same weekend booked at Evert's Resort every year and 9 times out of 10 hit the bite right on the nose. We pulled raps all weekend and had a great time. Dominic and Jack are shown with some fish that were released after pictures.

10/30-Gary Hawkins from Chillicothe, MO was in for a late afternoon trip. The river gave up just enough fish on this windy afternoon to call it a good day, although this was one of the tougher bites we experienced over the past week. Just a side note-The crappies are still lurking around on pool 4. I was able to jump in with Mr. Hutch for about an hour before Gary arrived on Friday. The third picture is a sample of the fish we caught in our short time out. Thanks to Hutch for the schooling and to Dean for snapping the picture.

10/31-This is the trip I look forward to all year. Trace Mayer(New Prague) was the winner of the give away trip from last Februarys annual "Kids Clinic". Trace was joined by his brother Mason and his dad John. We opted for a late morning start as the forecast was for high winds and 39 degrees. A good choice as even at 10 am it was pretty cool.

Trace took to this rather quickly and boated our first fish exactly 30 seconds after we started fishing. He had the hot stick for the first part of the trip but Mason was the star for the last two hours. When he wasn't catching fish he was dazzling us with his knowledge of fish and fishing. He has never fished the river, yet knew all about willow cats and when I noted that shad were the main food in the river he pomptly asked "Threadfin or Gizzard Shad?". These two fishermenn of the future are shown with some we took home and one nice eye that was released. They were all over throwing the bigger ones back. Thanks John and Kids.

11/01-Sunday I had some fellow Hawkeye fans, Jerry(Monticello) and Jason(Cedar Rapids) Haag. We ran the same program again and were not disappointed. We caught some nice fish early in the day, had a lull midday and finished with a two hour flurry that saw many saugers including a few in the 20" range come to the boat. Darryl Metzler is shown in the next to last photo with a fish that measured 23"s and weighed 4.9lbs(released) and the Haags in the last picture with some good ones that were also returned to the river.

Thanks again to all who have spent time in my boat over the past week.

10/23/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:49 Level:3.2 Flow:16,400cfs

Mother nature is playing catch up with the recent rains. Levels and flows are both on the increase but at a nice slow pace. Water temps have leveled off at about 50 but should resume their decline by the looks of the forecast. I don't think you could order a better scenario for great fishing.

Since my last report I have covered a lot of water with many different folks. Thanks to Hutch for the invite on the 13th and also Glenn Daugherty/Les Roemig on the 21rst. Visitors in my boat included Bob Lacourciere and Dennis Rammien on Monday of this week and Mark Turnquist and David Jeffrey yesterday.

10/13-Just a few hours in the afternoon with Tim Hutchison yielded more bass than walleyes. Casting crankbaits was the method of choice that fooled a mix of large and smallmouth bass and a few eyes. Bridger is shown with a sample of both.

10/19-We started this day pulling rapala rigs and found success right out of the gate. A mixture of saugers and walleyes up to 22"s was the take. Castings a variety of baits on the lake gave up a couple eyes and a couple of the biggest crappies I have had in the boat all year. Dennis is showing us that plastic worms are a main part of a walleyes diet in the 3rd picture and next with a 14" crappie that hit his very femanine looking hair jig.

10/21-We didn't do a lot of running around on this very soggy Wednesday. We started pulling raps and had so much success that we just stayed with that plan all day. A bite that seemed to start fairly steady, wane a bite midday and then escalate to very good by late afternoon. By days end we had caught gobs of nice fish but the highlight was a 23.5" sauger that went 4.7 lbs. Les caught this fish on a black/white rap and the picture we took with the cel phone did not do her justice. We will just leave this one to your imagination. We did find that darker colored raps were by far our best producers but one in particular bait now known as "Black Jack Taco" was by far our best and only found in Glenn's box. I will leave that to your imagination also.

10/22-We started our day late in the morning right where I left off with Glenn and Les the previous day. The one thing that became evident quickly was the increase in flow from the day before. This must have drawn more fish or just pushed them tighter in the area we were fishing. The bite that was good the day before was better to the point of rediculous at times. Three different times we had three fish on at once. Dark colors were again are best producers although brighter baits also took some fish. Mark and David are shown with a few that were released and were great about keeping the smaller fish to eat.

I think the bite we have been waiting for is just starting to take shape.

10/09/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:55 Level:2.99 Flow:15,000cfs

Big changes have taken place on the river. Water temps have fallen 12 degrees in the last 10 days while the flow and level have went the other direction. With this combination of events the fish are making the transition to fall patterns.

Just a brief update on the state of fishing on the river. Fishing seems to be picking up every day on many parts of the system. In the last few trips we have caught fish from the dam half way down into the lake. Just a brief visit to the head of the lake on Wednesday was enough to see that the fish are starting their movement from the lake to the upper stretches of the river. We caught a decent number of fish for the time spent, all of which came on cranks fished on leadcore. Other boats in the same area were also catching good numbers, most of which were saugers.

Thursday we switched gears and fished the very upper stretches of the river. We had very good results throwing jigs with paddletails and found Oystershell to be the dominate producer by far. A pretty even mix of walleyes and sauger with fish up to the low 20" range. Scott Krakow is shown below with some fish that were released after pictures. The very gold color of all the walleyes was a very good indication that these fish had been in the lake in the very near past. I think a very quick journey upriver took place over the past few days.

I will be off the water for a few days but then will be at it full tilt for the rest of the fall. The very best time of the year is directly in front of us.

09/29/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:67 Level:1.9 Flow:5200cfs

Water temps have started their decline although for the time of this report they were still holding at 71. Other conditions were similar to the last report.

My dad was up for a couple days last week. We decided to dedicate most of our time in search of crappies. Wednesday was spent on the lake where we found the bite to be very spotty. Just a few fish here and there most of which were pretty nice but no numbers to speak of. In our search we did find about a half dozen walleyes willing to take the bucktails we were throwing. Oh and also willing to bite on a black bucktail were too many drum to count. Man are those things everywhere.

Thursday we had the same plan only in a different area. We concentrated our efforts on main river rip rap with deep water close by and found the fish much more cooperative. Three here, four there and so on turned out to be the pattern for the day. We jumped around to many different areas and found at least one or two in most. Jigs in 1/16th oz. dressed with various 2" tubes did most of the damage. Some of these fish stretched over the 13" mark with most running 11 to 12 inches.

We did spend about an hour looking for a walleye and found a couple willing to hit crank baits trolled in deep water. A pretty good mixed bag of quality fish by days end as we even had a 10 lb. channel cat suck up a # 5 jointed rap. Dad is shown with some of each in the first three pics below.

This past weekend I had more visitors from the south. Doug Kohoutek(Swisher) and Gary Pribyl(Fairfax) joined me on Saturday and Sunday for a walleye chase. We started in the fog on Saurday morning that hung over us for about an hour and quite honestly had the fish in a fog as well. It seemed though that as the fog lifted and the sun cleared the trees the river suddenly woke up. Gary was the first to give the "fish on" call but our hopes were dashed when the 8/3 fireline went limp with the fish only half way to the boat. Just as quickly as the rush ended, it started again as Doug had hooked up as well. After a lengthy fight and much speculation about what was on the other end we slid the net under what turned out to be a 31" 10.2 pound bruiser. To make the story better, as we opened her mouth to extract the bait that was tied to Doug's line we also found another crankbait in her mouth. This one didn't look like it had been there long and one can only speculate who lost this fish of a lifetime.

We got a quick measurement and slid her into the livewell to make sure she was in good shape. Thinking we may be in the middle of a bite we decided to make one more pass before we took a picture and made the release. Just a few minutes later Gary had his second chance to say "fish on" and this time the release came after the netting and the photo. What a flurry of action in just a short time frame. Gary's fish measured 28.25 inches and weighed 7.4 lbs. You can really appreciate the size of Doug's fish when you look at the photo below.

Now the rest of the weekend had no more highlights like Saturday morning but a few walleyes, crappies and did I mention we have drum up here on pool 4. Thanks to Doug, Gary and my dad for making this a memorable stretch of fall fishing.

Just a side note, these fish were released in great shape. The big girl even gave us a splash with her tail as she took off for the bottom of the river.

09/22/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:2.19 Flow:3900cfs

Flow and water temp are the keys to the river right now. The low flows from my last report have diminished even more. Water temps remain on the high side for mid to late September.

The walleye bite continued to be pretty solid through the end of last week. Al "Oly" Olson and Dave Burkum joined me Friday for a morning only run. We spent the first couple of hours dragging jigs with bait over shallow clams. This produced good numbers for us as long as we didn't go too fast. Jigs pulled downstream at .7 or .8 mph did the trick. Getting in a hurry(.9 or 1.0)produced nothing.

The back half of the morning was spent chasing crappies. This bite was not quite what the walleye bite was but we did find a few takers that were pretty nice. Oly and Dave are shown below with a couple of each.

Saturday and Sunday were both full day outings that saw the walleye bite wane from what it was the past week or so. Still some fish but not nearly the pace as before. A late morning switch to crappies on Saturday proved very worth while. We put together a very good bunch of fish casting 1/16th and 1/8th oz. jigs. Eric Biese and Mark Turnquist show off some of our catch in the second picture. Hats off to both on thier very selective harvest.

Sunday proved to be the slowest day of the three for both species. My hunt a peck method did give up a few eyes and a few crappies but long spans between fish were the norm. The majority of our day was spent pulling a variety of cranks. We couldn't find any one bait that we could call hot but brown craw JSR5's pobably was our top producer. Chasing crappies for about an hour did give us a good sample of fish but this bite was also on the slow side. Adam Gifford, Paul Beggren and Josh Kor are in the last picture with some of these fish.

Thanks to all the groups that fished the past few weeks. We should be in for some big change in the near future as October is on our doorstep.

09/11/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:2.19 Flow:5500cfs

What flow we had a couple of weeks ago has disappeared. The lowest flows of the summer are upon us. Water temps remain in the mid 70's and claity is still good.

One crappie trip last week turned up some decent fish but not huge numbers. Most of our time was spent on the lake prodding some old proven areas. Not much action on most spots but one area gave up a few quality fish just before our day was over. Bridger is shown below with a couple dandies from that area. We only fished one river haunt that did give up some better numbers but these fish were of the 10" variety. An equal mix of bucktails and tubes caught fish.

Thursday, Scott Larson(Rochester) and I were going to split our day between walleyes and crappies but found the walleye bite good enough to keep our interest all day. We had a solid bite dragging jigs in the morning and found cranks to do more damage later on. A good bunch of upper teens fish and quite a few shorts made up most of the catch. Lime green seemed to be the best jig color while natural patterns on the cranks dominated.

08/26/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:3.15 Flow:15,800cfs

Finally some decent rainfall has increased the flow to a respectable level. Clarity remains good even with the increase in level and flow.

Trips last week were all pretty consistent. Persistence is the key in confidence spots. Mixing it up with cranks and jigs has still been putting some decent fish in the boat. Not huge numbers by pool 4 standards but for this time of year pretty normal. I had a chance to chase crappies for a short spell on two different occasions and found some signs of life as well. Fish from 10 to 12.5 inches fell for red/chart. tubes fished on rip rap out of the main flow of the river.

Denny Jorgenson from Coon Rapids is shown with a good channel cat from last Monday. Next is Donavon McNaughton(Story City, Ia) and Bob Wilson(Van Horne, Ia). These two endured some very wet conditions and were rewarded with some pretty decent fish. Bob's walleye, which was 27.75"s, was caught on a jointed brown craw rap in about 14fow. This was Bob's personal best and was released after the photo. Thanks for the release Bob as this one will be someones next 10 pound plus fish this coming spring. Last is Matt Packard(Olin, Ia.) with a 20 incher from Saturday that also hit a crank.

I will be splitting time between crappies and walleyes in the near future as fall is just around the corner.

08/07/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:76 Level:2.3 Flow:6,200cfs

Conditions are much the same as the last report. We have lost a little more flow and gained a couple degrees water temp. One thing to note is the abundance of fry showing up in the system. Bait fish of all types are showing up from top to bottom in the water columm. This is also evident in the livewell at the end of the day. The fish we keep are spitting up shad and minnows that weren't found a couple weeks ago.

Trips all week have revealed a work hard for what you catch pattern. Revisiting a few confidence spots a number of times each day has outproduced running around looking for the gold mine so to speak. Jigs with bait or cranks have each had their moments. Just keep switching it up to see what tics that particular day.

Hot humid weather may be just the ticket for a little more consistency in the bite. It sounds like we have a stretch of that in the near future. Cannon Hays(Mason City, Ia) and Chad Dixon(Humble, Tx) show off some fish from Monday and Doug Schumacher from the Spokane, Washington area is shown in the second picture with some fish from Thursday.

07/29/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:2.4 Flow:8,600cfs

Water temps have faught their way back to about normal as July is about behind us. Levels and flows remain on the low side which is pretty common it seems.

I had visitors from the south on Sunday and Monday. Beau Enochson and Lee Quinlan were up from Marengo for this two day stretch. We concentrated our efforts in the river and found this to be a pretty good plan. Through the two days we drug and threw jigs and also pulled cranks. By the end of day day two we realized we should have left the crankbaits at home. We found a solid bite by dragging and throwing jigs with bait and found the cranks to be a waste of time.

Areas with rock/clams and current are very key for the stretch we are in. It didn't seem that color of jigs was a huge factor as we caught fish on every color in the box. The guys are shown in the pictures with a couple of mid 20 inch fish that were released and some eaters they took south.

07/22/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:69 Level:2.4 Flow:10,600cfs

Water temps on the river are on the rebound from a major summer cooldown. A few days in a row of very cool weather drove the temps on the river down almost 10 degrees. Flows are quite low but have also made a slight upswing in the last few days. Clarity remains very good.

I have spent quite a few half days on the water in the last week. Mixing time between trolling, dragging jigs with bait and casting jigs to small pieces of structure. It's no surprise that the jigs/bait have been taking more and nicer fish than the cranks for me as of late. With the fall in water temps, the crank bite that was great has been very mediocre at best.

Eric Olson is shown in the first couple of pictures below with a couple mid to upper 20's fish that were caught on jigs last Friday afternoon. Dragging fooled the first fish while a blue jig/leach cast to rocks took the second. A few other 15-18 inch fish made this a pretty good afternoon outing considering the wind and weather. Thanks to Eric and Jim Vance for coming up from Iowa to join me.

Sunday and Monday had me back on the water with some friends from Iowa and Arkansas. We had two boats and again split time between jigs and cranks. Jigs won out again for over all production. Rhonda Hampton is shown with an eater from Monday that was caught while trolling cranks. Christine Snook took top honors for the two days with a pair of mid to upper twenty inch fish on jigs with crawlers fished vertically in about 12 fow. Not a great numbers bite by any means but enough eaters and an occasional big fish to keep it pretty interesting.

We are entering the back end of summer which usually means we will have to work harder for what we catch but in the right spots with the right baits some great fish will be caught.

06/29/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:78 Level:3.14 Flow:15,300cfs

Water temps have now caught up and conditions on the river are great. We are maintaining good flow in the river due to recent rains. Clarity in the river is good and in the lake exceptional with some areas having visibility to 4 feet.

My dad and I spent the better part of Friday the 22nd on the water. We concentrated our efforts on the lake pulling cranks in a few areas in depths from 8 to 22 feet. Our numbers were ok but we never did find one recipe that would trigger bigger fish. We had a handful of legal fish by days end and gobs of shorts. Our best bait on this day was a #7 rap in black/white. Glass like conditions made it hard to play the wind so we spent most of our time in depths greater than 15 feet.

Thursday the 25th my son and I spent the day on the river above lake. We mixed our time dragging jigs/bait and pulling cranks. We fished six different areas and caught fish in every one. A few fish on jigs/crawlers and quite a few on cranks, #7 Flicker Shads and #5 raps were our best.

Friday I was joined by Ken Morris and Dwight Crossfield in the morning and Eric Biese and Carrie Puterbaugh in the afternoon. Both groups saw dozens of fish come to the boat. All crankbaits was the order for the day with 90% of our time spent in the river itself. We had good luck on a variety of baits but by the afternoon anything blue seemed to rise to the top. Speeds between 2 and 3 mph were the best.

Bridger is shown below with the best fish from Thursday (27.5"s). Ken and Dwight are shown next with a good sauger and walleye from Friday morning. All reports I have heard from the past week have been very good. A great time to get out and get a piece of the action.

06/14/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:67 Level:3.11 Flow:14,000cfs

Normal is the best term I can use to describe the conditions on the river. Water temps are the only part of the equation that are lagging behind. Temps were touching the 70 degree mark late last week but the cool weekend set them back just a bit. Over all things are in great shape.

I have spent a few days on the water in the last couple weeks. I have caught fish on many different presentations as is the norm for this time frame. Crawlers or leaches fished on jigs or three way rigs, and pulling cranks on lead line or fireline have been my methods.

Mike and Amy Kopaez (Rockford Ill.) spent the day with me on June 3rd. They purchased this trip at a St. Judes Childrens Hospitals banquet. Thanks again to both for their support of this great organization. A week later Matt and Jack Keating (Kearney NE) did a morning run. Sunday Kay Johnson and Josh Halvorson (Inver Grove Hts.) joined me.

The first picture is of Jack and Matt with some of our fish from their trip. The fish on this morning reacted quickly to cranks but to keep the action going a switch to jigs and bait was necessary. Bridger is shown in the second shot with a couple from last Saturday. Next was my first attempt at a self portrait. I found that my arms are not quite long enough to get this done right. The fish was 26.5"s and was caught pulling a number 7 rap on lead line. The last picture is Josh Halvorson with a nice Northern caught on a jointed rap.

All in all the bite is pretty good, just don't get hung up on one presentation as they can change their mood rather quickly

05/21/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:60 Level:4.22 Flow:25,000cfs

The river is in great shape and getting better as water temps are finally breaking the 60 degree mark. Flow remains good but will diminish quickly without rain in the near future.

Two days on the water in the last week to report on. Sunday was spent on Pool 2 with my son Bridger. We mixed our day between the main channel and one backwater area. Crankbaits in the main river fooled the most fish for us. Bombers thrown to wingdams or jointed #5 raps pulled upstream were our best baits. Many colors tried but firetiger won out on both baits. We did have one low 20's type fish on a pro blue paddletail thrown to a wingdam. One good looking backwater area produced a few nice crappies and a variety pack of other species including bass and northerns. Bridger is shown in the first picture with a couple of nice river crappies that were caught on blue 2.25 paddletails.

Tuesday I spent the day with Brian Paulson and Joe Hruza both Northfieldites. These two extended an invite that I was smart enough to not pass up. We spent our day in some backwater cuts on the Mississippi. That is about all I can devulge about our trip as I was blindfolded upon departure. I can say that we caught fish rigging bait and also pulling cranks very slowly. Most of the rigged fish were eater type fish in the mid to upper teens while the cranks took the better fish. Firetiger was the ticket as it is much of the time early in the crankbait season.

Brian is shown below with some of our (his) better fish. You may recognize Brian if you are a patron of the Cabela's store in Owatonna. He is and has been a product specialist there for a number of years. These three were 24,25 and 28 inchers in that order. The last picture is of Joe who tells me he used to be the gas man. It's pretty evident that somewhere in Joe's past he was a male model of some sort. Thanks to both for a VERY entertaining day.

05/13/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:59 Level:4.88 Flow:25,800cfs

Conditions on the river are normal for this time of year. Flows and levels are decreasing just a little each day and water temps are holding in the upper fifties.

Time on the water has been very limited as of late. Prior commitments and a couple short stints out of town have made my reports a little sparse. Recent tournaments have yielded absolutely huge weights on a variety of presentations. A great deal of the larger walleyes are being caught on live bait fished very slowly while the best big sauger pattern seems to be crankbaits fished between 1 and 2 mph. on leadcore.

I did manage a short outing last Friday. My crew for that day is shown in the second picture with a few of our fish. Most of this short outing was spent catching the white bass that were around the dam area seamingly biting everything that was thrown in front of them. We did manage a few "other" species as you can see in the picture.

In the last picture Les Roemig is shown with 30 pound flathead that we caught on Tuesday while pulling cranks in search of walleyes. Just a few legal fish on an over all slow day. Big winds chased us from the lake and into the river around noon where we didn't put anything consistant together.

The first picture is of a crew of kids we took to Arkansas on an annual get together with friends. They are shown with some dandy crappies caught from a reservoir around De Witt.

04/19/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:52 Level:7.02 Flow:35,300cfs

This past week we have seen the water temps shoot up almost ten degrees. Flow and levels are on the retreat but are easing down a little each day. The roller gates at the dam have been put back into the water(Sat.).

Starting on Monday of last week I have spent some or all of every day on the water. Fishing for numbers has been phenominal since the water temps reached the 40's. Double rapala rigs have been my bread and butter with a variety of colors getting a lot of attention. Hot steal and gold have been the best and all other colors tried caught at least a few fish. This pattern took up at least 80% of my time this past week while the other 20% was spent casting blades or plastics to various current seams on the upper end of pool 4.

The first couple pictures are of my own young anglers. Bridger with a low 20's fish taken on a gold rapala and Karly with a little sauger that had a big appetite. This fish tried to eat a #9 orange rap. We fished this pattern all day Monday and till noon on Tuesday releasing every single fish caught and there were many.

Next up is Michael Kelley from Albert Lea who was in for a half day outing with Brian Knudsen also from Albert Lea. Michael is shown with another decent walleye that was caught throwing a pro blue paddle tail and a sauger that fell for a rapala. These two shared the back half of Wednesday with me and got in on the great sauger bite that was going on.

In the fifth picture are Brian Armstrong, Jeff Harriman and Randy Soedt. This was their second trip with me and after fishing in less than ideal conditions last year, this year made up for it. By afternoon we were down to our shirtsleeves and the fish activity matched the temperature. I even got a start on my farmers tan.

Last but not least a visitor from the NW. Kirke Henry(Northwood, ND) is shown with our best fish from Friday. This fish came on a fircracker chart/tail ringworm and was hard earned. We abandoned the rapala bite in search of some better fish. Spending the majority of our day casting, we found one here and two there sort of a day. By days end we had a nice bunch of take home fish, a host of other species and the one fish pictured below. A hard earned bunch but a great day on the water non the less.

Thanks to Kirke and all others shown below. This was a great week to spend on the river as we finally turned the corner into spring. Fish are right in the middle of the spawn, as most female saugers are still with eggs and the walleyes are about half and half.

04/12/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:43 Level:8.62 Flow:46,500cfs

Water levels are still very high but receding a little each day. Water temps have broken the 40 degree mark and clarity is great for this time of year

Last week(Thursday), was spent with Randy Richert. Randy's picture graces the front page of the site with dandy he caught last year about this time. We spent our day looking for fish similar to this casting a variety of plastics, blades and hair/meat combos. By days end we hadn't found the big bite but did come up with about a dozen legal fish and at least that many shorts. By far our best fish was a 25 incher that was caught on a gold blade bait over some flooded riprap. Shortened paddle tails or ring worms got the most attention (note-40 degree water temps).

Friday was a new day and a new program. Tom and Mark Klanchnik were in and looking to catch a bunch. I had been given the heads up about a very good jig dragging bite that was giving up numbers of fish. Dustin Stewart, long time pool 4 guide and walleye guru, gave us the tip that we used to put together a great numbers day of our own. Dragging 1/8th to 5/16th oz jigs with ring worms of different colors and Dubuque rigging 1/2oz jigs and minnows is how we spent the front part of our day. Great numbers of 15 - 19 inchers and a gob of shorter fish kept us very busy until early afternoon.

Early in the afternoon, seeing the water temps now over 40, we switched things up to see if the rapala bite that I like so much had yet boken loose. Finally, after visiting this pattern a few times over the past couple weeks with no success, the raps kicked into gear. Slowly working the double rap rig upstream, sliding in and out of current seams as we went, the fish started to respond. Tom had the hot hand boating numerous fish that showed a strong preference for a #7 orange rap on the trailing end of the double set up (note-41 degree water).

My son Bridger and I spent a couple hours Friday afternoon and Saturday morning using only the double raps and were able to catch dozens of fish in the 13-19 inch range. Orange was still dominant but gold and firetiger raps got some attention as well. The biggest key to fishing this rig effectively is not going too fast. Pauses and turns in your upstream approach are critical to getting bit. This could change somewhat as the water warms but is always a great way to trigger strikes.

04/05/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:38 Level:9.99 Flow:57,900cfs

High cold water is still the dominant factor on the river. Water temps remain in the mid to upper 30's for the most part. On days that the sun comes out it has teased us with an occasional 40 degree reading in just the right areas late in the day.

I will speak about my last three trips as one because they have all been very similar. Dubuque rigs have accounted for 95% of my fish. The rig allows you to present two different baits at once in a VERY SLOW manner. I have been using the term force feeding a lot lately as the fish don't want anything presented too fast. Jig weights have varied from 3/8ths to 1 oz. depending on the area and current we are up against. When working areas with less current and shallower water, lessening the dropper weight has proven effective in luring more bites. This allows the dropper jig to hover or swim in place as we move upstream or sit almost still in certain areas.

Jumping from spot to spot has not been my deal as of late. Sitting on just a couple areas of the river and working small pieces on each area has kept us in enough fish to be entertaining. The areas we have been fishing are 8-14' with a change in depth, current edge or both. If you have a current seam, it is good. If you have a drop off, it is good. If you have a current seam that meets a drop off it is even better.

I have included some pics below that represent the type of fish we have been catching. Not eye-popping by pool 4 standards but decent for the conditions we have been up against. Ira Lucas and Leif Knecht(Northfield), Johnny Barnfield and Scott Ruiter(St. Cloud area),and Dave Lasche and Carl Lamar(Des Moines).

03/31/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level:10.32 Flow:63,100cfs

We have arrived at typical springtime conditions. Our water has risen 7' and the flow has almost tripled since my last update. Both are good things in my eyes but the fact that water temps have fallen back in to the mid 30's has made things a bit of a challenge lately.

From the middle of last week until today I have spent a great deal of time on the water. Dick Stark from Prairie du Chein was in the boat on Thursday to help sort things out. On a day that the water rose 2' and the roller gates on the dam were pulled we had our work cut our for us. After a couple main river spots failed and a little tip from a friend(thanks Darryl)we got into an area out of the main flow and were able to put some decent fish in the boat. Dragging jigs with firecracker colored shad bodies and Dubuque rigs did the job. Dick is shown below with a 20+ inch sauger that he released to be caught another day. Dick was a great guy to spend the day with and a very good stick to boot.

Saturday it was Dion Brandt from Wyoming, Mn. who joined me. An avid lake fisherman Dion was out to learn a little about the river. We used the same Dubuque rigs to get our day underway and put a few fish in the boat. Orange heads with chart 3" tails and the trailer with a minnow got equal attention. Our plan for the back half of the day was to cast jigs in search of a better fish. After a few decent fish and a few misses, the stars aligned for yours truly and I was able to boat my biggest walleye to date. The fish hit a 3/16 orange head with a firecracker/chart tail ringworm in about 6' of water. I am shown below with this fish that taped out at 30.5 inches and weighed in at 13.8 lbs.. Thanks to Dion for a nice job with the net and needless to say a pretty enjoyable day on the water.

Sunday we were greeted with 22 degree temps and a north wind that cut like a knife. Andy,James and Geoff Kohler were in for this mid winter like morning. We found the fish acting like the weather for the first couple of hours. With only a couple fish in the well and the weather showing signs of improvement we took a little ride to the spot that produced the previous afternoon. After an hour of casting and no action Andy got us off and running with a fish on a Dubuque rig and had the whole crew making the switch after number 2. Sitting on these fish with these rigs for the rest of the day was what it took to put a pretty nice bunch in the boat by days end. Nothing giant today but a few that pushed the 20" mark. The Kohler's are shown as listed above in the picture below.

Friday was started again mixing casting and rigging. Rigging won out in the morning and casting got the nod in the pm. Plastics drew a big zero on the casting bite but a black 1/4 oz blade thrown to an upriver current seemed coaxed a few takers. Jason Papenfuss had the hot hand and is now a believer in blades. Jason also lost a fish boatside that would I'm sure have made the picture page. Thanks to Jason and Karl for joining me.

Having confidence in your spots and sitting on them has been a very key element in having some success in the last few days. Bait has also been an important ingrediant in coaxing some fish in some less than ideal conditions.

03/20/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:40 Level:3.75 Flow:24,800cfs

Conditions are finally starting to change. Flow has almost doubled in the past week and water temps are pushing the 40 degree mark. Forecasts indicate that pool 4 waters will rise almost 4 feet in the next week. This is what the current model says but that can change daily.

Just a quick update on the fishing as I have been out twice since my last report. Most of my day Tuesday was again spent checking spots that typically hold pre spawn walleyes. Very limited success for my boat with only a couple takers in these areas and only of the 20" variety. Three other swings and misses always make you wonder just how big that fish you missed really was. Jigs with minnows cast to shallow flats did get the most attention.

Wednesday I was joined once again by the Vickers. They have made numerous trips with me and always seem to bring a little good luck along with them. We started our day pulling three-ways with a combination of raps and ringworms. I hadn't been sauger chasing much lately so didn't have anything pinned down going in but the fish told us quickly what they wanted the most. One rod rigged with a three way rig and a chartreuse pepper ring worm got a few looks right away so the switch was made and we were off and running. We didn't have a gang buster day by any means but by staying with this pattern put together a nice bunch of quality saugers by the end of it all. Chartreuse pepper and firecracker/chart. tail ring worms were the only thing we could get bit on and we tried many other combos. Randy, Danny and Larry are pictured below with some of our catch.

I would have to rate the bite the last week as very spotty. There have been some dandies caught already but the best should be coming soon. That's the great part of pool 4, even with a so-so bite you can still put some great fish in the boat.

03/16/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level:2.5 Flow:13,500cfs

The end of a long cold spell and some other duties kept me off the water for quite a spell. I will be more diligent with reports now that we're out of the deep freeze and spring fishing is upon us.

Conditions on the river are just starting to change. Water levels are still low but have begun to inch up and the gin clear water we had in the winter is starting to stain. There is still very good clarity though as of this past weekend.

Friday was my first day on the water in way too long. Tom Klanchnik and I set out to get the rust off and just catch some fish. We started very late in the morning with a mixture of upstream drags and downstream vertical passes. We finally settled on dragging 5/16 oz. blue jigs with firecracker/chart. tail ring worms upstream in 15-18 fow. Our action wasn't fast but yielded quite a few very nice saugers. As you can see in the first pic below these fish are pretty girthy and show that the spawn is in the near future. We had quite a few fish just shy of the ones in the pictures and did find a decent verical bite toward the end of the day in about 25 fow. These fish also liked the same color combo but paddle tails were the ticket.

Saturday it was my sons turn to clear the cobwebs. We only had a few hours and found the weather phenominal but the fish were downright stubborn. Revisiting the same area that was good to me the day before yielded nothing. We burned quite a bit of time in this area with no good results. One nice sauger lost at the boat was all we had to show for our efforts. After exploring a few other areas and techniques and only a couple fish we called it a day.

Sunday I had vistiors from the north. Brain and Jeff Luethmers and Troy Rahn were in for the noon to dark run. Walleyes only was our goal for this afternoon. We explored prespawn walleye haunts that will typically hold better than average fish. We did not burn them by any means but did find a few willing takers. Jeff is shown in the second picture with an upper teens fish but Brian stole the show with a big bellied female(third pic)that went 8.8 lbs. He also had the two biggest carp of the day but wouldn't hold still long enough for a picture.

The last picture is a shot of Brian K. at Evert's Resort on Saturday. Brian is the local catfish guru and was helping shuttle folks from vehicles to boats and back. This shot really proves what too many hours of catfishing can do to a guy. I don't know the whole story on this one as I didn't have the heart to ask.

01/14/09--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:35 Level:2.5 Flow:8000cfs

Quite a spell between reports due to some pretty cold temps. I haven't actually been on the river since my last report but have been taking care of my addiction by getting out on the ice a few times. It looks as if we will have a warm up beginning next week that I am planning on taking full advantage of. Crystal clear waters will allow for some underwater exploration with the camera. I have a few areas in mind that I haven't actually viewed on camera before.

2008 summary-Last year was a pretty phenominal year on pool 4. Cool temps until late February kept us inactive but from late February through March fishing was unreal. Low clear water dominated this span and catches of 25 to 35 fish a day were the norm. Many days none of these fish were under 15 inches with gobs of fat bellied saugers making up most of the catch.

It seemed that the saugers made a mad dash for the lake when the high water hit. April was dominated by large walleyes on most every trip. Many clients had personal bests as numbers were lower but quality was great. May also saw more big fish come to the boat as we fished our way toward the lake. Three ways with either sticks or bait and casting jigs were the ticket as the fish transitioned to their summer haunts.

June and July started what was the longest sustained crankbait bite I have ever seen. Pulling cranks in the lake and working my way back into the river as the summer went on put good numbers in the boat consistantly. August and September were typical as some days were pretty good and others were down right tough. Fine tuning crankbait colors turned out to be the key for good catches in this stretch.

By mid October the bite was back on. A very fun time to fish for me as we had good catches of walleyes, saugers and crappies on a variety of presentations. Areas from the head of the lake all the way to the dam produced good numbers. A brief warm up at the end of the month slowed things for a few days but when we rolled into November the bite was on fire. November held true to form as my favorite month to be on the water. Rediculous numbers of nice fish were the norm on most days. Splitting time between pulling raps and pitching jigs were the ticket. Just a couple outings in December produced good numbers but colder than normal temps kept time on the water to a minimum.

A big thanks to all that shared time with me this past year as I entertained more people on the water than ever before. Over 100 days spent on the water in 2008 proved to be very enjoyable and mostly very educational. From fine tuning crankbait presentations to tweaking three-way rigs with bait and or plastics. Building confidence in old locations and learning some new areas. I am working on some changes to the website that will hopefully make it more educational and more interesting. Hopefully a new fishing report in the next ten days, weather permitting.

The only change in conditions to report is the water clarity. It has increased from 18 inches to @4 feet.

Got out for a half day on Friday(19th) of this past week. After seeing that the water had cleared dramatically, our plan was to use two different presentations. First to find active fish vertically jigging plastics and then mix in some jig dragging runs in the same areas. The plan worked pretty well although we did fish a couple areas before finding some biters.

We mixed in a variety of plastics vertically before settling on 5/16th heads and some sort of blue plastic. Blue/white long jons minnows were the best vertical bait for us hands down. After finding a fairly deep stretch of water with some good fish we began to work this area slowly upstream with the same 5/16th oz heads and a variety of different colored ringworms. A fish or two a pass at first increasing to a darn good bite just before we left. Purple/chartreuse tail was the best ringworm color with firecracker chart tail coming in second. Working these jigs far behind the boat at .4 to .6 mph with no jigging action imparted on the baits was critical to getting bit.

We did not fish the evening bite but with the clarity of the water my guess is this will become a predicatably good bite from here on out. The weather does not look favorable for any outings in the near future but I will try to do one more report this month. If I do not get on the water it will likely be a year end wrap up type of thing.

12/11/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level:2.5 Flow:6400cfs

Air temp, water temp and flow are all down to winter levels while water clarity remains about 18". The clarity remains a little less than I have seen in the past for this time of year but will clear more as winter progresses. I am by no means saying the water is dirty, just an observation to give an accurate picture of the river at this point.

Yesterday was my first trip to the river since Thanksgiving morning. Tim (Hutch) Hutchison had thrown out an invite to jump in his boat and I was quick to take him up it. We were also joined by Jimmy Preissner from Hastings. Jimmy has been guide and successful tournament angler for many years.

On this VERY cool morning, as I made my way towards Red Wing, the truck thermometer was reading -2 deg.. I kind of eased out of the foot feed just a little trying to delay my arrival and give temps a chance to at least climb above 0. Well it's never as cold as it seems if you dress for it and have a good bite, which we did and had. Actual fishing didn't start until about 9:45 and was a little slow out of the gate. After finding little in the first couple spots we went to an area that Hutch had been successful in his last few trips. This spot produced steady action for us for the next 3 hours or so. Good numbers of 15-19" fish and also many shorts mixed in kept us busy enough to forget about the cold.

Many different plastics caught fish but baits with translucency seemed the best. Superdoos, ringworms, long jons and shad bodied baits held motionless within a foot of the bottom or held high and lowered very slowly did the trick. This technique with these style baits should put fish in the boat all winter. Dragging jigs should also be a very effective way to get bit from now through the cold water period.

Thanks again to Hutch for the invite. Not very often I get to fish as a guest and oh did I mention, we never saw another boat all day. Imagine that!

11/28/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:39 Level:2.5 Flow:8200cfs

Water temps have decreased quickly in the last few days with the colder than average temps. Clarity is relatively unchanged and remains about 18 inches. The biggest change ocurred in the rate of flow. I have added the rate of flow to my heading because it is something I pay a close attention to and effects what, where and how I fish more than the level of the pool itself. The flow is the actual amount of water moving through the dam and is measured in cfs (cubic feet per second). Just another part of the equation that can help put the puzzle together on a daily basis. I will refer to how this changed our presentation from one day to the next later in the report.

11/19-On this Wednesday I was joined by Gary O'Donnell from Whitewater, WI. Gary wanted to experience Pool 4 saugers and possibly take home one over 20"s for his son who is a taxidermist. Our day was short but very successful. We fished double rap rigs for about three hours and experienced great results. We caught and released dozens of fish in this three hour stretch and managed to send home 1 that tipped the scales at just over 4 pounds. Many colors produced but gold, orange and hot steel were our best.

Later the same day I returned to the water for a short solo run. I spent my short afternoon casting shallow rocks with 1/4oz blue jigs and either ringworm or paddletails. Either bait worked equally as well as long as they were in the firecracker/Chart. tail color. Gobs of 15 to 20 inch walleyes with just an occassional sauger in the bunch made for a great afternoon despite the 25 mph winds.

11/25-11/27-Larry Fiser was up for a little pre Thanksgiving fun. Our first day was nothing short of spectacular as we pulled double raps and caught fish almost at will. Almost every fish in the am came on the front rap and afternoon the exact opposite was the case. One thing to note was the fact that we had very good flow in the area we were fishing(10,600). This is critical for this presentation to be at it's best. This allows you to slide from side to side on a single piece of structure while the current itself imparts action to the baits.

On day two, upon arrival, we noticed one distinct difference immediately. Our flow had decreased noticeably in the area we were catching fish the day before. After a couple quick empty runs we changed our presentation. Going vertical with plastic was the method of choice for the middle of day two. Great numbers of fish on long jon minnows, super doos and ring worms filled our day until late afternoon. We ended the day with another good flurry by dragging ring worms upstream, very slowly, in 8-10fow.

After getting back home to a computer I discovered that on day two the flow had decreased to 8200 cfs and confirmed what we had suspected. The fish on day two didn't quit biting but as the current changed so did the location of the fish. The longer you're on the river, the more you learn to go with the flow so to speak. Have an idea what you want to do but be ready to adjust if the need arises. As the flows will likely stay on the low side from here on out I will lean towards casting, vertical presentations and dragging plastics to take fish.

Below, Larry is shown with a couple >20" saugers and a 22 pound flathead catfish that gave us a little thrill on day two.

11/15/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:45 Level:3.1 Flow:15,100cfs

Well it's mid November and the fish are acting like they're supposed to this time of year. Water temps have finally dipped into the mid 40s and flows remain low but stable. Water clarity is 12-18 inches depending on the stretch of river you are in.

I have caught some fish on about every application I have thrown at them in the last couple weeks. Some of this was out of necessity and some was just playing around with different presentations to see which was the most effective. I will give a day to day account of my travels so you can see how the bite has progessed.

11/4-I spent about 3 hours fishing alone through the heart of the day. I pulled ringworms on a three way rig with great success. Three saugers over 20 inches and quit a few upper teens fish in this afternoon run. Chartreuse/pepper was the color pulled slowly upstream with a 1.5 oz weight keeping the rig pinned to the bottom. Dean Marshall joined me for the evening run. We spent the last couple hours of the day throwing plastics and blades to an area that gives up some nice fish this time of year. Three or four mid teens fish and a host of other species were all we found on this night. Water temps were still in the mid 50s.

11/5-Roger Pikal(Montgomery) and Rick Pavek(Northfield) were in for this Wednesday run. We again were facing water temps that had dipped into the upper 40s but had now risen to the mid 50's. We started our day dragging ringworms (3 fish), switched to vertical jigging (2 fish) and finally fishing bladebaits (many fish). It took us a while but we finally got on a group of fish that loved dark colored blades fished vertically with not a lot of motion. Roger and Rick are shown in the first picture with a few of the fish they took home. Roger is in the second frame with a 23" walleye that was released. Thanks to both for joining me on this day when the fishing turned out pretty good but wasn't a "gimme" by any stretch.

11/12-This was another day that I started solo and had Dean Marshall jump in toward late afternoon. Kind of a day when they would bite on anything. Just a quick list of what all I caught fish on: pulling double rapalas, pulling ringworms, snap jigging superdoos and longjon minnows(these bites were violent), throwing blades and ringworms to deep current seams and finally dragging ring worms and light jigs toward evening. Just tons of good quality fish on a day when you could pick your poison. Thanks to Dean as it's always relaxing having him in the boat.

11/13 and 11/14-Jeff Werneke(Grayslake, IL.) and his dad Ed(St. Charles, IL.) were in for these two days. Jeff and Ed had both been visitors before and it was great that they returned to fish again. We spent the better part of these two days using double rapala rigs to terrorize the saugers on pool 4. We caught and released dozens of saugers/walleyes and selectively kept a nice two man limit on day one for them to take home. Hot steal, Gold and Firetiger were the colors that dominated on both days with both front and back baits catching equally as many fish. We did visit the vertical bite just for a short time at the end of each day. Long enough to determine it was also going good if that was you preference. Below is Jeff and Ed(3rd pic) with a few BIG saugers that were turned loose after this very soggy picture. Both are shown in the last frame with their take home for day one. A very cool wet day made tollerable by a lot of aggressive fish. Oh by the way, a good crappie bite still exists if you are willing to put in the time.

The bite on this stretch of the river should be great for a few weeks to come. Even though cold temps are in the forecast it's a fantastic time to experience the river, in my opinion, at it's finest.

11/03/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:51 Level:2.8

Not a ton of time out since my last report but a quick update. We have seen another flurry of activity in the last week. Fish went from a somewhat neutral mood to very aggressive on the two days I was out last week.

Thursday I got out for about three hours and this was enough time to realize that the bite had changed somewhat. Fish that were a little hard to coax on the previous trip were much more cooperative. I spent my day casting a mixture of ringworms and bucktails to water less than 15'. I fished about six different spots and caught some fish on all but one. Most fish were in the 16 to 20 inch range but had one rogue walleye in the mix. This fish was an out of proportion thing that measured 27"s and weighed in at 9.6 lbs. Yes you read that right and yes my scale is very accurate. This fish could have passed for an April fish ready to spawn by the looks of it. The fish hit a black 1/8th oz bucktail in about 8 fow.

Friday I had a half a day outing with Gary Hawkins from Chillicothe, Mo. We had fantastic weather and the fishing wasn't too shabby either. We spent the first couple hours working on the sauger bite which was very good once we found the right combo. Pulling ringworms upstream very slowly on three-way rigs was our tactic. Natural colors were the ticket on this day. Next we were off to chase some of those big river crappies I have been having so much fun with as of late. For the short time we had, they proved to be harder to catch than the saugers. We did coax a few nice fish to the boat but missed many more hits. Hits were seemingly very aggressive but many swings and misses on the hooksets.

All in all a very action packed two days with only a few hours fished on both. Reports from others on the water this weekend revealed a generally good bite with fish being caught many different ways. Blade baits have probably come up as success stories more consistantly than anything else. I too had a fish or two on blades on Thursday that I forgot to mention earlier. I would suspect that this is just the start of what usually proves to be one of the best times of the year.

Below is Gary with a couple bigger saugers that we released and a pair of decent crappies. The last pic is the "freak of nature" that I caught on Thursday.

10/27/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:51 Level:2.51

What little increase in flow that we gained a week ago has disappeared. We have low stable water, good clarity and slowly declining water temps.

Again quite a bit of time on the water lately. I really had to migrate toward simpler presentations as of late to put fish in the boat. As the water temp hit a plateau and remained in the mid 50's jigs and three way rigs were my fish getters. It seems there is a time frame every fall that this takes place. Sitting in an anchored boat fishing a simple three way/minnow rig or fishing bucktail jigs vertically with a minnow become go to presentations as fish get a little off. There are other variations of these techniques but all are very similar.

Starting early last week we were able to put decent numbers of fish in the boat but by the weekend my catch rate went down dramatically. Two to three man limits were the standard for full and even half day trips during the week but fell to the single digits for legal fish on the weekend. Some of this was due to the mood of the fish and some was due to the 50mph winds and the very enjoyable snow showers on Sunday.

Pictured below is Jim Klausing with a dandy sauger from last Tuesday. In the second picture is Bob Kuhnle with a 27.5 inch walleye that fell for a bladebait thrown to the rip rap. In the last frame is Bob, Dale Sperry and Roy Schumacher with some of our Wednesdays catch.

Not making the picture page, again due to a lazy cameraman were John Niederhauser, Rev. Aage Larsen and his dad Gunvald. They were my guests on Friday and had a nice catch with fish up to 20"s. Saturday's pair were Craig Bartyzal and Joe Sharkey. Jack Palek and his son Joe were in for the Sunday trip to enjoy some of the finest October weather I have been a part of.

This blast of cold should help drop our water temps some more which in turn will trigger a more aggressive bite. More fish moving up into the river from the lake will follow-and so on and so on.

10/19/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:58 Level:2.9

The fall progression is taking shape. Water temps are declining slowly and recent rains have given us a small increase in level and flow of the river. Conditions are very good.

I have spent many days on the water since my last report so I am going to try and sum up the bite in general. We have had a definite fall movement of fish upriver. We have seen the bite START to turn the corner. I say start, to clarify that it is far from gangbusters yet but has shown signs of heading that way in the near future. Periods over the last 10 days have been slow to the point of dead, but we have also seen times of hand over fist action. Most of the fish that have been turning up are saugers with just a few walleyes. That is typical of the areas I am fishing and of the first movements in the fall.

Monday through Thursday of last week was spent with a group of guys from Prairie Du Chien, Ws.. This trip was originated by Tim "Hutch" Hutchison who was kind enough to call me in on this one. We had two boat fulls for these days and targeted walleyes and sauger with a variety of rigs. Pulling cranks on lead core and flat lines both gave up a fair number of fish. Rapalas behind a three way did the most damage by the end of it all. Hutch and his crew had a great crappie bite going on a couple different occasions, most of which were caught throwing small bucktail jigs.

Pictured below are Roger Dyer, Dick Mergan, Roy George and Phil Toberman. These fish are all saugers in the 20 - 21 inch range. The other two that made up this crew were Dick Stark and Bob Standorf. They also had their moments with the hot hand but got missed with the camera. Thanks to Hutch and this whole crew for coming north for a visit. Hopefully it won't be the last.

Saturday was spent with my son Bridger, fishing in the Mark Rehberg Memorial "Saugerama". This tournament was held in remembrance of Mark Rehberg who was killed in a deer hunting accident during the 2006 gun deer season. Days like this help keep things in perspective so to speak. This was Bridger's first tourney experience and was my first for a long time. A very laid back, enjoy the day type of tourney that brang around 60 teams together.

Our day started about two hours late due to some heavy fog on the river. We finally got things under way around 9:30 and almost immediately Bridger put us on the board with a 19'er that would be the start of a nice bag of fish. We pulled raps the entire day and ended up with an 8 fish 15.4 lb finish that landed us in 3rd place when all was said and done. Congrats to Eric Rehberg and Dean Marshall for a nice 2nd place finish. Also thanks to both for organizing this event.

10/05/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:63 Level:2.42

Water temps have cooled and levels remain in good shape. Pretty normal conditions for this time of year other than a little warmer than normal.

In the last two weeks I have covered water from upper pool 3 to midway through Lake Pepin. Mixing it up between walleyes and crappies with multiple presentations has given me a nice variety on recent trips.

9/25-Trolling jointed raps in the main river channel and pitching rip rap shorelines provided some walleyes and crappies. Roger and Mahlon Pikal from Montgomery joined me for the fun. Fish cooperating just enough along with the weather made this a great day. Mahlon and Roger are shown below with a few of our catch. Note Mahlon with one of those "Other" fish in the last frame.

9/26-Mike Peterson,Rocky Trail and Steve Klingman joined me on Friday for a quick half day on the river. More of the same as we stuck to the trolling game and were able to coax a few fish in a couple different spots. Jointed baits with browns and oranges dominated.

9/29 and 9/30-My dad and I chased em on these two days and had periods of pretty good action and stretches of pretty slow action. Crappies on main river shorelines and trolling for eyes gave us pretty steady action but chasing big fish via casting was futile. We did come up with some dandy river crappies that fell for a combination of hair jigs and tubes in various colors.

10/4 and 10/5-I visited Pool 3 on these two days with a lot of miles covered and very fickle fish. Friday I found some very aggressive fish on wing dams willing to chase a crankbait worked very slowly over the tops. Hits were so violent that on most hookups I was betting on rough fish but on every occasion found a decent walleye. Working the same dams on Saturday with many different presentations including the crankbait pattern turned up nothing. Welcome to walleye fishing in early fall.

More consistent patterns will surely develop over the next month as water temps cool and upstream movements of fish will rejuvinate the bite.

9/22/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:70 Level:2.53

We are kind of in a holding pattern of sort. With warmer than normal conditions our water temps have actually warmed just a bit. They had started to decrease a little a couple weeks ago but have since warmed back up a touch.

I have covered a lot of water so to speak in the last couple weeks. Devils Lake, North Dakota the first part of last week to the southern end of Lake Pepin this weekend.

I was joined for the ND trip by Bernard Harvey from Abington, Va.. Bernard has been part of our Iowa deer hunting group for years and had hunted or been in every state in the union except one. We couldn't think of a better way to see North Dakota than from a seat in my boat. We were also joined by our host Kirke Henry who has graced the pages of my report a number of times. We spent the better part of two days chasing walleyes on this vast body of water. At nearly 100,000 acres it offers endless options. We jigged, bottom bounced and cranked our way to many fish. Every presentation had its moments but all were successful. This is truly a great place to hone your skills on a variety of techniques and we just scratched the surface.

Thursday was spent back on Pool 4. We needed to get Mr. Harvey one day on the Mississippi River as this was more virgin territory for him. We started our day pulling cranks in the river and were greeted with a pretty good bite. Some legal sized fish and quite a few shorties came with regularity in the 12 to 14 fow we were targeting. Jointed SR 5's with some brown and white color schemes were the ticket. We took a break from the trolling to cast some shoreline rock which can give up some big eyes this time of year but drew a big fat 0. All in all a very good day for this time of year when the bite can be very fickle.

The first three frames show Bernard with some of our catches. A good Northern and some eaters from Devils and a couple from the river.

This weekend was spent chasing crappies and walleyes. Crappies were our main target but have been a little scarce so far this fall. We started Saturday morning on the lake and after a few hours and zero fish we swithched gears back to walleyes. The short afternoon yielded a half dozen decent fish again caught trolling cranks. These fish are holding in a late summer pattern that remains pretty consistant.

Crappies again were our main focus on Sunday but in a different location. We went up into the river and targeted rock with deep water close by and found this to be a good move. We didn't catch huge numbers in any one spot but found a few fish in quite a few locations. Most fish were from 10 to 13 inches and were caught on small tubes or bucktail jigs. It seemed that black or dark colored patterns were the key.

Bridger and Scott are shown in the last frame with some of our crappies and Bridger with an eye that fell for a black bucktail jig.

9/10/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:70 Level:2.36

Conditions are slowly starting to migrate toward fall. Levels remain stable and low but water temps have started their descent. Shorter days and cooler overnight temps have led to a few degree loss in temps over the last ten days.

Last Thursday I spent a full day on the water with Jerry Ronsenblad and a few of his crew. We spent our day searching for a trolling bite above the lake. What we found was a bite that was very color and speed specific.

We had limited success early in the day with the brightly colored baits that have been working the majority of the time. After working through many combos we settled in on baits with brown and white color patterns fished at 2.5 mph to be the key. On this day the fish wanted the baits going upstream as many attempts at pesenting this going with the current yielded little.

Jim Danskin and his sons Matt and David were in for an afternoon run on Sunday and a morning trip on Monday. We again were targeting fish with cranks. Our success was not as good as Thursday but did find a few willing to cooperate. Similar color schemes worked but as the sun came out on Monday, orange craw jointed #5's got the most attention.

We did visit some crappie haunts that produce fish in the fall but found nobody home as of yet. I have heard a report or two that would indicate this bite is just starting.

Below in the first pic is Jerry Rosenblad and Jack Miles with some of our fish from Thursday. The second shot is a little side by side comparison of bait and baitfish. These shad were found in the livewell after Mondays trip with the Danskin's. The baits pictured are a #5 Jointed Shad Rap and a #8 Shad Rap.

Crankbait size can be more critical than color as we get later in the season. I lean more toward larger baits now more than any other time of year and you can see why. The shad that the fish are feeding on are reaching that 4-5" range and are very abundant. Fish can be hard to catch at this time of the season because of the abundance of food in the system. If you know there are fish in an area, don't be too quick to leave them. Rather than running all over looking for that magic spot, make repeated passes over an area or return to it frequently in a days time.

8/31/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:2.51

Last week saw flows dip below 5000cfs for the first time all summer. Recent rains have bumped the flow back up just a touch.

A couple trips as of late have shown that the very steady bite we had been experiencing has tapered off. We are still able to boat some quality fish in a days time but fewer numbers for the hours spent is the result. Friday I spent most of the day pulling crankbaits in some likely areas and was able to coax a few fish. Jointed #5 raps pulled downstream did the most damage.

Saturday, John Ross and his son Brant were in for the day. We spent most of our day dragging light jigs downstream in some of the same areas I had fished with cranks the day before. Again not a fast bite but an orange jig fished with bait gave us enough action to keep us entertained. The cranks on this day produced almost nothing.

Looking for higher current areas is very important in this late summer/low flow season.

8/08/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:80 Level:2.0

Low and Stable still sums up the conditions on the river. Very little change in the last couple weeks which is typical for this time of year.

Very little time on the water as of late but one very good trip late last week to report on. Just the kids and I spent a day on the river just above the lake. Dragging jigs and pulling cranks both put quality fish in the boat. We started our day dragging but breezy conditions made us switch to cranks. Blue and orange on the jigs and firetiger on the cranks. I sound like a broken record but cranks in firetiger have been a no brainer this summer.

All fish came above the lake with a mix of walleyes and sauger. Bridger is shown below with a pair that hit back to back. Both were low 20 inch fish that were released after a very quick picture. Pretty important to get these fish back in quickly on the hot summer days. A nice bunch of legal fish with a ton of just shorts in the mix as well.

Karly had her personal best walleye today but was more proud of the drum that went about ten pounds and had her begging for mercy by the end of the fight. The lake bite sounds like it is also still good with speed being important when pulling cranks. Faster is better from what I hear with speeds pushing 4mph making fish snap. Speeds for my success in the river were still around 2mph for the most part.

7/23/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:79 Level:2.67

The conditions on the river are great. Low stable water levels with decent flow. Very warm water temps and just a small bug hatch so far.

I have spent a good amount of time on the water in the last ten days. Consistantly good is the best way to describe the bite the last ten days. I have stuck with pulling cranks to put my fish in the boat. Flourescent colored regular or jointed raps have been my baits. Small variations in color have made a big difference on some days. Speeds around 2 mph have still been the best. I have not had to fish deeper than 13' to keep the action steady.

My dad joined me on Thursday of last week. We fished the upper stretches of Pool 4 with the cranks I had mentioned earlier with good success even though a thunderstorm forced us off the river for about three hours. Jointed Firetiger was the ticket on this day for most of our better fish. Sliding a little deeper(12-14')proved to be a good move after the storms went through.

Bob Smith, his dad Don and Lamoure Thraikill were in on Monday. Two Wisconsonians and a North Dakotan were a good trio to boat a bunch of fish. A friendly little competition was finally settled when Lamoure boated a 23 incher right after lunch. This was our biggest fish of the day but gobs of 14 to 18 inchers were in the mix most of the day. Flourescent cranks with a dark back outdid the firetiger baits that had been standing out as top producers.

Finally on Tuesday I had the father/son team of Thomas and Luke Hanson. We worked the same program as the previous days and believe it or not I think the bite got a little better. We pulled cranks in some areas I have not worked for a while and found fish cooperative pretty much everywhere.

We jumped around a bit on this day between trolling for walleyes and casting small cranks for white bass. Luke got a little taste of this in the morning and loved the non stop action. By days end we had caught and released dozens of walleyes and the multispecies count was at about 10. Luke is shown below with a couple of fish we kept and a smallmouth bass that hit a hair jig toward the end of the day.

I have been a little lazy with the camera as of late but the fishing in general could not be much better on the river. There is something for everyone right now as you can pick your poison so to speak. Between the upper end of Pool 4, Lake Pepin or the wing dams in Pool 3 you can fish about any style you want to and have success.

7/12/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:3.12

Stability has arrived as the water levels have leveled off at summertime norms. Water temp is in the mid 70's for the most part and other than a few storms that have blown through the weather has led to consistent patterns.

Many visitors in the last ten days. Michael Garvis and Max Lyons joined me on July 2nd, my son and his cousin Dylan Peed were with me on the 7th and 9th and Bob Klocek, Adam Gifford and Paul Berggren spent a full day on Friday. All days were spent in the upper end of pool 4 in the river. The vast majority of the time pulling crankbaits has been our presentation. We have been dragging jigs with success also.

Bleeding hot olive #5 raps were the bomb on the 2nd but as we went through the rest of the week anything firetiger has been what it takes. Staying around 2.0 mph has been critical for my boat to trigger fish. I have tried often to vary speeds up or down but always end up back around 2 to get bit. Natural colors have not got a look in my boat as of yet.

Switching colors has been important but returning to areas that you know have fish is also very key. An area that produces nothing at 8:00 am may give up a load of fish at 11:00. Midday has been a far better bite for me than early and late.

Below is a sample of what we have caught in the last few trips.

6/30/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:5.34

Water levels are tumbling in the river and the lake. Clarity in the river is good but on the lake it is very area specific. Some areas are very clear while others are somewhat cloudy.

The front part of the week found me spending most of my time again on the lake. We are catching fish in the 10-16 fow range pulling cranks on lead and flat lining as well. Baits that have been producing include Rapala Shad Raps(JSR #5 and SR #5). Firetiger and orange craw have been the choice on these two with natural patterns getting snubbed. One other bait that is becoming a main stay in my boat is Berkley Flicker Shads in the #5 size. This bait is a cross between the two previously mentioned baits. A small shad style bait that has rattles. Definitely worth trying if you haven't already.

My son and his buddy Taylor Lambrecht filled the other seats in the boat on Tues. and Wed. of last week. We caught quite a few fish both days but Wed. turned out to be the peach of the two. We started out trolling for walleyes with very good results. Each of the kids were able to land 25"ers along with a bunch of teens fish. After this bite slowed we visited a shoreline that was full of white bass and crappies.

After 10 hours on the water you would think these two would have had enough but as I cleaned fish at the resort these die hards stood at the dock and beat the water to a froth until I took the rods out of their hands. Mission accomplished.

Friday, Bridger and I were fortunate enough to be able to help out at the Anglers as Role Models(ARM) event held at Evert's Resort. The ARM organization works with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters org. to help get children of all ages and their guardian's introduced to fishing. We were joined by Tom Lewis and his youngster Peter Bakert. Peter just happened to be the same age as Bridger so they hit it off good from the start. We spent about 4 hours in the boat and Peter managed to land many fish and some nice ones at that.

The pictures below speak for themselves but I would to put out a big thanks to Dean Marshall and all involved, and there were many, at the Resort. Many hours of donated time to get these kids on the water and many kids with smiles because of that.

Saturday was spent on the upper end of Pool 4 in the river. We pulled cranks in the afternoon after the storms blew out and had a very good bite for numbers. Many fish in the 15 to 20" range came fishing the insides of bars with #5 raps. Firetiger and crawdad colors were the best pulled at about 2 mph. Stability should return to the levels of the river and the lake in the next week. This should make spots consistent from one day to another.

6/20/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:69 Level:8.9

The level in the river and the lake is high but has crested and on its way down. Clarity has suffered a little in some areas but remains very fishable.

Parts of three days on the water this week have yielded similar results. There is still a good trolling bite going on but for my boat searching out clearer water in the lake was critical. Up until Saturday the lake had remained relatively clear but strong winds from the W/NW over the weekend pushed the cloudy water on through the lake.

When in the not so clear water we fished shallower(4-10 fow) while trolling and found fish willing to bite. The problem with these areas was the inability to keep baits clean. Along with the dirtier water came alot of debris that fouled baits and kept us out of the water more than we were in it.

We jumped around and found cleaner water areas and again had a decent bite out in the 12-16' areas. Chasing cleaner water was pretty important in allowing us to fish multiple lines efficiently.

As you can see from the pics below the family took me to the lake over the fathers day weekend. I couldn't think of a better way to spend it. Karly was pretty fired up about that big crappie that could almost swallow her hand.

Tuesday I spent a very enjoyable day with the Cummins family from Lawrenceville, IL. Willard and his son Bruce and his son Ethan were in for a camping fishing week on Lake Pepin. We again were able to put together a pretty good bunch of fish on this day fishing mid-way down the lake. Three generations in the boat always makes for a great day. Thanks guys.

6/13/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:68 Level:7.5

The river is on the rise but conditions remain good. Some cloudiness is occurring on the upper end but still very fishable. The lake clarity as of Thursday was still very good.

I have been concentrating most of my efforts in Lake Pepin from Hok-Si-La to Maiden Rock. The numbers bite is very good in the areas I have been fishing. Trolling cranks on a mixed spread of leadcore and flat lines has been my program of late. I have been targeting depths of 6-15 feet depending on the day. Jointed raps(JSR 5's)have been the best to fool the fish I have been catching.

I have also caught fish in the back channel on jigs but haven't been spending much time there. Leaches have been the bait of choice when jig fishing.

With the rising water we will have in the upcoming days I will concentrate my efforts in shallower water. As the water comes up into areas with willows and weeds this becomes a buffet for walleyes.

Tanya and Randy are shown below with a couple from last week.

6/05/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:65 Level:5.0

Conditions are good on Pool 4. The river is at a very good level and clarity remains in good shape. The lake is also in very nice shape clarity wise.

Monday of this week I was joined by Todd Dusbabek and his son Tanis. Tanis won the day trip I gave away at this years New Prague Sportsman's kids fishing day. We spent the day trolling cranks on the upper end of of the pool, staying in the river itself all day. We had a few fish in every area but late in the day found an area with numbers and some better fish. Fish in this area took a liking to #5 FT raps pulled in 6-8 fow. By days end Tanis had sore arms so our day was a success. He is shown in the first frame with a 23 incher he caught solo.

Wednesday was similar to Monday in results. Not a hot bite everywhere but when you found the right group of fish they were very cooperative. We spent a little time in the area that was hot on Monday only to find the bite just so-so. One here and one there type of day until we moved to the lake. We found fish there on shallow rocks very willing to cooperate. Pulling #5 reg. and jointed raps in many colors was the ticket. Again no giants but the numbers were good.

Thanks to Cory Schriener and his dad Bob, and Ron Wittrock for the entertainment. Cory is shown in the second pic with a 23 incher that hit a #5 rap in about 7 fow just off of a main river bar.

5/21/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:58 Level:7.42

The river is slowly but surely taking its summer shape. We're not quite there yet but in very good shape non the less. Water temps are very slowly on the climb as the cool nights are making it a slow process.

Tom Klanchnik and I spent last Wednesday on the water with limited success. We mixed it up throwing jigs and cranks and also rigging bait. We fished quite a few areas that yielded very little and a couple that were just ok. Tom's 26" eye pictured below was our only really good fish. This fish was caught on a 5" creek chub rigged on the top end of a bar just off the heavy current.

Sunday I was joined by Doug Schlicht(Appleton, WI) and Todd Twogood(Bismark ND). We spent the day trying to get these two familiarized with the upper end of pool 4 and cover a couple different ways to catch fish in the process.

We started our day rigging, pulled cranks in the middle and ended by dragging jigs. We did catch fish on all three rigs but settled in on jigs and bait as our go to method. We used crawlers, leaches and minnows and caught fish on all three baits. Many fish just under the 15" mark but enough overs in the mix to make this a pretty good day.

These two were a real pleasure as their passion to learn was evident. Thanks to Randy Stevens and the crew at Everts for showing them a warm welcome on Saturday night upon their arrival.

5/13/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:53 Level:9.25

The state of the river-high,cool and clear. This pretty much sums it up. The river reached it's crest on 5/6 and has dropped about 1 foot. The water remains clear for its heighth and is staying on the cool side.

A couple trips to report on since 5/2. Last Sunday was spent mainly in the upper end of Pool 4. Jeremy Sacker and his son Brant and my son Bridger all were along for the ride. We rigged minnows and raps trying to get the kids into action no matter what it was. We did find some walleyes and whites willing to cooperate but never found fast action anywhere. Bridger is shown below with another pretty good male that bit on a #9 rap.

This last Friday the kids were out of school so we made it the official walleye opener for Hahn family. Bridger, Karly and I spent the day on the water. We covered a large chunk of water and found a couple areas that had mega fish.

Our first stop yielded a bunch of fish, most of which were walleyes in the just short category. We pulled Berkley Flicker Shads in the Orange Craw color and had fish on nearly every pass we made. This was a nice tip from Dean at Everts as he had experimented with this little bait the day before and had good luck.

Our next stop produced more fish, this time on raps behind a three-way. Clown was the ticket here with quite a few shorts and a couple decent fish. We stayed on the move, after a couple passes we went searching. After a couple spots which produced nothing we found an area with loads of fish. We started throwing cranks to this area and had fish of some sort on at least one of our rods almost all the time. We had a mixture of walleyes and bass of all types. We settled in for a couple hours of just catching which was just what we were looking for.

Most of the fish caught were on cranks but the biggest of the day came on a 3/16th oz jig with a paddletail in about 8 fow. Karly is in the last frame with this dandy that went 28 inches.

Fish are starting to be caught on many different presentations as is typical this time of year. With the cooler than avg. water temps the warm water tactics are just a little slow to take over but will in the near future.

5/2/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:50 Level:10.0

I was out of town the week of the 20th - 27th but back at it the past few days. The river is high with some debris but very fishable with clarity being very good. It appears that most of the fish have spawned and are transitioning back toward summer haunts.

Tuesday of this week I made a solo run which turned up absolutely nothing other than a nice day on the water. Two decent fish that came unbuttoned before getting a look was all I had to show for the day. A rising river with still cool water (46 deg) was this fisheman's excuse for not putting it together on this day. We fishermen always find a reason, other than our inability, to blame for poor results. This can be typical of post spawn fishing though, kind of a crap shoot at times.

Wednesday I was joined by Terry Keller, Jeffrey Christian and Mark Hanson. This was my half of the group Turk Gierke and I were fishing with on this day. This was a trip that was originated by Turk and he was kind enough to call me to help with. Turk operates his guide service out of Hudson Wisconsin (Croixsippi Fishing Guide Service) and covers a wide swath of water on the St. Croix and Mississippi Rivers.

Our day was spent fishing light bait rigs with minnows and pulling raps. The bait rigs kept us in steady action but short walleyes and white bass dominated the catch. Switching to raps put a good sauger in the boat immediately and kept us on this pattern the rest of the day. Checking many areas which yielded similar results, as the small eyes and whites kept us busy while we continued our search. Close to the end of the day our diligence paid off. Mark did a nice job working in a post spawn female that hit the tape at 29.25"s and weighed in at 9.4 pounds. A clown colored #7 rapala did the damage once again. I do not have a picture right now as I had a memory stick malfunction when it was picture time. We did get a picture on Mark's phone which I will add to this report when I receive it. (Picture added below-Thanks Mark)

I have said before that if you can get consecutive days on the water it is a huge benefit. Thursday proved this theory correct once again. Marty Lienau from Rochester and I teamed up for the day to chase these post spawners that have been kind of elusive as of late. We started our day pulling single rapalas on three-ways and were rewarded early and often as the fish on this morning showed signs of life right away. We found a good mix of walleyes in an area we hung around in most of the morning. All fish were males but all sizes were represented as we had fish in the low teens, upper teens and low to mid 20 inch classes. Marty is shown below with a pair of the biggest males I have seen this year. One at 26"s and the other at 24.5"s were our biggest fish of the day but again quite a few more not far behind made this a great morning. All fish came on original raps with some kind of a chrome based color. This worked well with the sun out but when it disappeared so did this pattern preference. All fish on this day went back in to be caught again. Thanks to all for another great week.

One other very interesting thing to note is the absence of the saugers that are so plentiful every spring. I'm not saying no one is catching any but for sure many fewer than normal for this time of year. A few theories on that one but we'll save that for another post.

4/20/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:43.5 Level:7.74

Conditions this week deteriorated early and rebounded later in the week. Water clarity was dismal on Monday and Tuesday and started to clear on Wednesday. The last part of the week the water continued to clear and the temps started to increase. Todays conditions are very good and should stay that way with just a small raise in the forecast for the upcoming week.

Fishing this week mirrored the conditions of the water. Trips early in the week saw very few fish come to the boat although the ones caught were good ones. Later in the week a few more fish and more good ones.

Parts of Mon. through Wed. I was joined by Scott Krakow from Iowa. We did more fishing than catching but were able to get a few to cooperate. During this same time frame Bob Barksdale and a couple buddies joined me for a Tuesday morning trip. We had similar success with a few short fish but one trip maker. Scott is shown in the first pic with a dandy he caught on a ringworm cast to a current seam, firecracker/chart. tail if I remember correctly. The second pic is of Bob with another good fish that was 28.25 inches and weighed in at an even ten pounds. This fish was caught on a #9 clown colored rapala in 15' of water.

Thursday and part of Friday another old friend joined me for some time on the water. Kirke Henry who you have seen before and will see again on this site again makes the bottom of the report pictures. A real quality day on Thursday with no giants but a decent bunch and a few worth pictures. We had an even split between raps and throwing jigs. All walleyes on Thursday were caught on jigs thrown to current seems and the saugers all were on raps. Kirke is shown in the third picture with a good pair, one big bellied female and one spawned out fish. The next frame is of another rapala fish. This one fell for a hot steel #9 in about twelve fow and weighed in at six pounds even.

Saturday a last minute trip came together with Dave Lasche and Carl Lamar. Signs of a good trip were imminent as soon as these two stepped foot in the boat. Dave quickly revealed the scratch ticket he had purchased was a FIVE HUNDRED dollar winner. That's a great way to start the day and I knew lady luck was in our corner. We stopped at our first spot and before even settling in Carl sets the hook on what I knew was a good one. The wide headshakes telegraphed by his rod tip told us this one would be a picture fish. Soon after, we slipped the 28 inch 8.6 pound female into the net. Five hundred dollars and a 28 incher all by 7 am., our day was made early. Carl is shown below with his personal best walleye that was convinced the gold #9 rap was breakfast. I am sorry Carl the picture didn't turn out better. I must have had moisture on the lens from the damp conditions that morning. We spent the majority of our day pulling raps with just a couple decent saugers with many shorts in the bunch. Late in the day we switched to throwing jigs and were rewarded with a couple more good fish. Dave is shown in the last picture with another almost square river walleye. This fish only measured 25 inches but hit the scales at an even 8 pounds. This fish was taken on a 3/16th plain lead head and a ringworm.

This was really a fun week even though we had to endure a slow stretch. A big thanks to all who fished with me and agreed to photo and release all fish shown below. Every one swam away from the boat in very good shape. It has been a memorable spring as Carl's personal best made the 8th person to have PBs out of my boat this spring. I have had better number springs but never better quality.

4/13/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:38.0 Level:7.19

Quite a bit of time well spent on the water in the last week. As you can see we have risen in level and fallen in temp. We still have remarkable clarity for the raise in level that has taken place. Roller gates at the dam were pulled out of the water on Saturday am. and I would assume they will remain that way for the near future.

My first report is from last Monday afternoon. Steve Albrecht and Dan Wojcik drove in from DeKalb Ill. for a quick afternoon of fishing. We spent our short time vertical jigging and had some success. Steve was the hot stick this pm putting most of the good saugers in the boat. Our best bait was a 5/16th chart. head and minnow. The guys are in the first frame with some of the take. Dedicated fishermen to drive from DeKalb for the afternoon. You gotta love it-Thanks guys.

The next few shots below are from Jason Papenfuss and Randy Richert. These two joined me Thursday for a lovely spring day on the river. Fortitude prevailed on this brutal weather day. Winds of 30+ out of the NE with rain and sleet limited the areas we could fish so we spent the day throwing jigs to one main area that had a little break from the wind. The end result were a few fish from 22-24 inches and the bests were Jason with a 28.25" fish that hit a black head/pro blue ringworm(3rd pic) and Randy with a 28.75"er he took on a black/green hair jig with a minnow(5th pic). Jasons fish was a spawned out female and Randy's was still full and weighed in at 10.5 lbs. All fish are still swimming. Thanks to both for a great day.

Randy Soedt, a cousin I hadn't seen for too long was in with his crew on Saturday. A great way for a reunion of sorts but another chilly one at that. We were challenged again by the weather with temps in the low 30's, North winds of 25 and periods of horizontal snow. We jigged and rapped and threw our way to a pretty good bunch of fish. A few fish a few different ways but very rewarding in the end. Jeff Herington, Brian Armstrong and Randy are shown in the last picture with some of our catch. We had a very odd visitor in the boat on Saturday, a ---- Trout. If I can get Randy to send me a pic I will post it. I don't know what species it was but it sure had great color.

In my humble opinion we should have a good sauger bite in the near future. The vast majority of the catch has been walleyes so I'm assuming we have a bunch of fun yet to come as the water warms this week.

4/06/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:44.0 Level:4.01

The river remains in very good shape with only moderate flows due a slow warm up and very little snow to melt. Clarity is exceptional for this time of year. If any of you remember last year you know what I am talking about.

My report will cover about seven days, with a couple of all day trips and a couple half dayers. From my trip last Saturday with Jack Palek and Joe Wolf to this weekends trip with Dave Renke and his crew I have found similar results. We have been catching some good quality fish but numbers in general have been down.

I have been mixing it up between jigging and pulling raps for the most part and throwing jigs occasionally. Clown or Gold colored raps have taken quality fish along with a plain orange jig head with a minnow fished vertically. Just a hodgepodge of this and that seems to be the norm lately. My son is pictured below with two dandies. The walleye he caught on an orange head/ fc tail with a minnow. The sauger was taken on a plain orange head/minnow combo. They went 6 and 5 pounds respectively.

One other piece of info that you might find helpful. When you stand on a Sony camera with a size 12D, it does nothing for the functionality of said camera. Thanks to Matt Meyer for letting me snap some pics with his unit. Matt was in my boat on Saturday morning and was very instrumental in our catch. One of the highlights of the morning was another big ol sauger that hit the scales at 5.1 pounds. Matt is in the third pic with this dandy.

Another observation this week is the fact that my moose mits really make a nice fish look small. Another sauger in the upper 4 pound range that I was pictured with didn't make the picture page due to the fact it just didn't do the fish justice. Let the kids hold the fish, they look much nicer.

We are supposed to see about a three foot raise in the river in the next week. This is per the NOAA site that makes river level predictions. Thanks to all who have shared the boat this spring.

After finishing this report I came across the last picture below. This is Tristin Nelson with a 24 pound flathead he caught while fishing with his father on March 30th. Joe, Jack and I just snapped a picture and got a weight for them as they had left their camera at home and had no scale. Tristin, I tried to email a pic to the address you gave me but it wouldn't go through. If you read this and would like a copy give me a call at the number at the bottom of the page and I will see what I can do. That is a very nice fish!

3/29/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:39.0 Level:2.05

Not a lot of change on the river since my last report. Clarity is still good, we have gained just a bit of flow and levels remain steady.

After being out of town for a week I was able to get back on the river Wednesday. I was invited to spend the day with John Stears who operates "River Fan Guide Service" on Pools 4 and 5 of the river. Now John is a bass guide but is no stranger to river walleyes. We got a late morning start knowing we would stay for the early evening bite.

We spent our day spot jumping with a mixture of casting, dragging and vertical jigging. Catching at least some fish in most spots we fished was the order for the day. Early spots produced some very nice saugers and later in the day the take was mostly walleyes. Quite a few good solid fish but none that would jump out at the camera.

Thanks to John for a great day, it was fun to go along for the ride for a change.

Friday morning's trip started out quickly with Jason Max and his father in-law Wayne Hinkle hooking up on decent saugers almost immediately on rapalas. This bite was quick out of the gate but tailed off quickly so we went the vertical route to finish out our morning with good results. Superdoos and paddletails took a good number of quality fish to make for a fun half day trip. Wayne is shown below with a sauger that has great color due to the still very clear water.

Bob Klocek and Brian Luethmers joined me for the afternoon flight. We spent most of our time casting and dragging jigs. I must say we found the fish in the areas we fished a little tight lipped. We scrounged up a few decent fish in our afternoon quest and a nice little flurry around dark. Bob and Brian are shown below with a couple of our better fish which along with most of the others were caught dragging ringworms.

3/18/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37.5 Level:2.05

Conditions on the river remain good. The water clarity is still about 3 feet even after the warm weather and the loss of most of the snow that we have had of late. The water temp is showing a little bump up on the warm days and the level is up just a touch but only 6 inches tops. Disregard my level reading at the top as this gauge is not up and running yet but should be in the near future.

Tuesday's trip was set up like my last, starting about 1 pm and running well after dark. This was again a good plan as we were greeted with a couple of inches of snow on Monday night. I was able to get a couple of hours on the water before Glen Axness and his boys Shane and Carson joined me after lunch. This was enough time for the fish to tell me that they were still willing to hit a jig and ringworm combo pulled slowly upriver. The first pic below is a fish that came out of 23' fow on an orange head/camo ringworm combo.. This fish was 24"s and still hit the scale at 6.5 lbs., a huge weight for a fish of that length. She along with a few jumbo saugers were my take for the short time I was out before noon.

After noon Glen and his boys helped me ply the 20 to 26 foot depths with a mixture of upstream drags and a few downstream passes mixed in to keep the fish honest. Everyone in the boat had a great day and caught their share but this day belonged to Shane. He seemed to strike methodically throughout the day, a 20" sauger here, a 22" walleye there. This was the order for most of the day as many good solid fish came to the boat.

Shortly after our dusk bite had gotten under way we heard that familiar call, "fish on". You guessed it, it was Shane telling us that he would definitely need the net. I let dad do the honors of scooping up the 9 pound fish shown in the last picture. A great way to end an already very good day. This fish and all that were caught in the last couple hours of the day were taken on 3/32 and 1/8 oz heads and a variety of tail colors pulled in 8 to 14 fow.

Thanks again to Glen and his boys, it was truly my pleasure. Glen, you have definitely done something right with these two.

3/10/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

More of the same at Pool 4. Still a very consistent bite going on the river. Sunday, with the time switch, my crew chose to do the afternoon shift. This is a good option now that it stays light until 7:30 and morning temps have been in the single digits.

Bob Klocek, Brian Luethmers and Troy Rahn were in the boat for the noon till dark run. We were looking for a numbers bite so we ran the same program as had been working for me the last couple weeks. Dragging jigs upstream in deeper stretches of the river and running a vert. presentation back over our same path on the way down.

After a few passes up and down in our first area and only 2 fish we were forced to move. Our second spot found the fish much more cooperative and we were soon on our way to another pretty good day. We ended up scrapping the vert. runs back down stream as they produced only a couple of fish while our upstream drags had us catching consistently.

By days end we had managed about two dozen decent fish. Purple/white tail and camo. colored ringworms were our top producers fished on many different head colors jigs. Working very slowly upstream was still the most productive trick for taking our fish. We did shallow up some to take our fish at dusk using 1/8 oz jigs in 10-15 fow going up and downstream.

Some very definite trends have become evident, at least from my perspective, the last few trips. The midday bite is very strong until late afternoon. The one or two hour period before dusk has been a much slower bite. The dusk bite is still very good and should remain that way at least until we have dirty water enter the system.

Thanks to Bob, Brian and Troy for going along. Hope to see you again as I think Bob has a little score to settle with his two running mates.

3/1/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

I had the chance to get out twice this week with each trip yielding similar results. Many, many jumbo saugers. I swear you can catch more large saugers in one trip to Pool 4 than you can in a lifetime on other bodies. The weather has not been the best but the fishing has more than made up for it.

Wednesday we were greeted with cool temps and pretty stiff breeze so finding an area with not much wind was pretty important. We planned on pulling jigs upstream and vertical jigging back down. This was a good plan through the middle of the day but early and late found too much ice on the surface of the river to pull jigs. When we could drag jigs it was VERY effective and when we couldn't staying straight up and down worked, just not quite as well. Staying in 20-26 fow was the key for us whether going up or downstream. By days end many fish came to the boat with the biggest being a sauger that weighed in at 4.6 lbs. and quite a few more close behind.

Friday's wind made Wednesday seem like a cake walk. We nearly cancelled the outing because of the 30+ mph winds that were howling but knowing we could get a little protected in one area we went ahead as planned. We did only fish in the afternoon but still found fish very cooperative. Even though we fished a different area than Wednesday the patterns were the same.

Both days we used 1/4 and 5/16 oz jigs with ringworms and moved slowly upriver. The key for us was keeping baits 6 inches to 2 feet off the bottom. When going downstream we stayed vertical and used 5/16 oz jigs and superdoos, again being up off the bottom a ways was important. Colors were consistant both days with firecracker and chartreuses on the ringworms and ice blue on the superdoos.

Too cold for the camera to function on Wed. and on Fri. it didn't make the trip. Hope to get some more pics on the board next report.

2/25/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

I was able to get back on the water Sunday after a long absence. Joining me was Bob Anstiss from Shoreview, MN. Bob, like many others, has had just about his fill of winter and desperately needed to fish. Quite a bit of traffic on the river Sunday proved many folks must have had the same feeling.

We started our day fishing vertically and had a few very nice fish cooperate right away. Dark heads and blue super doos were the ticket for the morning. As more boats arrived and the sun got a little taller we began to poke around in different areas trying to get away from a little traffic. After a couple of not so productive spots we changed gears and started dragging jigs downstream and this proved to be a pretty good switch as this put a few more chunky fish in the boat.

By days end we had caught and released a bunch of nice saugers like the one Bob is holding in the picture below. Not a bin buster of a day but a pretty good bunch of fish that show signs that the spawn is just around the corner. We did not fish either low light period but heard the early morning and evening bite is very good.

Thanks to Bob for helping make this trip another good one.

2/18/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

Procrastination has led to a huge gap in reports. Every time I have a window to fish the weather has slammed the door in my face. We have had some one or two day warm ups but they have not matched with my schedule as of late. Now for the those that have been fortunate enough to get out on the water during those warmer days the fishing has been great.

The info in my report is all via Dean Marshall @ Everts Resort and there is no more reliable source on any body of water anywhere. Great numbers of very nice saugers have been the norm for most boats. Many fish in the 16-19 inch range and a few 20"+ fish each day. The most used application as of late is dragging jigs, up or downstream depending on the day and the area being fished. Depths range from 10-22 feet from those reporting. This method becomes very effective this time of year, as it gets baits a good ways away from the boat in the crystal clear water we have in the river in late winter.

Looking back to late fall/early winter we saw the bite become a little tougher as the fish in the upper stretches of the river had been worked over pretty hard. We then had a stretch of very cold weather which kept people off the water and during that stretch, it is my belief, we had a movement of fish up river that replenished areas that had been hit hard earlier. Many areas now have fish that haven't seen a bait for months.

We have about one more month of clear water fishing and are about six weeks away from the spring frenzy. Look for a few "first hand" reports between now and then.

1/10/08--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

I made my first trip trip to the river of "08" on Monday. The bite seemed to have slowed a bit but still managed enough to keep it interesing. I caught fish vertically in a couple of areas and also dragging jigs toward evening. Much of my day was spent with the underwater camera just searching. Many areas had fish and many didn't but the big thing to note this time of year is fish really love the sand. Sand seems to hold way more fish than rocks in these cold winter months.

As I have done in the past, I will write about different presentations that I use at different times of the year to catch river walleyes. One not so glamorous but very key method that I will touch on in this report is a simple live bait rig.

The rig itself consists of very basic terminal tackle made up of a 3-way swivel, a small bell sinker and a #2 aberdeen hook. Most generally I will present this outfit with a 6 1/2' Med. action spinning rod/reel spooled with very low stretch 8# mono. Leaders to the main hook will be 8-10# mono. and to the sinker 6# mono.

This rig can be used any time but times of transition are when I turn to it to put fish in the boat when other methods won't. When we are making the turn from winter to spring or summer to fall, there seems to be a small window when this really shines. I usually won't use this for long periods of time but for a few days at a time when we have had a change in season or a water level fluctuation it is very affective.

Rigging can be used either trolling or from an achored boat. I fish from a prone position less than most but really prefer to anchor up when using this presentation in these small time frames. The first key is finding a likely seam or drop off. Getting the boat positioned above or just over the area is next, whether you are going to cast or fish close to the boat will determine the positioning. In shallower situations I like to get it away from the boat (e.g. 12' or less). Deeper than this will warrant fishing closer to the boat at about a 45 deg. angle.

When anchored shallow I like to match sinker depth to the current speed. Using just enough sinker to let the rig drift at the speed of the current on a sideways cast. Usually I am in the 1/4 to 1/2 oz. range. It is very important to play with this until you find the right combination of weight to match the current. Too much weight and the rig stays pinned to the bottom and will not swing with the current and too little weight lets the whole thing blow out with no bottom contact. It is also critical after making your cast that you keep your rod tip high just as if you were throwing a jig. This keeps as much line off the water as possible and allows you to feel the rig as it works its way downstream. Many times a bait simply stopping its downstream path or a feeling a slight tick in the rod are your only signs of a bite. It is important to realize that you are using this method because the fish are in somewhat of a negative mood and bites usually won't be wrist shaking.

As I mentioned earlier I do like aberdeen hooks. I prefer these because they seem to penetrate the bony roof of the walleyes mouth better than most thicker wire hooks. If you do go this route be aware when fighting larger fish. You can't put a ton of pressure on bigger fish or the hook will straighten out. Just a small trade off for more hookups and when you do get that heavier than normal fish on, just don't lean on him too hard and take your time.

Lastly I do prefer minnows for bait on this rig at these times. I do fish willow cats, crawlers and leaches on these rigs at other times of the year but for the transition in and out of the cold water times I do prefer fat heads for bait.

I know I sound like I only use this method because I have to and this is not true at all. I really enjoy catching fish on these back to basic rigs. Something kind of neat about catching fish on such a simple rig in our modern day high tech world of walleye fishing.

12/21/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

A warm up in the temps has allowed a couple trips to the river this week. The numbers of fish being caught right now are amazing. I spent Wed. and Thur. on the river with Larry Fiser and we concentrated our efforts on the fantastic vertical bite that is producing these numbers.

Wednesday we spent our day mostly in the dam area. We had overcast skies and a southeast breeze that made keeping the ice out of the guides a daylong effort. We played with colors and bait styles all day long and by midday had found that orange was the biggest key to our day. We caught fish on many different baits but the orange head dressed with a orange and black Long John was the best ticket. Many depths also produced but 26 to 30 feet seemed to be key for us. A short foray to a casting honey hole in the late afternoon unlocked the fact that this was not a honey hole on this day. Dean joined us for this short end of the day mission that produced a big 0.

Thursday morning was spent away from the dam area. Our second stop produced a few fish including one 20" fat sauger and one 29" flathead that is pictured below. The third spot was "The Y", a popular community hole every fall. It didn't take long to figure out that this area was packed with fish. The first pass yielded a couple 20" saugers and many, many others. It was hard to fish two rods in this deep stretch as the action was so frantic. We settled in here for the better part of the afternoon and had a non interupted bite.

One thing to note, when the sun was out chart/pepper and blue/white baits shined. When the sun disappeared the color choice changed to darker shades. Super doos got the nod for most and best fish for the day with a good number around the 20" mark.

We did do some casting again in the late afternoon and found the bite pretty good for a short spell before dark. All green fish with this method but mostly just eaters in the 15 to 17 inch range. Salt and pepper ring worms cast shallow was the ticket for this bite.

The last picture below shows the lights of Everts Resort as we came in just after dark. Pretty cool atmosphere with the heavy fog and mist that was rolling in at that time. The picture does not do it justice.

Thanks to all who fished with me this past year, it has been a memorable one. Things look very favorable for a fantastic year ahead. I look forward to seeing many old and many new faces in the coming year.

12/14/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:34 Level:2.05

I have spent most of my time the last couple weeks with a gun in my hand. Chasing pheasants or deer in Iowa consumed a few days but I did get one trip to the river last Wednesday. The bite was typical for this time of year, pretty good.

Tom Klanchnik and I started fishing about noon thinking we would take the warmest part out of the day. We spent about an hour and a half down river looking for fish away from the dam. We caught about 15 saugers but most were of the smaller variety. We did manage a couple good fish in this area with one being a 20 incher pictured below.

We coaxed Dean out of the resort for the late afternoon bite. We spent our time in the dam area where we found pretty steady action by staying vertical with plastics. Orange heads with some sort of natural colored plastic seemed to trigger the most bites on this very chilly day. When all was said and done, probably a 35 to 40 fish afternoon with about a dozen being decent.

No personal experience in the last week but in speaking with Dean on the phone this a.m. the bite remains good. Ramps are clear at Everts Resort for those not afraid of a little COOL weather. Feeling that thump on the end of your line will warm you up in no time.

I did have to include one picture from a pheasant hunt from last Friday. Larry Fiser and my son Bridger are holding the birds from this quick morning hunt.

One other thing worth a mention, I have had quite a few inquiries about gift certificates for guided trips. I do have and sell these and they make a pretty good gift for that outdoors person you have no idea what to get.

11/30/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level:2.05

I can't believe that I'm already writing my last November report. The month really flew by and as is usually the case it was a great month for numbers of nice fish. The very encouraging part is the mix of fish we are catching. Saugers of all sizes are showing up along with huge numbers of Walleyes in the 14 to 16 inch range. With the growth rate we have on the river, this year class of "eyes" should provide great numbers of 16 to 18 inch fish this coming summer along with the Saugers that just seem to go on and on and on.

I was able to spend the two days after Thanksgiving on the water with my son(Bridger) and father-in-law(Don Enochson). We arrived mid-day on Friday and had great results pulling raps and jigging plastics. Again many fish with that mix I talked about earlier. Saugers from 8 to 20 inches and eyes from 14 to 18. Saturday we used the same program and had similar results with jigs really kicking into high gear right after noon. Grey Gene Larew Long Jons and blue/white Super Doos behind orange 5/16th oz. heads were our best baits.

The last day on the water for me was Wednesday(11/28). Tom Klanchnik and I arrived at Everts toward mid-day. We were literally blown over that way by the winds that were howling out of the NW. After arrival we were fortunate enough to team up with Tim "Hutch" Hutchison from Praire du Chien, WI.. Tim is a long time guide and tacklemaker who is known by many for the great services he provides.

The three of us spent the afternoon jig fishing wherever the wind was tolerable. We did find quite a few fish willing to cooperate with baits of choice being similar to that of the previous weekend. Oyster shell colored Paddletails were also a good bait on this day.

Thanks to Hutch for an enjoyable afternoon. This fellow is a wealth of knowledge and has always been more than willing to help with anything I have ever asked, from tackle to outboards to guiding. Check out his service at www.riverwalleyes. com.

I will be back out as weather permits but as I knock out this report the weather does not permit.

11/21/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:43 Level:2.83

Quite a bit of water has passed under the boat since my last report even though it's only been a week. No full daylight to dark trips but Sat.- Tues. I was on the water some each day. Conditions are great with water temps and clarity very normal for mid to later fall.

My son and I arrived in the afternoon on Saturday in time for a couple of hours on the water and also fished a full morning on Sunday. We spent our time pulling 3-way rigs and rapalas as this let us hunker down in the boat and stay a little protected from the damp southeast winds. We had immediate action on Sat. and it continued into Sunday as we caught and released dozens of saugers and walleyes. Many of the saugers were 17 to 21 inches and the majority of the eyes were 14 to 16. Colors that shined were oranges and firetigers with naturals getting only a few.

No real monsters on these days but quite a few that pushed the 20 inch mark. Bridger is shown with a good one below.

Monday and Tuesday I was able to team up again with North Dakotan Kirke Henry. We too ran an afternoon stint on Monday and almost a full day on Tuesday and found the action not as frantic as the previous two days but still good.

Monday we started with raps and were able to boat a good number of saugers in the upper teen range and found one very nice walleye willing to suck up a #9 FT rap. I am pictured with this 7+ pound fish in the second shot below. We ended the day throwing jigs with limited success. The spot we finished on gave up 4 or 5 legal fish all under 20 inches.

Tuesday started with us casting for the first hour or two and catching only one barely legal eye and a smallmouth bass. A few drifts with jigs and plastics produced a few short fish, a couple eaters and one 21" brute that Kirke is holding in the last frame. This fish hit a blue super doo on an orange head.

The rest of the day was spent pulling raps with a one here and one there type of day. When the dust cleared, Gold raps took top honors by coaxing the the most and nicest fish of the outing.

Fishing is never completely predictable but this great bite should last for a good while, most likely through most of December if not longer.

11/15/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:43 Level:2.83

I have had the misfortune of a boat under repair a few times this year. This past week was another one of those cases but I must say a blessing in disguise. All fall, while on the river fishing, I have been listening to the sound of gunfire from the duck hunters close by. Also the sound of my phone ringing with another call from Iowa reporting another banner duck shoot. Now I am a confessed walleye addict but shooting Mallards over decoys is only a decimal point behind the tic of a walleye inhaling a bait.

With the news of a motor under repair, a flooded river bottom in Iowa and a son that was itching for his first duck hunting experience, off we went. In the next three days we had exceptional hunts and were able to do it in an area within eye shot of where I grew up. I was able to get a hunting fix and at the same time give my son a taste of it also.

In the second pic below you can see our crew and the river bottom we were hunting. Tony Snook and his wife "Tig", Bridger and Craig Knock. What a great way to spend a November weekend. Thanks to Tony and Craig for doing the leg work on this one.

I did make a solo trip to the river on Tuesday of this week to find the fishing still good. I caught fish throwing jigs in the A.M. and pulling raps the rest of the day. No pics as I was alone but a pretty good day non the less. From all other re ports the weekend bite was great.

With cooperation from my equipment I will be spending many days in the near future back on Pool 4. I will update every few days from now through the rest of November.

11/5/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:48 Level:4.25

This week I have a couple of great trips to report on and also river conditions that are shaping up nicely. The water level has dropped, the current decreased and the clarity is good. We should have normal conditions with good flow in the river as we head into the late fall/winter season.

I was able to hit the river on Friday with another old friend that I hadn't seen for a good while. Glenn Daugherity and his partner Kay Hohn from the Manville Ill. area, invited me to spend the day in their boat. Glenn spends a great deal of time on the Illinois River and is a very accomplished river fisherman so my job on this day was easy. Glenn and Kay were in for a three day visit and wanted to learn a few areas and just catch some fish.

We spent most of the morning jigging in a couple different areas and did catch a few fish but found the action a little sluggish. We had the start of a nice bunch but knew there had to be a better bite somewhere. After noon we switched over to rigging rapalas on three-ways. Glenn has put in his time with this presentation and has the same confidence in it that I do. It didn't take long to find an area that had fish ready to snap up the balsa baits. It seemed that a #7 orange rap was the ticket for the afternoon. Multiple passes up and down the 14 to 16 foot break filled our box quickly with some nice fish. Most fish were in the 16 to 18 inch range but we did have one that taped at 22.5 inches and weighed in at 4.5 lbs.. Kay is shown below holding this dandy.

Thanks to Glenn and Kay for letting me spend the day in their 617 Ranger, a very nice ride.

My second trip was on Sunday. This was a trip I had donated to the "Kids Fishing Day" put on by the New Prague Sportsmen's Club last February. The trip was won by Brian Prchal from Montgomery, Mn. and been originally scheduled for late in June. We postponed and rescheduled this outing numerous times due to conflicts in schedules and/or less than ideal conditions. In the long run this could not have worked out much better. We ended up with a very comfortable day to fish and found the fish to be in a somewhat suicidal mood.

We started our day around 8:30 and had immediate and almost non stop action for about 7 hours. Other than a couple short lulls, we had steady action that was sometimes almost ridiculous it was so fast. Many doubles and at one time, Brian's dad Dan, had a fish on each lure of his double rapala set up. The size of our fish was also incredible as many fish in the 18 to 20 inch range and a few over 20 came to the boat. This size fish wouldn't be that amazing had these been walleyes but our catch was almost all saugers. To have this many saugers of that size is rare on most bodies of water but something we have come to expect on Pool 4.

In the second pic below you can see how aggressive these fish were as this 17 inch sauger completely engulfed this #7 rap. The next picture is of Brian with a 4.5 pound fish and the last is of him and Dan with the fish they kept for the day.

I need to throw a big thank you to Dean Marshall at Evert's Resort for letting me borrow his Ranger Angler. Dean let me use his rig as mine is again under repair. This is really a well laid out rig and not everyday you find someone who will throw you the keys to a boat like this. Just another one to add to the list of Dean helping someone out.

Also Les Roemig, a friend from Amana Ia., who let me use his 619 Ranger for a week in October to bail me out of a similar jam. I am thinking of selling my rig and just running borrowed equipment as it lets me test alot of different boats and is a lot cheaper than the upkeep on my own rig. Just kidding guys, I owe you both one.

10/29/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:50 Level:7.14

This past weekend was spent with Joe Wolf and his bunch from Villa Park, Ill.. Joe and his group make a couple of trips a year to Evert's Resort to fish the waters of Pool 4. I was able to fish with all six in the group over their three day visit.

On day one Ryan Smith and Denny Wolf were with me for the hunt. We started before daylight on a spot I had done well on earlier in the week. The action was the same as well with nothing showing up before the sun was visible. Slowly the action picked up and we again were able to put a nice bunch in the boat. Mostly saugers in the 16 to 20 inch range. These fish were caught on live bait from an anochored position.

In the afternoon we switched to casting plastics to shallower water and again found the fish very cooperative. We took fish on a variety of baits and colors. We figured on walleyes in these shallower areas but again found mostly saugers. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 decent fish by days end. Ryan and Denny are shown below in the first picture with the fish we kept on day one.

Joe Wolf and Jack Palek were the pair for day two. You may remember them from a past report from last spring. We started with the same program on day two only to discover the fish had other ideas. We worked live bait for a while but realized this wasn't going to be the answer on this day. We ran the whole gamut of presentations by days end and scrounged up a nice bunch for these two but it was not as easy as day one. We used live bait, casting, rapalas and finally vertically jigging to piece together their fish.

On day three Joe Palek and Dominic Marchese took their turn. We spent the better part of the morning pulling raps with some success. We had a few nice fish right away but the action really slowed after about 10 am. I was a little hard headed in thinking if we stayed with this pattern the fish would turn back on but after a few other spots and no fish we changed tactics. As soon as we changed to jigging with bait the action turned from cold to hot with many nice fish in a short amount of time. 5/16th oz. purple heads/purple hair with a minnow was the ticket. Stinger hooks were a must for us as about half of the fish were caught on the extra #12 treble hook added to the back of the jig. The second picture below shows Joe and Dominic with some of the better saugers we kept and the third shot is the 12 they took home.

The last frame shows Joe and his group with the three boat total for day three. That looks like quite a fish fry in the near future.

The best baits for the three days were firetiger or orange rapalas and we tried many others. A plain hook and minnow on a light three-way rig either cast or fished motionless under the boat took a good number of fish. Ringworms, K-gubs and paddle- tails mostly in Firecracker colors thrown on 1/4 oz. jigs also were effective and the jigs I mentioned earlier.

The river has crested and will fall quickly over the next week but our bite has finally turned the corner. Fish are not automatic and you must be in the right places to catch them but the fall bite is definitely here.

10/24/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:54 Level:6.77

I usually summarize conditions in this first paragraph but they have been so crazy since my last report I will touch on them in each days wrap up.

10/12- John Ross and his son Brant were in the boat on this Friday. Water level had risen but stabilized and temp was 59 deg.. We spent some of our time in the river looking for eyes and ended our day in the lake. We managed to fool a couple of decent saugers with crankbaits and one walleye that was a little to big to keep but a little small for a picture. We did catch a nice bunch of crappies on what turned out to be a great fall afternoon. Most of these fish were caught on 3/32 oz plain lead heads and the back half of a chart/pepper ring worm. John is shown below with a couple of dandies that both ticked the 14 inch line. Thanks guys and look forward to seeing you again.

10/16-This day was a good one in the fact we were able to fish son, dad and grandad in the same boat. Again searching for eyes and finding the numbers game a tough one. Conditions were good with water temps at 56 and levels at 4.75. With the temps dropping we started out with the Rapala three-way trick that I fish frequently only to find it not on quite yet. Only one sauger made its way to the box with this method. Migrating to the lake late morning was a good choice as we spent the rest of the day in one area that produced a few nice walleyes and a few crappies as well. Fish were caught on a mixture of cranks/hair jigs and plastics. The second picture shows grandson/grandad with a few of our fish.

10/22-Jim Klausing and his crew joined me Friday. Jim and his bunch are from the Schaumburg Ill. area and are made up of firemen/ex-marines who are just great guys. Our goal was to stay away from the general dam area and see if we could find some areas downstream to catch some numbers of fish. We were faced with water that was rising about 3/4 of a foot a day and clarity that was mediocre at best and temps at 55. We methodically worked through areas that chances are had fish in them but were unable to get a commitment from anything decent at all. Again a great group to spend a tougher than normal day on the water with, thanks again guys.

10/23-Dave Newgent from Cloverdale Indiana, headed for Minneapolis via Red Wing was my guest on Tuesday. Dave is a long time fisherman of rivers but mostly for catfish and wanted to learn how to catch river walleyes. I informed him that after my previous outing, I too was eager to learn how to catch river walleyes. Oh it's never as bad as it seems after all we are still fishing. Arriving at the boat ramp this am to find water had risen again overnight and then finding the rollers on the dam had also been pulled did little for my confidence. We dropped anchor and began fishing light three-way rigs with minnows in a current edge in about 10 fow. After about 45 minutes and no fish in this low light am I was starting to think about plan B, but about this time the sun hit the top of the trees and the fish decided to cooperate. In the next three hours we had pretty steady action and by 11 am we had a box full of nice saugers. Below in the last picture Dave is shown with a couple of the fish he put on ice for the return to Indiana. Thanks Dave, hope to do it again sometime.

The river is still on the rise for the next couple days but in the right spots there are fish to be caught.

10/11/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:60 Level:5.07

Much change has taken place since my last report. Water conditions have changed from low,clear and warm to rising,murky and cooling quickly. Mother Nature has a way of correcting things quickly. Just a month ago we were dry and warmer than avg.. Now we are wet and cooler than normal. I'm guessing in the end we will back to normal and set up for a great fall on the river.

Last Thursday I was joined by Rick and Sharon Wood from Clarkesville, Georgia. We had just a half day to see what would show itself on Lake Pepin. We threw jigs and cranks in some likely spots and turned up quite a few nice crappies and a walleye or two. The weather on this day was made to order as you can see by the pics below. Sharon is pictured with a couple decent fish from the day. Thanks to both and I hope the rest of your stay in Minn. and Wis. was a good one.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I had the pleasure of guiding with Greg Vandemark "Vandy's Guide Service" out of Wabasha. We teamed up to be entertained by a group of guys we have guided before. Skip Theede, Roger Kosto and Daryl Nelld who had all fished with us before were joined by Denny Rausch all the way from Florida.

Our conditions were bruatal to say the least. We endured very high winds, rising water and temps that were very un-Florida like, we were informed by Denny. We made the best of a bad situation by searching out areas in the river that were somewhat out of the wind as the lake was inaccessable for the most part. As you can see below we managed to catch a few good fish. Numbers were non existant but persistance yielded a few quality fish. The fish in the last three frames are all 23 to 27 inches and very hard earned. Three of the four larger fish were caught on crankbaits and one on a ringworm,all from less than 10 fow.

Thanks to Greg and this whole bunch for making this a fun three days. The fish are somewhat in limbo right now and will or could be changing as I write. The gangbuster bite is just around the corner.

09/23/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:67 Level:2.5

The Crappie fishing on Pool 4 is going strong. Conditions are ideal as the water is at normal levels and clarity is good on the upper end and excellent on the lower half. Temps continue to slide downward as the cool nights have more power than the warm days.

Trips in the last three days have yielded similar results. Two of the days we were able to fish on the main lake and one day we were forced to stay in the river due to high winds. Days on the lake have yielded high numbers of very nice fish. Rocky banks with shelves of 5 to 10 feet deep with deep water adjacent seem to be the key. Casting jigs is really the only presentation we have used with hair, tubes and twisters all taking fish. While in the river, wingdams are a good place to start your search. Numbers were less for us in the river but the quality still very good.

We did put the scale on some of the fish we boated yesterday and found that the 11 to 13 inch fish that are pretty common are weighing from just under a pound up to 1.3 lbs.. The biggest fish yesterday was just shy of 14 inches and weighed 1.6 lbs. One other note, as the water continues to cool look to the sunny afternoons to be your best bet. As the sun bumps the water temp back up in the PMs the fish seem to become more active.

Below is a sample of our catch from Saturday. My son Bridger and Scott Krakow AKA "Muskrat". Maybe one more week of just Crappies and then it will be back to the "Eyes".

09/11/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level:1.9

"Strictly Crappies" is how I will title this report. I spend most of my time all year chasing green fish with white tips on their tails but when Sept. rolls around I take some time to chase Lake Pepin's crappies. It seems that when the water temp starts its decline the crappies move from their suspended summer time haunts to the rocky shorelines of the lake. Usually from the end of August through October they become fairly easy to locate on rocky banks next to deep water.

Mondays weather was perfect for casting light jigs as the wind was non existant and the temps mild. We spent our time throwing 1/16th oz. tube jigs or 1/8th oz. hair(bucktails). Very slow lift drop retrieves with absolutely no jigging action is usually what these fish like and today was no exception. Any sharp jigging action imparted on the baits would result in no strikes. Depths are from the bank out to 10 feet depending on the area we were fishing with most coming from 5 to 8 fow.

Numbers by days end were somewhere near 100 total fish with about 60 being good solid 10 to 13 inchers and many of those in the 11 to 12 inch range. The majority of the fish that you catch in Lake Pepin will be Black Crappies but we did have three Whites make an appearance on Monday. Jeff Malz is shown in the second picture below with one of each. Held side by side you can really see the difference in the two species.

If anyone is really interested in a great crappie outing now is the time. The walleye bite is just ok right now but about a month away from being really good.

08/19/07--- Lake Osakis(Alexandria) Water Temp:77 Level:low

Last week found us with family and friends on Lake Osakis in Alexandria, Mn.. Three families with 8 kids who were all eager to catch fish. After settling in and gathering a little local info we set out to see if there were any Walleyes willing to bite. Even though reports had told us otherwise we had to see for ourselves. We found the reports pretty accurate and the Walleyes to be a tough nut to crack.

The same locals that talked of the not so good eye bite had also told of very good Bluegill fishing. Now I usually don't get too fired up by these reports as it seems most people's idea of good panfish and mine are very different. Man were we pleasantly surprised. After a couple of spots that gave up only dinks our third stop proved to be an area we would spend most of our time in for the next couple days.

We lightened our tackle to a #5 split shot,#6 hook and a leech. This proved to be the ticket to keep this crew busy catching very large Bluegills, small Perch and an occasional Walleye. The size of the "Gills" in this lake are very impressive. Fish of all sizes were there but good numbers of fish from 8 to 9 inches made this a really fun bite. Anna Smith is pictured below with one of the larger "Gills" that went 9.5 inches and weighed 1 lb.. She is also in the next frame with a 17 inch Walleye that found its way to the fryer.

Some other fish made appearances also as Frank Bartzyal shows in the last frame. Largemouth, Smallmouth and Rock Bass also showed up in our catch. Lizzy Smith is shown holding a small Perch. This fish was supposed to be a Smallmouth Bass but the last run it took proved to be enough to snap the 6 pound line that was holding it. This would have been a great pic as we got a very good look at this 3+ pound fish but that's fishing.

Thanks to the Knocks and Smiths who joined us to make this a memorable summer trip. Also a big thanks to Jim and Sue Leigh who were our hosts. They are the new owners of Idlewilde Resort and Lodge on the south shore of Lake Osakis. Jim and Sue are old friends who we hadn't seen for a long time and have recently made Idlewilde their new home and business.

08/03/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:81 Level:1.8

This report is from Sunday and Monday. Hot steamy conditions and low steady flows are the norm for this time of year.

Sunday was spent on Pool 3. I had the help of good friend Jeff Malz. We decided from the start to dedicate the full day to the wing dams in this pool. Our first spot gave up a 20" fish on the very first cast. This one fell to a jig and crawler drifted across the face of the wingdam. We had fish on both jigs and cranks but by days end the cranks won out in a big way. No giants but a good number of fish from 20 to 24 inches. Jeff is shown below with a 23 incher.

Monday Cye and Shirley Newman joined me for the day. They were in from Oklahoma for a few days and wanted to learn a little about the river. We started in Pool 3 and ended in Pool 4, covered a ton of ground and landed a few decent fish in the process. Again casting cranks to wingdams on 3 was the ticket. Dragging jigs with bait put a few in the boat on the upper end of 4. Shirley is shown below with a decent fish from Monday. Thanks to the Newmans for riding along. Hopefully you both had a good week on the river and at the casino.

07/27/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:81 Level:1.8

Typical summer conditions are upon us with low water levels and high water temps. Trips in the last three weeks have taken me from the upper reaches of Pool 3 to the lower end of Lake Pepin. I have had similar result on most trips as of late, fishing hard for a few decent fish each day.

While on Pool 3 I have been targeting wing dams. Casting light jigs with crawlers and leaches or three way rigs with the same bait. Jig weights have been from 1/8th to 3/16th of an oz. and the weight on the rigs from 1/2 to 5/8ths.

Pool 4 tactics have been trolling cranks on either lead or Fireline while in the lake. Up in the current dragging light jigs or trolling cranks have been fooling a few. Clam beds or channel edges have been my targets in the river.

Thursday and Friday was spent with return guests Jeff Werneke and Rick Brown. We spent Thursday on the bottom end of the lake and Friday on the top end in the river. We had the typical mixed bag of fish by the end of it all. Walleyes, Sauger, Crappies, Bluegills, Northern, Channel and Flathead cats, Drum and Whitebass all made an appearance. Rick is pictured below with a better than average Sauger(22 inches) and Jeff with a Walleye of the same size.

We did stop and work over a school of White Bass that we found harassing a school of shad. Jeff had never done this so we spent about an hour at this and had non stop action. For those interested, I did notice the gulls pounding the water a few different places on the lake. Thanks to both Jeff and Rick for joining me again.

With August upon us I will be checking in on the Crappie bite soon. I Always enjoy mixing these in with the Walleyes in the late summer early fall.

06/28/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:78 Level:2.6

Water temps are at summer levels and the summer bite is and has been in full swing for quite a while. Many tactics are taking fish and many are saying that this spring has been as good as any as far as the bite goes. You may wonder why my report sounds like it is in second person. Family commitments have taken alot of my time this spring so time on the water has been somewhat limited. Definitely not a complaint as the opportunity to help coach my son and daughter's ball teams IS as much fun as fishing, very rewarding.

Now I have been out a few times, a pool 2 trip a couple weeks back found me taking fish off the wing dams with a 26" fish taking top honors. Three-way rigs with orange floaters and crawlers were the bait of the day with cranks yielded nothing on this day. No pics as I was alone on this one.

Early last week my son and I fished in the Lake City area. We fished between thunder storms and caught a decent bunch of saugers in the 15-18 inch range. These fish all came on #5 raps in the bleeding olive color out of 14 to 16 fow.

Baseball is nearing the end so reports should become more frequent again.

06/11/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:69 Level:3.93

Recent rains have given our river a nice bump up. We continue to mantain good conditions without getting alot of rain. Temps remain in the upper 60's but that will change this week with upper 80's to 90 degree temps in the forecast all week long.

Not a ton of time on the water the last couple weeks but enough to catch a few quality fish. I have stayed in the river for the most part, dragging jigs and pulling cranks have been my two presentations. Dragging has been far better for me than pulling cranks. Numbers for my boat have been lower than normal for this time of year but seem to be consistant with others who are staying in the upper end above the lake. Quality is good but overall numbers less than normal. Some very good catches from the lake are being reported but day to day is common.

Consitant action should be on the horizon as the water temps climb into the 70's.

05/25/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:66 Level:3.44

Just a quick update before the holiday weekend. Welcome rains the last couple of days have the river stable and scheduled to raise a foot or so in the next week. This is great news as we were headed for mid-summer water levels in early June. That is never a good thing.

Just one trip to Pool 2 to report on. Sunday PM my son and I took a short trip to St. Paul to check some wingdams. We spent most of our time throwing Bomber Model A's to the tops of these rocky structures. A fairly cool and windy day and not the best conditions for tossing cranks but a great way for a nine year old to be effective in the river.

Our first stop produced one decent fish and one loss. Now spot no. 2 produced no walleyes but gave Bridger something to talk about for awhile. He had hooked into something pretty big and after a couple quick runs we realized that this was not a walleye. After about a ten minute battle we scooped up the 18 pound drum he is pictured with below.

The last stop produced a few more nice fish, not giants but all from 21 to 25 inches. The next to last picture shows just how aggresive these fish can be if they are in the mood. A 24.5 inch fish that absoulutely inhaled Bridger's red craw/chart. Bomber.

I will be off the water over the weekend but back out in force starting mid-week

05/18/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:62 Level:4.0

Trips as of late have included Fair, excellent and tough days on the water. The water remains in excellent shape with levels continuing to drop. The water temps were pushing on towards the 70 degree mark but the cool nights as of late have knocked them back to the low 60's. The fishing has mimicked the water temps for me as of late. Steadily warming water saw good catches and water temps going the other direction put the fish I was chasing in a pretty good funk.

Last Thursday was a half day run with Guy Santello and his group from the Chicago area. We spent our morning jumping around on spots that typically produce for me this time of year. Crankbaits were the only program we ran this AM as our goal was to hit as many spots as we could to familiarize Guy and his bunch with the area. No. 5 raps in bright colors were the best on this morning. Paul ****** is pictured below in the first frame with our best of the morning, 22.5 inches I believe. I didn't even attempt your last name Paul as I knew I would butcher it. Thanks again guys for an enyoyable morning.

Saturday was just a last minute outing with the guys down the street. After a meeting in the driveway we decided an afternoon trip to Pool 2 was in order. Our plan was to cast crankbaits to some old spots and to find a new one or two to add to our milk run. After arrival it took exactly two casts to put the first fish in the boat, a 25.5 inch fish I am shown with in the second frame below. Kory Isley got in the act next with a 21 incher. We continued to catch one here and one there for the next couple hours.

Late afternoon found us in a area we will now refer to as Jeff Malz Slough. Jeff and I had back to back 23.5 inchers fairly quickly after getting to the area. Jeff caught the next three 25.25,26.25 and 29.25 all in about 30 minutes. These fish all came on Bomber Model A crankbaits, lime green and chart/blue were the baits of choice. Fish like these are what makes me return to Pool 2 more frequently every year.

Thursday found me back on Pool 4 with Bill Barbel from Aurora Ill.. We worked bait and cranks most of the day with a mixed bag of fish to show for our efforts. The eyes were few and far between on this day for my boat. I would guess the frost on the roof this morning did not help as it dropped our water temps over the last two days a few degrees. We did catch a handful of decent bass along with a host of white bass and smaller than average saugers. Bill is in the last picture below with a good smally he coaxed casting a crankbait. Thanks to Bill for joining me.

05/09/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:62 Level:4.8

I have been out about 4 times since my last report. Fish have really been on the move as is common this time of year. Conditions are normal and fish are being caught many different ways but not everywhere by everyone. I guess that can be said about fishing anytime.

I spent half of last Wed. and Thurs. on the water. Wednesday I had good luck for numbers of fish pulling raps and took a better than average fish throwing a crankbait. Thursday I was joined by Paul Oster. We jumped around quite a bit in some traditional big fish areas with little to show for our efforts but returned to a numbers spot and put fish in the boat right away again with stickbaits.

My dad was up Mon. and Tues. for a couple days on the water. We decided to look for a big fish first and eaters later which turned out to be a good plan. He is pictured below with a 28 inch fish that gobbled a willow cat in about 6 fow.. The second pic is a sauger that went 21 inches and was caught pulling a #5 rap on a shallow bar. Jumping around put a few fish in the boat on Monday with double raps, longlining and anchoring with bait all getting a few. Tuesday was an absolute peach of a day with great temps and light breezes. Tell that to the walleyes as we scrounged up a few but this day was conquered by drum and white bass. Everywhere we fished these fish were on a mission.

Our best crankbait colors the last couple days have been crawdad patterns. The firetiger or clown colors got top honors on the three way rigs and for a bigger fish it is still hard to beat the real thing(willow cats, crawlers or leaches).

A great past few days and with the warmer temps summer patterns are in our near future.

04/27/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:55 Level:5.6

The river is in great shape with very normal spring conditions. Water levels and temps are all about where they should be.

I have only been on the water once in the last eleven days as I still am waiting on motor repairs. "Fisherman must have great patience", I keep repeating this over and over and over. I did fish with Dave Reinke and his crew on Sat. the 21rst. Thanks to Gary who provided a Warrior boat with a 60 Hp Merc tiller that got us nicely out and back. We really had to scrounge for the fish we did catch. We stuck with rapalas most of the day and managed a few fish but an overall tougher day than I have been used to as of late.

Getting back in my own ride will provide a more detailed report next week.

04/19/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:49 Level:6.4

This report was originally going to include today's trip but due to boat repairs today's trip did not happen. A bad week to be off the water but a small bump in the road none the less. We finally are getting the heat we need to push the walleyes through the spawn. The roller gates on the dam have been put back in the water and the water temps should stretch into the 50's today.

My day last Saturday was spent with Ken Tufte, Scott Wangen and Matt Reichel. When we met at Bay Point Park at 10 am Sat. it looked like a convention. Too many trailers to count filled both parking lots and lined both sides of the street for hundreds of yards. I knew this would make for an interesting day.

Finding a little less current this trip out meant that fish that had been pinned tight to the first shoreline current seam have slid out and are occupying multiple breaks in the same area. Same general area but a different specific area kind of thing. We were able to catch enough for this crew to take home and threw back a few as well. Ken, Scott and Matt are pictured with a few they took home. A very fun trio to fish with, thanks guys!

Monday morning I was joined by father son team Gary and Matt Anderson. We ran the same program as Saturday with similar results. Finding fish had spread out a little further yet wasn't a surprise as the current continues to lessen. Gary and Matt are pictured below with another very nice bunch of pool 4 saugers.

The one constant this spring has been the production of the clown colored #9 original rapala fished in the front of the double 3-way rig. We have tried many different color and size combos and always come back to this one. Just an esimate but of the many fish caught on this rig this spring about 80% have fallen for the front clown bait.

04/13/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:39 Level:8.0

Conditions haven't changed alot in the last few days. Windy cold conditions have greeted us everyday holding the water temps down in the 30's. Water levels are still up nicely but slowly receding. The bite remains very good for numbers and big girls are showing up on occasion.

I spent my day Tuesday with Andy and Jim Walsh both from Wisconsin. Both are very experienced big water fisherman but wanted to learn another river trick to put in their arsenal. Three-ways were the order for the morning. The plan was to fish bait first and put a few in the boat and go from there. The fish had other plans, after about an hour and a half and reanchoring numerous times we had 0 fish. We had a few fish show interest but swings and misses were all we came up with when we set the hook.

We pulled up stakes and switched to pulling rapalas, the presentation that Andy and Jim were so eager to learn. We were able to connect almost immediately and had very, very steady action for the rest of the morning. About 30 fish to the boat by noon in the 15 to 21 inch class is really alot of fun.

Afternoon was spent throwing jigs to shallow breaks with a few low 20 inch fish taken. Very windy conditions made this a challenge but a few takers made it worthwhile. Thanks to both for a great day.

Thursday and Friday I was joined by my old buddy Kirk Henry from North Dakota. We would basically stay with these two methods of fishing throughout the two day period. Jumping back and forth from raps to jig throwing kept us in fish both days with a couple dandies showing up on jigs.

On Thursday we decided to do a little experimenting. Kirk had raised the question the day before about using spinners in the river, something I quite honestly had never tried. Why not? After catching saugers almost at will on raps we switched out the back hook on Kirks rod to a spinner rig and a minnow and mine to a bare hook and a ringworm. After working our baits back into the seem that had been so productive before, we hooked fish simultaneously and low and behold they were both on our trailing baits. One on a spinner and one on a ringworm/barehook.

Kirk is fun to fish with, a very good stick who keeps me honest with his ability to fish moving water. Shown below are some of the decent fish we have caught over the last few days.

Andy Walsh with a decent eye, next are 21 and 23 inch eyes from Kirk Henry. The best fish of the run was caught by Kirk and shown in the next Photo, a 27 inch fish that upon close examination is just spewing eggs. Kirks sportsmanship shined brightly when he decided to pass on checking her weight because of his concern for her condition. This was no doubt his personal best fish, with her belly she would have been in the upper 8 pound class. Lastly, I am pictured with an empty bellied female that hit the tape at 27 inches and showed the wear and tear of the spawn by her bloody tail.

04/09/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:38 Level:9.1

Holy smokes, it feels like January again. Just when you think winter is over it rears its ugly head. Way below normal temps from last week have driven our water temps down from 45 to 37. The spawn was just on the brink of going into full swing but the fall back in temps will make the process a more drawn out affair. Fish seem to be on the rebound from their culture shock they received from the cool down.

After a 4 day break from the water and needing a fix, I made a call to friend and fellow river rat Greg Vandemark. We both knew that 7 am Saturday was going to be chilly but 17 degrees and 20 mph nw winds = NASTY. Not much competition at the boat ramp this am.

We started our day pitching jigs and hit pay dirt quickly in our second spot. A 22.5 inch sauger I am pictured with hit a chartreuse/green core rinworm throw to a current break about 12 feet deep. I think we made about 10 casts to this spot and had to vacate due to the wind that was hitting us right in the face. We were off to find fish in a more protected area and that we did. After searching out shallow areas with no success we settled in on a little deeper water. Observing hooks on the electronics forced us to be persistant in one specific area. Greg found the winning combo for this day with a 5/8th oz. plain leadhead jig and a firecracker/chart tail paddle tail. We tried many other combinations but always came back to this one. If you didn't have this rig on you didn't get bit.

Greg is pictured below with a couple of the better fish of the day. Only about 10 fish for the day but some nice quality. Four fish in the 22 to 23 inch range and the rest 16 to 19.

Greg is a wealth of knowledge and a very good stick, truly one of the good guys. He runs "Vandy's Guide Service" out of Wabasha, Mn. and does it for the right reasons. Thanks Greg.

Easter morning our winds were still there but less than Sat.. Bob Anstiss from Shoreview MN. was my guest for the morning. Bob has a lot of big water experienc but new to the river so a crash course in a couple different presentations was the order for the morning.

We spent the first hour casting a shallow current edge with plastics. Now if you were going to order your first river fish it would naturally be a 30 inch, 10 pounder. We didn't quite get there but Bob's first river walleye was pretty decent. He is pictured below with a solid fish in the 5 lb range that was fooled by a 1/4 oz head with a chart/pepper ringworm. One other 19 incher and a smallmouth bass in this area and we were off to check the bait bite.

Bob and I dropped the anchor on a current edge in about 10 fow and began casting light rigs with minnows. About an hour and a half was spent in this area which yielded 4 quality saugers, 1 19" eye and another smallmouth bass. By this point in the morning we could actually feel our hands again. With only a short time left in our morning we wanted to finish with a little more casting. In our last spot we hooked up almost immediatly with a good male eye about 21 inches and another good upper teens sauger. Both fish came on chart/pepper ringworms.

We covered quite a bit of ground in Bob's five hour crash course of River Fishing 101. The fish cooperated which is always helpful. Thanks to Bob another very quick study.

I did go solo in the afternoon and found the rapala bite very good in the late afternoon for numbers of fish.

04/03/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:42.5 Level:8.84

After a one day break, I was back on the river Sunday and Monday. The water level is still creeping upward but the temps have fallen backwards just a touch. The clarity is now very good for spring conditions and the bite remains excellent!

I got and early start on Sunday with Joe Wolf and Jack Palek, both from the Chicago area. They were staying at the resort for a few days with some friends and a fish fry had already been planned. Our goal was to catch some fish and learn a couple different ways to go about it.

We started our day achored throwing the same light bait rigs I have been using as of late. After just a couple of hours we had managed to catch the fish needed for the fry. Joe had expressed extreme interest in the rapala technique that I talk so much about so a quick change of tackle and we were off and catching fish. We pulled these double rap rigs upstream with the electric motor in the same area we had been catching fish achored and casting. The results were similar but our size of fish increased dramatically. These are the results I talk about so often. As a rule, stickbaits will entice the bigger fish in the school when fished correctly. I am not saying that it is my go to way to catch giant walleyes but I will say it will cull the larger fish out of higher current areas. A killer for big saugers.

With only a small part of the day left we spent the last hour and a half pitching jigs to some flooded shorelines. You would never guess what we found------more saugers. I guess I'll take that kind of disappointment anytime. Joe and Jack didn't make the pics below due to low batteries in the camera. Thanks to both for an enjoyable day.

Sunday I was visited by past partners Randy, Danny, and their dad Larry Vicker. We ran the same program as the day before. Catching fish on bait in the morning and swithching to raps in the afternoon. This day saw the raps make a HUGE difference in size. The bait bite had come to a crawl about 10:30 so we switched over and saw the rapala rigs really shine. We saw some of the quickest action I have seen all year. The bite went from slow to absoulutely on fire and our sauger size was incredible.

We caught fish on every color and size rapala we put in the water from #5's to #9's and six different colors that I can remember. Many fish in the 18 to 19 inch range with 20 to 22 inchers making a showing. We did hold a couple of larger fish for the picture below. This was done in a livewell running to the max to keep them in very good shape to be released after the photo.

Another great day with the Vickers, they assure me it won't be the last.

03/31/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:44 Level:8.52

This report will cover my trips Thursday and Friday. The conditions have continued to improve. The water temp has leveled off at about 44 and the clarity is about 6 inches. The level has continued to rise but is or was about to crest. That will change I'm sure as it is absolutely pouring down rain as I make this post.

Thursday was day 2 with the brothers Klanchnik. All were in favor of starting our day like we spent most of Wednesday, anchoring, throwing light bait rigs and catching fish. John got us rolling immediatly with the 21 inch fish pictured below. This was the first of many as our pattern was again productive for good numbers of 15 to 21 inch fish.

I must mention that a critical part of both days has been the ability to run in to Evert's Resort for a little shelter. Our weather has been windy and wet and I know that on Wednesday we were about to pull the pin on the day and quit about 1 o'clock. Instead of quitting, I suggested a trip to the resort for a warm up and a cup of coffee. The guys came out of there warmed up ready for a couple more hours. This short afternoon trip produced the best quality and quickest bite of our two day run, and just try to pay for a cup of coffee down there. Dean flat out gets pissed if you try to pony up for free coffee.

The bottom line is you get honest info, a guy that keeps a great attitude even after answering the same question a hundred times a day and stocks exactly what you need to catch fish on the river. Hats off sir.

Thanks to the Klanchnik brothers who took the two day trip with me instead of going on their normal up north outing.

On Friday I entertained or was entertained by the Francis family from South St. Paul. Matt and Mike had given their dad Kay a trip with me for his 70th birthday. Mike was along just to run the video camera while Matt and Kay did the fishing. I must say they did a fine job. For the better part of 4 hours I pretty much just sat back and watched these two catch fish hand over fist. These guys kept me busy with the net most of the time but did let me catch a few.

After taking Mike and Kay in around noon Matt and I went back out for a short run. We concentrated on pulling Rapalas and were able to coax quite a few fish to the boat this way as well. Orange seemed to be the color of choice for this presentation.

I think the highlight of the day was Matt catching a decent sauger on the lone Bullhead he found in the minnow bucket. Yes it was a Bullhead not a Willow Cat. The last picture below shows this fish with the Bullhead still attached. The middle frame is Kay with a decent fish. Thanks to your crew Matt for a great day and again sorry for mental block I had at days end.

03/28/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:44 Level:7.95

Finally, in just a couple of days, the bite has went from bad to pretty darn good. The water clarity is still pretty poor (about 5 inches) but good enough for the fish. That along with a jump in water temps seems to have jump started the bite.

Monday was spent searching spots I normally find fish this time of year. Pulling raps on three ways and vertically jigging turned up nothing again. Late in the day we decided to drop the anchor and cast light three way rigs with minnows to shallow current seems. This prooved to be the start of a pattern that was productive for the rest of the day Monday and the full day today. About a half dozen legal fish in the last hour and a half of Mondays outing and 35 legal fish today. No giants as of yet but gobs of 17 to 19 inch fish with an occasional 20 or 21 incher. Mostly saugers for my boat with an occasional walleye showing up.

A 3/8th oz bell sinker anchoring a three foot lead to a plain hook and a minnow cast deep and allowed to swing shallow in the current has been a killer for most all fish. Most fish have been taken in water less than 12 feet deep. Mark, John and Tom Klanchnik are showing off some of our Wednesdays catch and Tom is pictured with a 21 incher he coaxed to the boat.

Life is again good after a pretty tough stretch.

03/24/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:38 Level:6.0

The only way I can title this report is UGLY. This pretty much sums up the conditions and the bite for the last few days. A flush of cold dirty water is making its way downstream from the Minnesota River. Water temps dipped back down to the mid 30s and visability as of Friday pm was about 2 inches. The bite for my boat has been non existant in two half day trips Thursday and Friday.

That is the bad news. On the upside this could and should change quickly with the warm temps we have had and are going to have. Stay tuned as I will hopefully have a report about the bite making an abrupt turnaround in the next week.

03/15/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:38 Level:

I was able to spend Tuesday and Wednesday on the river this week. The water is rising each day and so far the area above the Vermillion River to the dam remains in very good shape. Water clarity is about a foot and as of Thursday PM is free of much trash. This will obviously change from day to day but has the makings for a great spring. The flow has more than doubled in the last week which is very welcome.

Tony Snook and I spent two days fishing a variety of ways. We caught more fish Tuesday on three-ways and rapalas than any other way but the size was very small. Our best fish pushed 5 lbs and was caught pitching sand and was the lone ranger as far as better fish go. Wednesday we found a handfull of legal fish on a variety of methods. One here and one there type of thing. Vertical jigging, pitching and rapalas all took a fish or two but nailing a pattern never happened.

I personally would rate the bite very fair for our last couple days. Things will change daily as the spring fling is knocking at our door. The next few weeks will be an exciting time to be on the water.

02/22/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level: 1.8

It felt like spring on the river Wednesday. Being on the river with temps in the 40's and sun is a great way to shake off cabin fever. The water clarity is now about 5 feet and makes for great viewing with the underwater camera but makes the daytime bite a little tough.

We launched the boat shortly after noon knowing the first few hours would be spent mainly investigating downriver areas. Doing homework now, so to speak, that will hopefully pay dividends later. Also, still very cool to see the underwater world so clearly.

After fishing a couple spots late in the day with no luck, the dusk to dark bite that we were counting on didn't disappoint. We drug ringworms on 3/32 oz. jigs upstream in 8-12 fow and had a frantic bite for about an hour. Most of our catch was made up of 16 to 18 inch saugers that had our baits completely inhaled to the point of not being able to even see the jighead. This bite stopped as quickly as it started when complete darkness set in. Jigs with bait also did some damage Wednesday for a few others reporting in.

Cloudy days and morning/evening periods will put the odds in your favor this time of year. That's not to say fish can't be caught on sunny days in gin clear water because they will be. Just try to include one of the other ingredients to make your work a little easier.

01/30/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level: 1.8

Not much to report on as I have only had one trip to the river since my last update. Last Thursday was spent on pool 4 and by days end we had few fish to show for our efforts. Water clarity is now about 4 feet which made for some great underwater viewing with the Aqua-Vu camera.

We spent most of the day working over one specific area that had good numbers of walleyes and a few saugers but could not get any to react to various offerings. Very interesting viewing in a few different areas kept us busy for the rest of the day. Not much catching but always a learning experience when you're able to actually see on camera the bottom of a river normally too murky to view.

It looks like we will be in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future which means no fishing. During these times I will occasionally elaborate on certain presentations or tactics that I have success with. I will try not to beat old topics to death and only write about things that I feel will benefit the average river fisherman. I feel failures as well as successes need to be included in these topics and feel this is one area most people don't cover. We learn or at least should learn as much or more from failure as we do success. In the future I may add a seperate section to the site dedicated specifically to these topics ("River Tactics" or "Artcles") but for now will just add them in the reports section.

The presentaion I would like to visit in this section is "Three-way Rigging Stick Baits". This is a presentaion I have spent extensive time with and feel is a must know for anyone that spends much time on the river. Simply one of the most deadly ways to put numbers in the boat.

The method itself is effective in many situations but it really shines as the current flows increase and water temps are in the 38-55 degree range. It will work outside of these temps but typically would be out performed by other presentations. A general calendar time frame for this would be mid October through mid May on the upper part of the Mississippi River.

The tackle needed for this application is actually pretty simple. There are variations of this that will also work but I will steer you toward the tackle that works best for me. Starting with a decent graphite casting rod of at least 6'6", I use a 7 foot Med/Heavy. A casting reel with a flippin' switch is a must if you are to fish this technique like I do. Another must have in my opinion is some kind of hard line on this reel such as Fireline or Power Pro. I use 10/4 Berkley Fireline on all rods used for pulling sticks. Next in line is a good three-way swivel that actually will swivel if the need arises, if it doesn't this can lead to time consuming foul ups. This is tied directly to the Fireline coming from the rod. Off the second eye of the swivel is tied a 10 to 15 inch piece of 6 - 8 lb. mono. to which is attached a bell sinker of 1/2 to 5 ozs. depending on depth and current. The light mono is critical on the sinker leader, it is easily broken off when a snag occurs. This allows only the 50 cent sinker to be lost rather than crankbaits and all. To the third eye of the swivel I attach a 36 to 40 inch piece of 12 lb. mono of some sort. I have been using Berkley Vanish as of late. The key is at least 12 lb. with good abrasion resistance. At the end of this first leader is a stick bait of some sort. Most often it is an Original Floating Rapala in size 7 or 9. Now this is where most people stop but I, about 90% of the time, will add a second Rapala. Tied on the back eye of the first Rap. is another piece of 12 lb. line. Not to the split ring but to the back eye. This lead needs to be 12 to 18 inches long and attached to the eye of another Rap., preferrably to a different color than the first.(If this all seemed confusing, hopefully the picture below will help clarify)

Most people's first question is why the second bait. It is my experience that on many days, especially in colder water (38-45 deg.),the first bait catches alot of the fish. It may seem odd that this bait will catch fish at all after watching it's action along side the boat. It has virtually no action at all. The tension from the second bait pulling backward on the first takes almost all the wiggle out of the lead bait. There are many days that the actionless first bait will catch most if not all the fish. The bottom line is that it gives the fish a choice of 2 different actions at once.

One point I need to stress is the observation of the baits upon first putting them in the water. Knot placement on the baits is key in not having a bait that spins in circles and creates a mess. Drop your baits in the water and let them swim beside the boat at the same speed you will be moving upriver. If your baits run straight and do not spin you are ready to catch fish, but if your bait wants to spin when drawn upstream you need to examine your knot. If the knot is off to one side of the baits eye it needs to be pulled straight. This should take care of your problem.

The presentation can be applied in a few different situations. Wing dams with moderate to high flow, deep bars and stretches of river where current seems meet drop offs(my favorite). A good starting point is speed. Begin by moving upriver at a pace slower than a walk. If you think your going to slow, slow down some more. The majority of the fish I catch using this presentation are caught while the bait is hovering motionless in the current or even falling backwards. Frequent pauses with the boat or even sliding sideways while crawling very slowly upstream are deadly. This is why higher current situations make this so productive. Even with a boat just holding in the current, making no progress upstream your back bait will have good action. The biggest mistake people make in my eyes is going too fast. This is more of a finesse presention than it gets credit for, when fished light and slow as I believe it is most effective.

Sinker size is very, very important. I can remember many days where a 1/2 oz. change in sinker size was the difference in catching fish or not catching fish. When I lift my sinker off the bottom and drop it back, I want to have the feeling that I just barely have enough sinker to keep in touch with the bottom. I think this lets the bait swim with better action than a heavier sinker that gives you the feeling of a big thump when dropped back to the bottom. A line angle of 45 degrees is a starting point but in snag free areas you will see me with more angle(farther back)rather than less.

Experiment to see what works for you, but if you use these guidelines I am confident you will succeed. One of the biggest keys to this or anything new is try it when the fish are going. Don't make your first attempt at this when things are slow. Put the odds in your favor and I think you will find this not only effective but a truly fun way to catch fish. If any of you have any questions about this technique or anything else you read about on this site, please feel free to call or send an E-mail. Go to the Contact Info tab or click on the Contact Us line on the bottom of any page for the numbers.

01/12/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level: 1.8

Just a quick report on my trip from Wed.(1/10). I had heard good things from some sources on the river that the bite has continued to be good but the preferred method had switched a little. People in the know have been having great luck dragging ringworms on light jigs.

Obviously my plan for Wed. was to take that info. and put it into play. Well the weather had other plans for us on this very blustery day. We made a very strong attempt at this presentation but ol' mother nature thought otherwise. Dragging light jigs is very dependant on precise speed control and that was just not possible with the 20-30 mph Southeast winds that we were greeted with on this day. Plan B was now in effect.

We went back to a deeper vertical presentation in areas with less wind with some success. We managed a few decent fish but found the reports of fewer numbers deep to be pretty accurate. Don't be discouraged by this as big numbers can still be had if you are willing to try something a little different. Our hands were somewhat tied today with the wind but I am truly looking forward to the next slight warm up. With the clear water of late winter upon us the dragging bite I mentioned earlier will be something I will check on every time out until spring. Vertically jigging and casting will also have their times so don't get stuck in a rut(note to self).

That's all for now but I will try to post every 10 days or so as weather permits.

01/02/07--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level: 1.8

The first report of the new year brings more good news from Red Wing. Although this report is from my last two trips, which were in 2006, the bite remains good.

With friends from Iowa coming to help us ring in the new year it wouldn't have been right not to make a couple trips to the river. Doug (Billy) Sims and son Garet came along with Bridger and I on Thursday to experience a little Miss. River fishing. After getting to our first spot and bringing them up to speed on what had been working the best, we started our first drift. Before I had a jig to the bottom, "Billy" calls for the net and I had the chance to scoop up a fat 19" sauger. This was the first of many caught in the same manner as on previous trips. I have started my last few trips the same way with fish in the boat in the first few minutes. This does wonders for your confidence in a spot.

Garet caught his first sauger but I'll bet not his last and also had a fish nearly rip the rod out of his hand. I wasn't able to get the expression on camera but trust me it was histerical to see in person.

We had good numbers of nice saugers again vertically jigging plastics in 22-28 fow.

We returned to the river on Sunday morning for a short and soggy trip which produced a few decent fish but we found our downriver bite a little slower than before.

I have concentrated my last 4 or 5 trips away from the dam area. Although it always produces fish there are many downstream areas that also produce good numbers at certain times.

Bridger and Garet are pictured below showing off some of our catch.

12/20/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:37 Level: 1.8

"Sauger-Mania continues on Pool 4 at Red Wing" is how I can best describe my last 2 outings.

My son Bridger and I slipped away for a half day trip on Saturday. We found the bite just as I had left it the other day. In our first 5 minutes Bridger and I doubled up on the 19 inchers pictured below. We were off and running from there. Various baits caught fish but Smoke/glitter or White/glitter Gene Larew Long Johns caught most of the fish today. We connected with fish in 22 to 24 fow early but the majority came from the 28 foot depths.

Tuesday Bob K was back with Dave Pierzina. This was a last minute trip with just a few hours in the afternoon to kill. We started in an area that had given up a few fish in previous trips and came up with a big goose egg on one drift. With the short time we had it was off to the area that had been producing so well in past trips. In the matter of 2 hours in this spot we had boated the 12 fish Bob and Dave wanted to take home along with quite a few other eater sized fish.

Again chart/pepper was a great color as was blue/white. Pictured below are Bob and Dave with a good sample of the fish we caught and in the following picture some of the baits that have been consistent producers over the last few weeks.

After the fish were cleaned and Bob and Dave had departed, Dean Marshall and I had about an hour and a half to do some evening casting. We had about 6 decent fish come to the boat on a variety of baits. Blades, K-grubs and ringworms all took a fish or two on this warmer than avg. December evening.

That's all till after Christmas. To all who have fished with me or read my posts, have a great holiday season!

12/15/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level: 1.8

As promised I have included some deer pics from my hunt last weekend. No monsters but some solid deer non the less. The first picture is of Tony Snook with a deer he shot on our first drive Sat. morning. This deer is in the 140's. The deer I am pictured with was shot on the same drive and is in the 130's. Our best deer of the season was taken by Dan Storck and was rough scored in the low 150's. This is the last picture shown below. Steve Krakow is also shown with another decent deer that had a piece of the left side of his rack missing.

This was just another good hunt for our group this year. We truly have a great bunch of hunters that work hard and hunt safely. The area we hunt in Southeast Iowa has a fantastic deer population and is full of trophy class bucks. We are fortunate to have access to such a great area. Oh, the fishing-read on.

Just when I think the fishing can't get any better, it does. Thursday I had Bob Klocek(Mound) and Errol Stai(Carver) join me for a day on the river. We were greeted by temps in the 40's,West winds and hungry fish.

The plan for the day was to build Errol's confidence in fishing plastics. He has a lot of river experience but like most has relied on bait much of the time. I had about 5 areas we would fish throughout the day. Spending an hour or two in each, without returning to fish any twice, was the plan.

Vertical jigging various plastic baits baits proved effective in all spots we fished before noon. A few fish here and a few there kept us pretty busy all morning. Upon arriving at the what turned out to be the last stop of the day we truly hit the mother load. For the last couple of hours in the day we literally caught 16 to 18 inch fish at will. Holding baits a few inches off the bottom and dragging downstream both produced. By days end 55 fish from 15 to 19 inches had come to the boat along with many, many shorties. Somewhere in the 80 to 100 fish total for a day is pretty impressive on any body of water.

Best depths were 20-28'. Baits that were hot included Super doos, long johns(Gene Larew), and paddle tails. Chart/pepper, blue and white, catalpa orange and smoke/glitter all fished on 1/4 or 5/16 oz. jigs of various colors caught fish.

Mission accomplished as Errol left way more confident in plastics than when he came. He stocked up at Everts Resort with some of our hotter baits before leaving. I must say that Dean is keeping a very good supply of what a guy needs to be successful on the river. Thanks to Bob and Errol for entertaining me all day long. It was a riot watching those two having that much fun. Hopefully I will have one more report before Christmas.

12/05/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level: 1.8

Only one trip to report on this week. The cold has arrived in force and you kind of have to pick and choose the right day to slip out and get your walleye fix.

Tom Klanchnik and I got out for a short run on Tuesday. "Wow" is all I can say about the suicidal bite that took place on Pool 4 on this day. We were looking for some solid eaters to take home and found them rather quickly. We caught and kept a dozen 16 to 18 inch fish and caught and released that many more all in the course of a couple hours. This along with a host of small fish made it quite a frenzy for the short time we were out.

This was not a total surprise as the water temp has fallen about 6 degrees and I would speculate a new wave of fish have moved upriver. A strong south breeze and cold temps kept us in only one area by the dam but I would suspect other areas would have been the same. Vertically jigging 1/4 oz. dark heads and chart/pepper superdoos were a killer combination. A motionless presentation with a slight twitch of the rod tip every now and then must have driven them crazy. The hits were fast and very aggressive.

A warm weekend forecast and colder water temps should have the deck shuffled in the fishermens favor. I am off to Iowa for our annual shotgun deer season and am looking forward to having a gun in my hand for a few days. Kind of like a walleye fix only hunting this time. I will be taking the camera along and with any luck will have some deer pics to go along with the next report.

Just a side note, Everts Resort is the only show in town as far as open ramps go. All others in Red Wing and the back channel ramp are frozen tight. Dean Marshall is the manager there and provides a great service through out the winter.

11/28/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:42 Level: 2.0

Thought I had better make one more November report. Hard to believe the best month of the year is about over. Mild temps have made fishing trips after dark very manageable.

My last two trips have been afternoon/early evening forays with casting jigs the primary focus. Sunday my son and I had a flurry of action from 5 - 6:30 pm. The bite was sporadic with short flurries being the norm. Casting 1/8th oz. black jigs with oystershell ringworms resulted in the fish we caught and many that hit aggressively and were missed. I am pictured with with our two best for the evening, both of which are 25 inches and weighed 7 pounds.

I also pictured Bridger with each to show a couple of interesting characteristics of each. The first fish shows signs of being a Saugeye. A very small white tip on the tail and very noticeable spots on the side are good indicators. The second one has a white tip on the bottom and on the top of the tail which is also kind of unique.

Monday was about the same situation. Jeff Malz and I hit the water about noon and found the casting action slow until about 3 o'clock. We had a few hookups before sunset with 16 to 19 inch fish before returning to the area from the previous evening. The wind from the east made our work a little more difficult but we did manage a few more nice fish. Jeff sized up one size to fight the wind and it paid off for him. The adjustment resulted in the largest fish of the night, caught on a 3/16th oz. plain lead head and a firecracker tail. Jeff is pictured below with his fish that mirrors the ones from the previous evening. Other fish again came on oystershell tails while other color experiments produced nothing.

That's all till December.

11/23/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:42 Level: 2.0

This report covers a ten day span with alot of things happening. We have seen a decline and a raise in the water temp. We slid to 40 deg. on the 18th but with the warm weather raised back to 42 as of today. My trips have included pitching, dragging and vertically jigging. All will put fish in the boat fished at the right times and places.

Tuesday of last week I spent the afternoon strictly throwing jigs. I had an ideal day for this as it was cloudy and calm. I had a decent number of eyes come to the boat with most being in the 17 to 20 inch range. One larger fish for this day(seen below) taped at 26.5 inches and was in the 7.5 lb range. Most all the eyes and about 14 nice crappies came on firecracker ringworms fished on wingdams and rip rap.

My son and I arrived at Evert's Resort Saturday afternoon in time to catch the evening flurry. We didn't get on the water till about 4:15 and fished for only about an hour. In this hour we caught a dozen or so fish with 6 being in the 15 to 20 inch range. We caught these fish dragging 1/8th oz jigs and ringworms slowly upstream on a sand flat in 8 to 12 fow. Sunday we spent most of the day vertically jigging with superdoos. We found no color that we couldn't catch fish on but 3/16th oz. orange heads with chartreuse pepper tails were the best. One rule of thumb, sunshine goes well with chart/pepper no matter what the application this time of year. A three man limit of very nice saugers were the catch for the day.

Mon. - Wed. I fished with long time fishing partner Larry Fiser. Now things are never dull with "Fize" in the boat. We set out the first day to just catch a bunch of fish, and that we did. We found many many fish willing to eat on this day ! 5/16th blue heads with chart/pepper or purple superdoos were the ticket. A few 19 to 21 inch saugers and many 15 to 18 inchers fell for the plastics held motionless about 6 inches off the bottom. Towards evening we switched to throwing ringworms to shallow rocks and found the walleyes very cooperative for the last hour of the day. Larry is pictured below with two limits carefully selected on this day. Larger than 19 inches and smaller than 17 went back in the water. These were the only fish kept in his three day stay. About 35 fish over 15 inches and many many smaller ones were the count for this day

Tuesday and Wednesday we spent most of our time throwing jigs. We found very good action early and late in the day but the midday bite for us was slow. We checked the vertical bite only a couple times for short periods on these days but found it still strong.

Also pictured below is a 21 inch sauger that weighed in at 4.3 lbs and a Flathead that also liked a superdoo(27.5 lbs). The walleye bite is good and getting better, the sauger bite is fantastic. I had better go put the bird in the oven as it is Thanksgiving day.( Boy am I thankful for pool 4)!!!!

11/12/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:46 Level: 2.1

The fishing on Pool 4 remains excellent. The population of fish in this stretch of the Mississippi is still mind boggling. Every November is the same. Many fish show up at every dam on the river, but no other area even comes close to matching the numbers and quality we see here.

I was able to spend last Mon. and Tues. with my dad. I never have any trouble coaxing him up for a visit this time of year. We spent the mornings vertically jigging. These two days we used primarily ring worms, with blues and purples the preference on cloudy days and chartreuse pepper the ticket on the sunny days. Simply finding the bottom with your jig and then raising the bait a few inches and holding it as still as possible, produced hits that were impossible to go undetected. This method was all we needed to lure dozens of fish in the 15-20 inch range to the boat. We did spend some time casting which also produced a handfull of walleyes and still a fair number of crappies. Ring worms were still the bait for this presentation also.

Tuesday was going to be picture day but we had a battery issue, oops. A good excuse for a return trip? You bet!

This past Sat. and Sun. I was visited by an old friend and fishing buddy Scott Krakow aka "Muskrat". Scott and I use to make annual trips to various places chasing walleyes. This was his first trip to the Red Wing area.

Scott and I decided to start our day on Saturday dragging light jigs with ring worms. A little tip the previous week from Dean Marshall at Everts Resort letting us know that this trick had been working was not a lie. We put a few good fish in the boat in the first hour of the day using this technique. Thanks Dean for putting the bug in my ear. The rest of the morning we went back to vertical with ring worms. We had great success again with this method. We spent a short time in the afternoon casting with little to show for our efforts.

Sunday we were greeted with hard south winds that were very cold. We opted for an area out of the wind. The fish here re sponded better to hair jigs with a minnow. By 10:30 we had boated a limit of nice eaters and released a few more. When my partner mentioned fish for lunch, I jumped. We ended the morning at noon and wrapped up another very successful day and a half on the water. I did snap a quick picture of Scott with a good sample of our catch.

Again, the methods I used were not the only way to catch 'em. I talked with an old buddy from down Dubuque way who has been on Pool 4 quite a bit lately. He has been using a single rapala on a three way rig and doing very well. Casting to the rocks is also working well for those looking for walleyes. This method hasn't been a numbers thing but larger fish and primarily walleyes will be the take.

Pick a presentation and go to it. As the water temp slides toward the lower 40's and upper 30's the fish will continue to feed hard and fishing will be great.

11/03/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:44 Level: 2.0

Quite a while between reports due to computer problems. Not to fear though as good friend and computer guru Willie Macris has me up and running again. A small change to the thumbnail images will not only sharpen them but will also make the site load faster.

Quite a bit of time on the water since my last update. I will try to hit the high points. Last week (Thursday) was spent splitting time between vertical jigging in the morning and casting in the afternoon. Decent numbers and good quality on both presentations. Jeff Malz pictured below with one of our better eyes for the day. Most of these fish were in the 19-23 inch range and caught on ring worms or hair jigs on the face of a wingdam. Also some nice crappies in the mix that day.

Friday I was able to take a couple guys fishing who had never been before. Mike Dumoulin, his son Josh and Tom Klanchnik. Tom you have seen in previous reports but Mike and Josh are new to the river. I have a feeling you may see them again by their reactions to the day. We spent a half day on the water catching many nice sauger. Vertically jigging with hair jigs and minnows kept us busy most of the time. Below you will see the father and son team with a sample of our days catch.

Thursday (Nov.02) I made a solo run to the river and found the bite to be very good. My time was spent mostly jigging but did pull rapalas for a short time. Both ways caught fish but purple hair jigs were the hot ticket on this day.

Friday I was joined by Dennis OBrien from St. Charles IL. We spent the morning vertically jigging in two different areas. We really had a slow start with a few nice saugers showing up early. Finally a switch to a purple hair jig with a white head seamed to trigger a flurry of action. We ended up with about 15 fish in the 16 to 20 inch range along with a host of smaller fish. After we were done I made the comment "I thought it was kind of a slow morning". I then looked at our numbers and quality and realized how spoiled we get in pool 4. A 30 fish morning with about half being nice eaters and some of those on the large side. Life is good! Dennis is pictured below with a couple of our fish.

It is November, the bite is good, go to the river!!!

10/21/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:50 Level: 2.2

I think I will title this report "KIDS/BIG SAUGERS". I spent two days last week fishing with my son Bridger. The third day we were joined by the Sackers, Jeremy and his son Brant. To say the fish have turned on would be and understatement.

We started day one near the dam using three-way/rapala rigs. This method was all we needed to put many many fish in the boat. Saugers from 16-19 inches were the norm with an occasional 20+ inch fish thrown in. We stayed on this pattern most of the day to just get our fill of "catching".

On day two we vacated the dam area to find a less crowded bite. We started a little slow until we found the right combination for the day. Pulling #7 chartreuse shad raps with lead core line was found to be the ticket for the day. The fish were in a stretch of river that was 10 to 13 feet deep with the key area being a few feet deeper. Shortening our trolling passes to this one smaller stretch was the key to our success. The fish wanted the baits tolled at just over 1mph through this area. Bridger is pictured below with a true beast that weighed in at 5 pounds straight up.

The third day had the Sackers joining us. We headed right back to our spot from the previous day. Literally three minutes into our first run Brant landed another brute. This fish tipped the scales at 4.5 lbs. Brant is pictured below with his giant.

This bite did slow for us so we went upriver to finish the day. We spent the rest of the afternoon near the dam fishing vertically with jigs and bait. We found the jig bite to be a good way to spend the rest of the day with the kids showing up the adults again. I wouldn't have it any other way. Brant and Bridger are shown below with some of the fish we kept. All larger fish went back into the river.

The moral of this story is go to the river and take a kid with you if you can. The bite is officially on and many different ways will take fish.

10/13/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:51 Level: 1.41

Kory Isley and I ventured to the river on Tuesday of this past week. We took a late morning/afternoon trip. Temps in the 60's with light breezes made for a very enjoyable day.

We split time between trolling cranks on leadcore and casting. We had very good luck trolling cranks, with #7 shad raps taking all of our fish. Color was not a factor on this day as long as it was a #7 rap. Size really did matter again on this day.

Trolling in 12-15fow near the head of lake pepin took most all of our fish. Kory also had top honors with a 14" crappie caught on a hair jig while casting shorelines. Kory is pictured below with a couple of our fish.

John and Pam Noyes and John's dad Dale all joined me on Thursday and Friday. We were greeted by temps in the upper 20's and winds of 20 to 40 mph. Let me tell you these are three tough Iowegians. We made the best of tough conditions by talking of friends and relatives past and present and listening to Dale talk of past trips which he has had many. We did put a few fish in the boat as well all of which were very hard earned.

We used every trick in the book to try and beat the elements. Cranks on lead line, blades, hair jigs and rapalas behind three ways all took a fish or two. Pam is pictured below with a few of our best.

Thanks to all three for making a tough couple of days very enjoyable.

09/30/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:60 Level: 2.0

After spending the last few trips chasing crappies and throwing jigs for walleyes it was time for a change. Tom Klanchnik who you have seen in previous reports joined me for the day. Our main goal was to see if we could put together a consistent trolling pattern of some sort.

We started our day at the head of the lake pulling various colors of SMALL crankbaits. After two empty passes we upscaled just a bit and went with larger baits. This seemed to be the key to getting a few takers. Firetiger #8 Shad Raps pulled at 2.5 mph on leadcore line was what we found to be a good recipe for the morning.

During our first few tolling runs I had made the comment to Tom that we needed to give some bigger baits a try before the morning was over. This thought had stuck in my head after seeing, on previous trips, the clouds of shad that are roaming the system right now. These clouds of baitfish are so thick in certain areas that we actually snagged some inadvertently while casting the shorelines. Making a side by side comparison with Shad raps revealed that the shad were the size of an 8 or 9 Rap.

This may be a pattern that won't last or an accident and there may be others catching fish on the smaller baits. The observation did lead us to work through some things that didn't work and end up with something that did and this is important to success.

We left the trolling pattern late in the morning for the casting bite. Not as many fish casting but a better chance for a good one. We again had a mixed bag casting including smallmouth, crappies and couple good eyes. Black 1/8oz hair jigs for the eyes and crappies again were the best.

Pictured below are a pair of the better saugers one decent eye and the shad I talked of earlier.

09/27/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:61 Level: 1.8

A few trips to the lake have again been a lot alike. On the days I have been out I have been faced with high winds from every direction imaginable. Selecting areas with some protection has been the key to catching the fish I have caught.

The walleyes I have caught have been on crankbaits thrown to the rocks. One here and one there is still the order with numbers being low but quality being decent.

With my dad being in town on Mon. and Tues. of this week and the walleye bite being a little sketchy, we devoted one full day to just crappies. Even with the high winds we were able to put together a good catch with some very nice fish in the mix. The majority of the fish came throwing 1/32 oz tube jigs or 1/8 oz hair. Most fish are in 7-10 fow tight to the bottom. A very slow steady delivery is a must. About 45 fish total with 30 being from 10 - 13 inches.

Below is a sample of Tuesdays catch

09/14/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:65 Level: 1.9

Two trips to the lake this week have yielded similar results. The walleye bite is showing signs of life and the crappie fishing is very good.

Most of my time has been spent on main lake rock shorelines casting a variety of baits. It seems that 1/8th oz bucktail jigs are what's doing the most damage. Casting to 4 to 8 feet of water has been the best. Casting in search of walleyes and catching a lot of everything is how I would describe it.

The walleyes haven't been abundant but the quality is good with fish being from 18 to 23 inches. About 15 - 20 crappies per trip ranging from 10 to 13 inches being the norm. This is happening while staying on the move in search of walleyes. If one were to sit on spots and concentrate on just crappies I believe you could have very large catches.

It seems everything in the lake likes dark colored hair jigs. I have also been throwing a variety of cranks with little walleye interest. I have heard of others getting a few throwing cranks and an occasional good trolling report.

Water temps are on the rise as I write this after dropping to the mid 60's. Cooler weather around the corner should drive the temps back down and the walleyes switches will go off. No pics this time as I was alone. Stay tuned as the fall frenzy is just around the corner!

08/12/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:79 Level: 2.0

By looking at the picture below you will see where my time was spent on Friday. The kids wanted crappies so hunting we went.

We were on main lake rip rap with deep water close by. The breezy conditions we had made us search for areas with some protection. The fish we caught were tight to rocks in 4-8 fow and were very sluggish. Most all were caught on a bare hook and a minnow. I normally swear by small tube jigs but today they wanted something alive. The bite we experienced was not fast but a sample of what will come in the near future.

No, I'm not changing the name of the website to mississippirivercrappies.com and walleyes are still first. I will though take frequent breaks in the next couple months to chase these chunky Lake Pepin crappies. Most fish will run 11 to 13 inches and weigh at or slightly over 1 pound with an occasional fish pushing the 2 pound mark.

Water levels are still low and the walleye bite day to day. While in the river, wing dams and current seems along rip rap that has good current are the best bet. In the lake, cover water with cranks targeting the windward shoreline.

07/31/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:83 Level: 1.7

Thursday of this past week I was joined by Ken Packer and his son Nate. We got along quite well as Ken grew up in Iowa chasing catfish along the banks of the Iowa River about 60 miles upstream from where I grew up.

We started our day around the head of the lake and ended it near the bottom. We came up with only other species at the top end of the lake. We did stop and work over a couple schools of white bass before heading south. We found some willing biters in 16 to 20 feet pulling lead core and blue crankbaits. The action wasn't fast but we did manage a few decent saugers.

Before ending the day the packers wanted to catch a crappie or two if possible. We had little time but we did find a handful of nice fish in one spot. Ken and Nate are pictured below with some of our catch. Thanks again to both.

Friday we took a short trip to Pool 2. About 3 hours of wingdam fishing with cranks and live bait turned up only drum,catfish and white bass.

Saturday it was back to the bottom of the lake. The bite was still not good but again caught a few fish. Craig Knock is pictured below with a decent eye from Saturday. Crankbaits in 15 to 20 fow and speeds around 2 mph are the only way I can get bit. The bite is a bit off right now but you can scrounge up a few with some persistence.

07/26/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:81 Level: 1.8

This report is more of a Devil's Lake report than a river report. I took advantage of an invite from good friends Kirk and Judy Henry from Northwood ND. Kirk was pictured in a previous report(4/19) with a nice sauger taken while visiting in April.

We hit the water early Thursday morning thinking cranks or slip bobbers would be our main presentations as Kirk had done well with these in previous trips. After a couple hours and a few spots behind us and only 2 walleyes Kirk suggested a change to bait. We switched to bottom bouncers with spinners and crawlers or leeches. This together with fishing tight to a flooded road with heavy weeds was the key to our success for the next two days.

We had a good bunch of fish both days. Most walleyes were in the 16 to 21 inch range. An occasional northern and quite a few small walleyes were also in the mix. Most of these were taken in less than 10 feet of water. Thanks to the Henry's for the hospitality and guide service.

My daughter and I made a trip to the lower end of Lake Pepin on Tuesday. We spent our time trolling crankbaits in 8-18 fow. A mixed bag of drum, saugers and walleyes made up our catch. We had a couple decent fish but Karly thought they had a few too many teeth for her young fingers so we opted for the perch picture. We will work her up to the toothy critters by the end of the summer. Also pictured is a 24+ inch walleye from Devil's Lake.

07/13/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:81 Level: 2.0

A couple of trips to the river this week produced similar results. Many fish, just not the right species. The water level is very low but in nice shape clarity wise.

Monday I was out in the afternoon/evening and spent my time in the river. Dragging jigs was the only way I could get bit. I did spend some time pulling cranks but to no avail. Only 4 legal walleyes this trip with the biggest being 22 inches. All fish were caught on crawlers.

Thursday I was joined by Jim and Chuck Baden from Indiana. We spent time in the river and on the lake and found a multi species bonanza. Walleyes, saugers, crappies, bluegills, white bass, mooneye, redhorse, drum and many many catfish came to the boat. We kept pretty busy but I think the Baden's were more impressed with the variety than I was.

When the smoke cleared only 4 decent walleyes were in the well. Two from the river and two from the lake. A big thanks to both Baden's, two very nice and interesting gents.

The last couple trips have been a bit of a challenge and indicates the bite to be somewhat slow but I'm sure a better bite exists. Oh well another tough job ahead of me, someone's got to do it. Better reports to come!

07/06/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:79 Level: 2.2

Just a quick update on the state of the river as it has been longer than normal since my last report. The holiday snuck in on me and I didn't get a post up before leaving for the weekend.

Trips toward the end of June found the bite slower to down right tough. We went from double digit legal fish days to days where you really had to work hard for 6 - 8 decent fish. I haven't been out since before the 4th but have reports that the bite is back to good on the upper end of pool 4. I will have first hand reports in the upcoming days.

06/21/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:74 Level: 3.3

The biggest change on the water in the last week has been the Mayfly hatch. I spent the day Sunday on the lake with my family. The first observation we made were waves of carcasses in the water from the hatch. The second was the water clarity, the farther down the lake you went the clearer the water seemed to be. We(I) only fished two areas, with fish caught in both places but not many. Crankbaits in 12'-16' took the fish we did catch.

My other trip was on Monday with my son Bridger. He informed me on Sunday night that we would go back into the river on Monday to try and catch some fish to keep. All fish Sunday were released and he had the itch to keep some to eat. No arguments from me as I would much rather fish in the current than on the lake.

Our first stop produced only small fish. In this spot, which had been good on my last trip, we could catch only small fish and only on jigs. Our second spot was another large sweeping bar so we dropped the crankbaits over the side to try and locate a pod of fish willing to bite. At the end of the pass we still had a big 0. We then made a pass downriver, in the same spot, with jigs and bait to see if we went over fish that were just in the mood for the real deal. Bingo, two short fish in one little spot tipped off the location of what was our spot for the next couple of hours.

We worked this tiny little area with repeated short passes. Small jigs, 3/32 oz. to start and 1/8 oz. after the wind came up, were used to catch the fish pictured below. We made numerous attempts with crankbaits in this same area and never caught a single fish on them. Only jigs with half a crawler or a leach would trigger any bites. Many, many fish in the 14 to 15 inch range were caught in the same area.

My son was very instrumental in this limit of fish. He caught a few throughout the day, caught our last fish to fill our limit and had the determination to stay in the area until we caught the last one.

I don't want to sound or teach that limits of fish are the only way to a successful day but after watching my son willingly throw back most fish we catch, it is nice to keep a few to eat. These are all 15 to 19 inch fish and are ideal for the skillet.

06/14/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:76-70 Level 3.8-3.3

My trips this past week have taken me to pool 2 and the upper end of pool 4. We experienced a cool down after the weather this weekend but the fishing remains good.

My one trip to pool 2 was in the middle of last week before the cool weather. It was an afternoon trip that found us again throwing crankbaits to wingdams and also pulling cranks on rip rap. Both presentations caught fish but throwing was our best. Big fish for this night was a 25 inch cross breed(Saugeye). The fish was caught on an orange tiger bomber on the tip of a wingdam by my partner Jeff Malz. We had a little pilot error with the camera so only a film pic was taken. I will post this picture later. Hopefully it will turn out as the markings on this fish made it very evident that it was a Saugeye. Many 22-24" fish in this pool make it a blast to fish. You know your in pool 2 when you hear someone say "It's just another 22 incher".

Pool 4 continues to produce very good numbers of 17 to 20 inch fish with a 20 to 25 incher mixed in every now and then. I have still not been in the lake itself as I have stayed busy enough in the river itself. I have heard that the lake has been quite good also. My fish have been caught with light jigs and bait or pulling crankbaits. Lately faster speeds have been the key to pulling cranks. 2.5 to 3.5 mph(gps speed) have been triggering the bites for my boat. Rapalas in firetiger, chartreuse and fireperch have been the best. I have not seen the natural baits produce like they normally do but I'm sure that is coming.

As for jigs, keep experimenting. Finding the right jig size and speed is more critical than color or bait type. Switching until you find the right combo has been the key. 1/16 or 3/32 oz have been my best with both crawlers and leeches. Areas in the main river as well as side channel areas have been producing.

Pictured below are a couple of our better walleyes along with a 12.5 lb. channel cat that sucked up a jig and crawler.

06/05/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:75 Level 4.3

I have made 4 trips to the river since my last report. Water levels have fallen back to near normal levels and the bite remains good.

Two of my trips were spent on the upper end of Pool 4. These trips had similar results with jigs and live bait taking most of the fish. We have caught a few fish on crankbaits but 1/16th oz. jigs with leeches drug downstream have been the best combo. Crawlers on these jigs have also caught a few but leeches have been best, at least in my boat. Most fish are from 15 to 22 inches

One of my trips was spent on the lower end of the lake with my dad. We had a short day to fill so we decided to go on a crappie hunt. Checking some spots we had good luck on last fall yielded no crappies but did give up some decent smallmouth bass. My dad is pictured below with one of these fish that weighed in at 3.5lbs. These fish were caught with light 1/32th oz. jigs with tubes and my dads favorite, a bobber and a minnow. It doesn't get much easier than that.

Yesterday my neighbor(Jeff Malz) and I took an afternoon trip to Pool 2 as I felt the need to beat some wingdams. Our plan was to jump around and fish as many spots as we could looking for a bigger fish. Jump around we did catching one here and two there. We had a mixture of walleyes and sauger on the dams with most fish in the 17 to 22 inch range. Finally, as the sun was almost gone, Jeff stuck a decent fish on a spot we had caught a couple 22 inch fish earlier in the day. We returned there to finish the day hoping a big fish would make a showing. This fish is pictured below( 27" 7.5lbs). We fished a variety of cranks this afternoon but ALL of our fish were caught on lime green Bomber Model A's either cast to or pulled along the face of wingdams.

05/18/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:59 Level 8.43

It was back to the river on Thursday. Not a lot of change from my last trip other than our water temp is back on the rise. By days end we were at 60 deg. and with the forecast I have seen this should continue to rise steadily.

I like to start pulling crankbaits as this usually is a good barometer of the fishes mood in the area we are fishing. Also a good way to put a couple quickies in the boat. The cranks didn't disappoint as the first pass gave up a number of fish. After a few trolling passes the bite slowed so we switched to jigs and bait. Like so often happens we again hit a flurry of fish right away after the switch.

The rest of the day was spent switching back and forth between the two patterns. Both produced, but by days end the jig pattern did outfish the cranks by about 2 to 1.

The fish really showed a preference for #5 jointed shad raps in firetiger. We caught 0 fish on natural patterns today. Crawlers and leeches provided equal action on the jigs. Jig color hasn't seemed to be a big factor in my boat. Black, blue and orange have all caught fish.

All fish have been taken in 6-12 fow with moderate current. Bottom ends of bars or below and inside current deflecting points. From other reports, fish are being caught in many different areas on the lake. If the warm weather forecast holds I would say the bite will go from very good to excellent.

Today both parties in the boat wanted some eaters(me included). All fish that went home today were between 16 and 19 inches. A few larger than this and a bunch smaller were returned to the water. Below is Tom Klanchnik with our catch.

05/14/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:55 Level 8.42

Thursday when we hit the river the water temp was 61 deg.. From that point until today the temp has been dropping steadily. It dropped 2 deg alone on Thursday and now sits at 55. This drop didn't kill the bite but sure changed it, at least for my boat.

Thursday was spent mainly pulling crankbaits. On lead, behind three-ways, and longlining. Fish cooperated in almost all areas we fished just not in great quantity. We did catch most of our better fish longlining #5 regular and jointed Shad Raps. Bright colors were the best on this day. By days end nine legal fish came to the boat, all were released.

Saturday I was joined by Peter Yawn from Columbia Heights and Sean Sullivan from Rosemount. We met at Colvill Park in Red Wing and were joined by a total of 1 other rig in the parking lot. I love fishing opener on the river. The traffic from the last couple months has moved to the lakes and will now give the river a little break.

We were greeted by 40 degree weather and north winds but weren't too discouraged. Our plan was to stay in the river which had areas with fish and little wind. We started our day pulling raps behind three-ways and caught 4 decent saugers, 2 of which were pretty nice. We didn't dwell on this bite too long as it was far from fast.

Next we were off to see if the crankbait bite from Thursday had held together after a drastic water temp drop(6 degrees in 2 days). As we suspected it hadn't. After a couple of crankbait passes in the area we were targeting yielded only small fish, we switched to jigs with crawlers and leeches. In those same areas that gave up only smallish fish on cranks, we spent the better part of the rest of this day catching and releasing a good number of walleyes in the 15-22 inch range.

Although the cranks didn't take any good fish they did show us the areas that had fish. When we reran those same areas with jigs and bait and had good success.

We finished our day casting crankbaits to a riprapped section of shoreline in the main river. No walleyes here but a few little smallmouths and a brief hailstorm provided entertainment for our last spot.

By the end of it all we had caught a three man limit of walleye and sauger in the 15-22 inch range, and at least that many short ones. All fish today were put back as Peter and Sean opted to just catch for the fun of it today. Thanks to both for spending the day in my boat

05/07/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:57 Level 7.54

Kind of a long time since my last report. I have been absent from the river for over week and was starting to get the shakes. I took a little break while the FLW tournament was going on as the river has been pretty crowded for the last week.

My son and I started our day pulling cranks. It took him about 10 minutes to put the dandy pictured below in the boat. This one was 25 inches and 5.75 lbs, a great way to start any day. We mixed it up the rest of the day between longlining cranks and three waying cranks and caught scattered fish both ways but never nailed down any one area that we found to be "The Spot". We did spend some time pulling bait but this failed to produce quickly and young son wanted more action in the boat.

All in all a good day. I will be out often in the upcoming days and weeks.

04/26/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:56.5 Level 7.5

My report will cover Sunday(4/23) and Tues.(4/25). As you can see the water level has dropped along with the water temp. The presentations that will catch fish are all over the board. I have heard or seen fish being caught by many different methods, from three way rigging crawlers and willow cats to handlining to throwing jigs to--well you get the picture. The one thing they all have in common is that no one thing is really killing them.

Sunday was actually a pretty good day for my boat as Bob Van Dike and Mike Birman, both from Michigan, joined me for a day on the river. We spent our day pulling Raps on three ways. We fished from the head of the lake to the dam and caught fish in almost all areas. Targeting current edges in 8-14 fow were most productive. By days end we had a nice 2 man limit of 15 to 19 inch fish along with a few other legals and quite a few small fish that were returned to the water. Mike turned loose our largest for the day, a 20+ inch sauger. Chart., orange and firetiger took most of our fish today.

Tuesday found my partner and I pulling raps, throwing jigs and fishing crawlers behind three ways. We took six legals on the raps along with a few shorties. The jig throwing gave up a mixed bag of white bass and smallmouth bass and the crawlers turned up nothing.

Pulling #9 Rapalas is still my best gig but that is where I have spent the majority of my time. This will give way to long lining cranks and other summer methods as the water warms in the upcoming days.

04/19/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:58 Level 9.4

Joining me on Wednesday, all the way from North Dakota, was good friend Kirk Henry. Kirk has spent many hours on the rivers and streams in the Northwest part of the country but this was his first look at the Mississippi.

We decided to spend the first part of our day throwing jigs to the still flooded shorelines. This proved to be affective but persistence was needed in each area. The bite was not fast but we caught a variety of fish of all sizes. Chartreuse/pepper seemed to attract the most interest. We managed a few walleyes to keep and a host of other fish to keep us busy.

After noon we switched to pulling three way rigs with Rapalas. A fish here and a fish there was the order for the afternoon. A 21 inch walleye had top honors until Kirk stuck the whopper pictured below. This huge sauger was a spawned out female that liked the looks of a #9 chartreuse rapala. She was 22.75 inches and weighed 4.4 pounds. By the looks of her belly she had lost her eggs very recently.

We see these big saugers pretty regularly on Pool 4 but need to handle them with care. Enjoy the catch but then release them. Just think what they will look like next year.

The river is cleaning up nicely and slowly dropping back into its banks. Things will change daily for the next couple of weeks.

04/16/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:54 Level 10

This report will be a condensed version of my last three trips to the river. I made trips on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Thursday again found us taking our fish on Rapalas though we worked pretty hard for them. Tom Klanchnik and Paul Herman helped make the day a good one.

Friday I had the chance to take my son Bridger and his buddy Frank Bartyzal. Not too many dull moments in the boat on this day as I kept the boys busy with fish and they kept me busy with everything else. This day anchoring up and fishing minnows on a three way rig with a very small bell sinker kept us all busy. We caught fish of all kinds but our catch was mostly small saugers with an occasional 17 or 18 incher mixed in to throw in the live well.

Frank had personal firsts on Sauger, Walleye, Sturgeon, White Bass and Drum. This was his first trip to the river and I think he is "hooked". The picture below is some of what we brought home.

These kids were up at 4:30am and were mad when we had to leave the river at 4:00pm. More river rats in the making, you gotta love it.

Saturday was the third day so why not a third presentation. This day found Tom Heid and Ken Hagebusch, both from New Prague, in the boat with me pitching jigs to flooded shorelines. We had the few fish we caught in the first couple of hours of the day. After that it was tough sledding. We jumped around the rest of the day, even returning to the same bank that produced for us early in the day, to no avail.

I guess 5 decent eaters plus a number of short fish shouldn't be considered a complete bust, but for those of us who fish this river often and know what the good days are like it is less than we expect.

This is just speculation as I have no hard facts. I think the Walleye spawn would be nearing its end and the Saugers to be right in the middle of things. I am guessing that as fast as everything warmed up things are moving along rather quickly

04/09/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:45 Level 10.4

One thing is for sure on the river in April, conditions change daily. The water temp is slowly rising as is the water level.

Rick and Victoria Berg from Elk River, Mn. and Rick's brother Todd from Eau Claire, Wis. were my team for the day. We started the day pulling Raps as this has been dynamite my last couple outings. It didn't take long to figure out that this pattern was going to be more challenging this day as the amount of grass,weeds and other debris in the river had really increased. Keeping our baits clean were a large problem. We chose to jump around a bit to try and find some cleaner water. Water that would allow us to do this was not to be found.

About mid morning we went to plan B to try and change our luck. Vertically jigging was the next option and proved to be a good move. Although still a slow bite for us over all, it did produce a few fish. Shortly after the change we boated the sauger shown below. The picture does this one no justice as it taped at 22.5" and weighed 5.1 pounds. She was caught on a chameleon/orange tail ring worm and a 3/8 oz jig. It seemed something with orange worked the best as we had one other sauger that would push the 20" mark fall to Catalpa/orange Super Doo.

About a dozen fish all told for the day of which half were decent. Pretty slow for Pool 4 standards but good people like the Berg's and a big sauger or two make for an enjoyable day. Thanks to Rick, Victoria and Todd for spending the day in my boat.

04/05/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:41 Level 9.60

I was back at it on Wednesday and joined by fellow New Pragueites Tom Klanchnik and Mike Huigens. On our voyage upriver from Bay Point Park it looked like someone dropped a bomb in the timber and the fallout all lit in the river. Finally the garbage we all expected had arrived.

Even with all the floating debris, the water itself is very fishable. Tom got out of the gates like a rocket. About 5 minutes after we put our baits in the water he landed the walleye pictured below. This fish was 26 inches and an honest 8.5 lbs. We handled her carefully as it looked like she might explode. After the pic we released her to go lighten her load a little, which will probably happen very soon.

The rest of the day saw no more fish of this size but the action was very steady all day. Tom and Mike selectively kept a nice limit of walleyes and saugers and were quite impressed by the quality of our catch. They were new to the river but obviously not new to fishing.

Our fish today were all caught on Rapalas behind a three way. All colors caught fish but a Gold #9 again caught the big fish.

04/03/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:42 Level 7.82

Monday my guest for the day was Phil Mahal from Richfield. We were greeted by 30 mph north winds and quickly rising water. Knowing the high winds would eliminate some of the spots I normally fish, finding fish out of the wind and staying on them would be the order for the day.

We spent most of the day in just 3 different areas. Very slowly working double Rapala rigs upstream produced very well for us throughout the day. After a very slim first pass we lightened our dropper from 2 to 1.5 ounces and this really seemed to be the answer for the remainder of the day. Fish were a little sporadic but being limited to this area by the wind probably helped us when all was said and done.

By days end we had caught and released around 60 fish of which half were good solid 15-20 inch eaters. Phil also had big fish for the day with a 24.5 inch girl walleye made evident by a very large gut. Various colors put fish in the boat today although a gold #9 Rap fooled the larger fish.

It was a pleasure to fish with Phil as he was a quick study and took to this method quickly. I think by his comments he might have even liked it. Thanks again Phil.

03/31/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:43 Level 5.40

I made a short solo run to the river today and found the river to still be in pretty good shape but on the rise. I spent time casting, pulling stick baits and vertical fishing. I had success with the sticks and going vertical.

I will have a more detailed report by midweek as I will be on the water quite a bit in the upcoming days. With the water predicted to come up over a foot a day in the next few days, fish will be grouping more tightly on current edges.

03/24/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:39 Level 3.80

My last two trips found me changing tactics just a little bit. Thursday PM it seemed that the jig dragging bite that was so good had gone south for us. With Randy Vicker and his crew coming on Friday and wanting to take home some eater fish a change was needed. I changed to one of my favorite ways to put numbers of fish in the boat, pulling Rapalas on three ways. After just one pass with this method it was obvious that this would work as we put 4 decent saugers and one walleye in the boat. A few more short runs and a few more fish had me leaning toward this presentation for Fri.

Fri. found us on the water shortly after daylight. With the rather calm conditions we had, we started the day casting. After about 45 minutes and only 2 keepers we changed gears and opted for the Rapala pulling method. With 4 people in the boat this would prove to be a pretty good way to keep everyone in the action.

Our pattern consisted of dragging double Rapalas on a three way rig pinned to the bottom with 2-3onces of lead. Working channel edges from 15 to 30 feet did the trick as we stayed with this the rest of the day. Floating #7 and #9 Raps. in Firetiger, Natural Black and Gold and Black seemed the best depending on the cloud cover.

Danny Vicker had top and bottom honors for the day as you can see by the picture below. The bigger fish was 21inches and the smaller one,--- well about the size of the #9 Rap he was caught on.

Thanks to Randy, Danny and Larry for spending the day in my boat.

03/17/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing) Water Temp:36 Level 3.75

Conditions were unchanged from my previous trip on Wed.. Today I was joined by my neighbor Jeff Malz and our plans were again to jump around and not get stuck in rut on any one area.

We started dragging light jigs and ringworms upstream on sand and connected immediately and often. Many sauger in the 16-21 inch range most of which were heavy females. After an action packed first hour we vacated this spot to check out some other areas. We did find fish in most spots but not like our first.

We opted to finish the day where we started and weren't disappointed. Many more saugers(highlighted by a 21 incher), a few walleyes and 2 smallmouth bass even made an appearance. Total for the day was 21 legal fish(75% saugers)

A few fish were caught casting but dragging has still been our bread and butter. Chart./pepper and firecracker on 3/16 and 1/8 oz. heads have been the ticket.

03/15/06--- Pool 4(Red Wing)

The water clarity is still quite good(about 2' vis), about half of what we had last report. Temp has fallen back to 36. Level is up about .5 feet.

Craig Knock, a long time friend, paid me a visit on Wednesday. Our first goal was to put some fish in the boat as Craig was instructed by his wife not to come home empty handed(Pam really likes walleye fillets). Our first target was sand in about 12-14 feet of water. We started dragging ring worms up stream and hooked up on the first pass but halfway to the boat the fish came unbuttoned. The next pass my partner put a good sauger in the boat and we were off and running. We worked this area for quite a while before we had 6 good fish in the box. This was due to many losses and misses. The action was actually quite fast but the execution was not the best.

The rest of out short day was spent jumping around looking for some shallow walleyes in hopes of a big female. One 18" walleye was all we turned up.

All in all a good day. From talking with others the sauger bite in deeper water is quite good also.

03/08/06---Pool 4(Red Wing)

I spent most of my day looking at the 5" screen of an underwater camera. Visiting areas that I fish frequently was truly a learning experience. The camera confirmed what I already knew, walleyes love the sand.

As for the fishing--I only fished for a couple of hours in the evening and not much new on that front. Still a very strong bite happening late in the day. I spent my time in less than 12 feet of water dragging ringworms. Caught 10 fish in the 15-19 inch range, a few more shorts and many misses. All these were on firecracker though I'm sure other colors would have worked. No big girls for me yet but it's about that time of year.

I will have updates at least weekly in the coming months. Check in occasionally, hopefully I can provide you with some valuable info.