1-25-12 Wed

1-25-2012 Wed
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Weather: S 7, overcast, 32˚, 30.03 falling
Water: 4.81’ rising, 13.6kcfs, clear, 2” ice
Location: Mississippi River Pool 8, Dresbach Dam
Caught: six walleyes (small) and two saugers – kept one sauger
Partners: myself

Comments

The other day when I drove over the interstate bridge to Dresbach, MN I was surprised to see anglers on the ice next to the short wall below the dam. Well, I have not fished for walleyes and saugers below the dam for two years, but seeing fishermen out on the ice got me in the mood.
The next day when I arrived on the ice at around sunset there was already a small crowd up by the short wall. As with any ice over a body of water and especially the Mississippi river below the dam, I was a little hesitant and nervous on the venture out to my fishing destination. The best advice I can give for traveling the ice below the dam is; take it slow and cautiously and follow the trails of the other fishermen if there is snow cover to give you that luxury.
Not wanting to disrupt and possibly offend the other anglers fishing upstream of the short wall, I settled for a less popular spot just downstream from the daring anglers. I say daring because about ten of them were fishing within mere feet of the open water and their possible icy peril.
I drilled my two holes, set up the shack (the wind was rather brisk from the south and made the task very difficult) and settled in for a couple hours of jigging. I drilled two holes not for the sake of fishing out of both, but the upstream one is for fishing out of and the lower one is for my flasher. With the current, the jigging Rapala is usually carried several feet downstream. If the locater was placed in the same hole I was fishing out of the flasher’s cone angle in most cases would not be able to detect my bait.
The first hour of fishing was pretty good. The fish were not big, but I had lots of action and missed a lot of bites. One trick I employ is I fish my bait mostly one to two feet off the bottom and then when a fish comes up to investigate it I slowly raise the bait and jiggle it subtlety. Most of the time fish will follow it up and sometimes if you are lucky they will hit it.

Observations:

The fish were not big, but I had lots of action and missed a lot of bites. Because of construction being done on the dam in the locks this winter it is not possible to fish too far above the short bullnose.