3-29-13 Fri

3-29-2013 Fri. 12:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Weather:
(1553) S6, overcast, 48 ˚, 30.23 falling
H2O:
4.97 rising, 18.7kcfs, 35 ˚, clear
Location:
Mississippi River pool 8, Dresbach Dam
Caught:
Lots of small sauger and walleyes, a couple perch, Kept: two sauger and two perch
Partners:
Scott

Comments:

It was Good Friday and it was a day to go fishing. There is still a good amount of ice around and the upper Dresbach Landing was still partial frozen. We had to put the boat in downstream on the Minnesota side at a landing called Sportsmen’s.
The first area we targeted was the middle tail water areas with depths anywhere from twenty to fifty feet. We caught fish in these depth ranges but all were small. We covered a lot of ground and tried different depths, but the fish were not cooperating very well.
The area where we had the best sized fish was along the upper wall on the Minnesota side. The water depth here varied from about eight feet down to about thirty. Once darkness fell I got to try a new technique that Scott coached me through. We basically trolled both upstream and downstream along the wall in eight to fifteen feet of water. We used Moxies on a 3/8 oz. jig head with lots of line out. We trolled both upstream and downstream at a pretty decent clip. We fished this technique for only about a half hour. Scott did not look overly pleased that I called it such an early night, but I had a hare hunting engagement very early in the morning and I had to get to bed.

Observations:

It was a long day of fishing, with not a whole lot of excitement. The conditions are still very good for walleye fishing: clear water and low flows. Ice still blankets most back water areas.