Mississippi River Pool 2 Report, 10/20/09

Today was advisement day here at UW-Stout meaning classes are cancelled and meetings are held. I however was excused from these meetings as I’ll be finishing up school in December, so no advising was needed. With a full day off, it didn’t take much thinking to determine a trip to Pool-2 was in order. Since I moved back to Menomonie in September, my Pool-2 trips have been short n’ sweet consisting of a few afternoon trips here and there; so needless to say, a day like this was due.

Concentrating my efforts on pitching jig’s at high flow areas I found fish to be actively feeding and aggressively thumping baits. The first few wingdams in a series were a sound bet and while I found fish out off the tips, paying special attention to the middle and shoreline portion of the dams accounted for almost all of my bigger fish today. Main river rock-piles and day-markers also produced a few fish and showed healthy signs of activity. Most of my fish came from right up on top of the dams or real tight to shore, typically hooking-up in less than 5FOW.

Moving around, not spending too much time in one particular spot allowed me to stay mobile and keep on active fish. Also consistently changing baits and presentations really seemed to help when the bite went cold. For the most part I pitched Pro-Blue and Oystershell paddletails however chartreuse/black hair-jigs and BFT blades took some fish as well. I found jig color made very little difference, but out of preference I was using the unpainted lead-color jigs. Jig weights however seemed much more critical, changing according to location; for the most part 3/16oz and 1/4oz were used.

I didn’t get the chance to cast crank-baits as the pitching bite kept me busy; however I noticed a couple boats doing this and would assume fish could still be taken this way.

Overall today was very successful landing a good number of fish in a variety of sizes, ranging from 12” to a touch over 29”. The wind was perfect for a pitching bite and temperature was a nice change from this past week.

With any luck I’ll get a few more days off like this before ice up to spend some quality time down there on the water. Living so close we almost take a fishery like this for granted, Pool-2 is truly a hidden treasure.

We’ll see ya out there

Pete