FIRST FISH ON THE MISSISSIPPI
By Mike Yurk
Editor’s Note: Mikes Yurk’s column is sponsored by Warner’s Dock in New Richmond, Wisconsin. Warner’s Dock is the premier marine dealer in northwestern Wisconsin. They have a complete inventory of new and used boats, motors, and trailers as well as other marine supplies plus a complete maintenance staff for all your boating needs. They can be contacted through their website at www.warnersdock.com or by telephone at 1-888-222-3625.
This has been a long winter. In northwest Wisconsin I still have snow up to the top of my mailboxes. It is now starting to melt but it is going to be awhile before I see the ground again. Cabin fever is in its most advanced stages and I need to go fishing. When I say fishing I do not mean ice fishing. I need to sit in a boat.
So the place to go is the Mississippi River. The Mississippi is open the year-round but especially now that the temperatures are getting above freezing, it is time to hit the water.
My fishing buddy, Doug Hurd of Eagan, Minn., and I are launching my boat on a channel on the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River near Red Wing, Minnesota. As the boat glides slowly through the water I feel my spirit lifting. I am going fishing. There is still snow on the ground but it doesn’t matter. Winter be damned. The fact that I am going to catch a fish from a boat on open water means that spring is here as far as I am concerned.
Although there was still snow on the ground it was spring since we were finally fishing from a boat again.
Doug and I are not the only people that feel that way. Perhaps it is the weather or that it is spring break for most of the schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but we find the boat landing packed. Once we get close to the dam just north of Red Wing we find many boats already working the water. It is obvious that a lot of fishermen have had enough of winter.
We initially anchor in about twenty feet of water and Doug catches the first fish. It is a small sauger and is released. A few minutes later Doug catches the first keeper sauger and it goes in the livewell. Twenty minutes later I catch my first keeper sauger that is also deposited in the live well.
We have cloudless, robin egg colored blue skies. There is a light wind and warm temperatures that are close to forty degrees. We see a bald eagle float overhead and we hear the honking of a large flock of geese. And we are catching fish. What more could we ask for?
The Mississippi River is popular since it is open the year-round for fishing.
We decide to let the river take us to where the fish are. We move a couple of hundred feet upriver and this time drop in the trolling motor. I check the depth finder. We are now in thirty two feet of water. The current is a lot slower than we are used to in spring and it gently drifts us along while I use the trolling motor to make adjustments in the boat’s position.
Almost immediately we catch a fish. For the next couple of hours Doug and I keep drifting and trolling through thirty to twenty feet of water and we steadily keep catching fish.
Water levels in the spring are always a big part of the picture for early season fishing on the Mississippi River. Right now the water levels are more like what you would expect during the summer or fall than spring. Typically the river is high with fast current this time of the year. So far the snow has been melting gradually but if we should get heavy rains that will quickly melt the snow plus adding more water from the rain we can expect to see much higher and faster water. Winter predictions called for flooding this spring. Water levels and current speed can change within just a day or two so it pays to keep a careful eye on it.
The rule of thumb to find fish in the river is to fish shallow water if the water is high and fish deeper water if the water is normal or low. With water levels currently at summer or fall levels explains why we found our best fishing in twenty to thirty feet of water.
Jigs and minnows are the most popular bait on the river. Doug and I were using one-half ounce jigs. Normally when fishing with higher and faster water I would be using three-quarter or one ounce jigs. The key to catching walleyes and sauger on the river is to get the bait to the bottom and keep it there.
Color does make a difference. My favorite color for the river is chartreuse. If that doesn’t work, I change to gold.
Although we did not try them, we saw several people catching sauger and walleye with blades spoons such as the Heddon Sonar. They also are a popular bait on the river.
Doug Hurd shows off the last two keeper sauger caught in the last few minutes of fishing.
Most of the fish we caught, as well as the fish we saw others around us catch, were sauger. There were a few walleyes caught but they were too small to keep. On the Mississippi River there is no minimum size limit on sauger but a fifteen inch minimum size limit on walleyes. We didn’t see any big fish caught but one fisherman at the landing told us that he caught and released a twenty seven inch female walleye that was fat with spawn.
Walleye and sauger fishing will only get better in the next month once the water and weather begin to warm up. You can expect to find good fishing on the Mississippi River straight through April. The sauger tend to come in first and then a bit later the walleye move in. When the walleyes arrive there is the potential for some really lunker fish. One afternoon last year I saw two people catch an eight to ten pound walleye within just a couple of minutes of each other.
It is late afternoon and Doug and I had just a couple more minutes left before we had planned to leave for the day. We had caught about thirty fish and had five sauger in the live well.
I felt a sharp strike on my line and I set the hook. The fish took off but I turned it and got it coming back toward the boat. A moment or two later I pulled in a keeper sauger. As I was twisting the hook out of the fish to add it to the live well I saw Doug pull up on spinning rod. His rod tip was plunging as the fish pulled back.
Soon Doug had the fish splashing next to the boat and reaching over, he grabbed the line and pulled the fish in. It also was a keeper sauger so we had two more fish to add to the livewell. It seemed like a good way to end the day. It also was a good way to start the new fishing season. No more winter for us.