This whole week , while enjoyable, has been somewhat tough fishing. The water has hit a 40 degree high mark and nothing wrong with that. It’s the gin clear water down to 11ft that has the fish spooky. we’ve been seeing many more fish than we’ve been catching. And if we can see them, they can see our boat which to them is a huge predator and they swim away. Long casts are the ticket with lures that go to the bottom an can stay there at least briefly without getting caught in the rocks. I’m talking suspending jerk baits like the Adams ENCOUNT’R lure and small jigs like the Ragetail Ned Craw, Ned Bug, Baby Craw rigged on 1/8oz jigs. Most jerk baits don’t go down to 8ft so we have found attaching a small split shot weight to the stem of the front treble hook seems to work and it doesn’t seem to hurt the action of the lure. Even the mighty musky when following your lure will also flair away a good 15ft or so from the boat. Our LEW’S reels have given us an advantage with high speed retrieves once we detect the slight bite.

What we need is some rain to stain the water with overcast skies. We will then see a better bite. Remember practice catch, photo, and release to help our great river sport fishery.

Good Fishing

Lance