question....river fishing in 38 deg water

[hnd]

i fish the mississippi river in pool 15. just below the dam's in the eddies...

i've been having a great year but this time of year it always seems to taper off....i generally use 1/4 oz jig and 3" twister tails. no live bait...just a tail seems to work...

its been slow...however the past few walleye/sauger (around 16-19") i've caught each one has had big....like 4-6 inch fish in either their stomach or gullet....which tells me they are prefering the bigger baits....earlier in october you won't see that big of fish in their stomachs....

so i've gone out and gotten some 3/8 and 1/2 oz jigs and 4 and 5" twister tails....

i figure retrieving even slower than than the lighter jigs should entice a few bites....

is this like a normal change that walleye anglers do? late in the winter switch to big slow baits? just wondering. Thanks for any insite....don't know how many river fisherman are on here...

i'd liek to say i'm pretty good at walleye fishing but i guess i'm pretty one dimensional...fishing prespawn and spawn in spring and summer till they either go deep in teh summer or find their wintering holes in teh winter...

these eddies are in 4-8 feet of water.... and i'm fishing from shore...

[tbomn]

I fish pool 2 and pool 4 this time of year and we use a lot of ringworms and 5" Kalin tails. Slow is definitely the way to go. I fish mostly wingdams at this time of the year, and with the flow down as it is, no retrieve is the rule. Just let the current move it around.

I usually set up out on the tips of the dams, cast towards shore, and float the jig and ringworm over the fronts/tops of the dam.

As the water gets colder, the bite moves into the low light periods of the day. Now most action seems to be slow, but it will pickup. Moving around to find fish is a must, they are not concentrated "anywhere" yet. Our water up here has cleared to a point where during the day the fish are deeper in front of the dams. If I were you, I would try to find deeper pools during the day, but those shallower pools should produce pretty well during low light times of the day.

Lighter jigs seem to work well for us...3/32 oz to 3/16 oz will let that bait move in the current. Up to this point most of our fish have come on hairjigs in those lighter jigs weights. Plastics give more float to the jig and the current plays it so no rod action is needed.

Good luck.

[hnd]

Thanks. as i said, i'm fishing from shore and the smaller jigs don't do well in teh current.

I generally get up aroudn 4 in the morning and fish until 6 or 6:30 before heading off to work...so i think i have good success in shallower water because i'm fishing during lowlight right before sunup.

[Morton]

The bite has been hot and heavy here since the water temp hit about 47 degrees.
It currently is 37.3 today.

This is the time of year that 20 to 30 fish days from shore in a few hours can be common if you find the right spot.

The slower the better has been the rule.
I have had many fish with 4 to 5 inch shad in them and have been using 4" shad bodies on 3/8 oz jigs.
The bites are not savage by any means and most of the time are only a slight weight ... feel that and cross their eyes.

I am using a Loomis rod w/ power pro and can normally feel them bat their eyelashes from 6" away ... not so with the lathergic bites lately.

Morton

[Ziert]

If the release of water from the dam is constant, fish will hold consistently in the same spots unless something changes to effect constancy. When the flow changes, or something happens to change the configuration of the eddy you fish , the fish will either move slightly; holding differently on that same spot, or set up differently along the whole of the hole, or move to another area all together. Big minnows in the late Fall are not only good but universal considering two things. All Gods children slow down in the cold. Fish, being cold blooded, slow down even more. The big fat meal is preferred because they don't have to move as much to catch a bunch of little stuff to accomplish the same thing. Abundance plays a role here. By and Large, easy little stuff is the stuff of Spring. Energy conservation is always prevalent in fish, and vital as winter approaches. In the Fall little stuff abundance drops off. Rhetorically : What do you do after the Thanksgiving Table has been devoured ? I find a couch to “deswollenate”. Fish do the same thing. Remember, fish are always trying to find and maintain stability if they can. They don't go roaming to find the best stability, but they do the best they can with what they have. Stability is Water temps, available light, speed of current, adequate food supply, protection from other predators. Some of this criteria is changed when spawning, but the principal holds true.

Rich