Thread: Big river docks

Both on the river and in our local lakes we are seeing the fall pattern start to take off. It is still a little warm for the daytime, but for us at and just after dark have been very productive.

My fishing partner just had an evening that included muskie, pike, and walleye all on the bigger plastics and crappies on the smaller ones, all in the same spot. The highlight of the night was a 23" walleye. That was on a relatively shallow pool, dead until the sun went down and then it came to life big time. We had a similar experience with crappies and walleyes on the river last week, but nothing like my partner had for size although a number of crappies last week went 11-12", not bad for deep in the Metro.

The lake [Pepin] is still at or above 55 degrees in most areas. Be nice to see it drop below 45 and get things moving a bit better.

One of the signs we watch for every autumn is when the hen pike start to show up, moving up out of the depths to feed shallow. Muskies tend to be around there all summer but move in more intensely then also, although this year the reports on muskies I have heard say it has been a very poor year for the muskie hunters on the lakes we normally fish. I can believe that since we saw more small and medium pike last summer than in previous years when the full sized muskies were more common. Grandma largemouths show up more regularly then too.

We are seeing all of this although at and after dark. Of course these are metro lakes, off the Big River and much smaller than Pepin. I would expect the fall patterns on them to be a bit advanced and touchier to daily weather changes than in the River, and acre for acre under significantly more fishing pressure.

The big plastics are working for us now. We have also been finding that the fish are fussy about color too, at least so far, even after dark.