Metro LETS - Pool 4 Event

[Dan Wood]

We are nearing time for the 1st event of the year down on Pool 4! Conditions should be perfect if the weather continues to cooperate for us. Water temps ranged from 49.5 in the main channel to 62 in some of the backwaters last weekend and fish are getting active!

There will be a meeting before the 1st event at 6:30 a.m. Saturday, May 8th to go over general rules and questions. Please have your boat launched and in the water before this meeting at 6:30 a.m. so that we can take-off after the meeting.

Note: There is an $8 launch charge at Wabasha per boat.

The Wabasha launch is a fairly nice launch and it allows us some protection from the main lake in the event of bad weather (Pepin can get brutal). That is some of the reasoning behind selecting this launch over some others that are no-charge in the general area.

For those that would like, you may launch at another launch and drive your boat around to the Wabasha landing to meet in the morning. Lucupolis is probably the closest, but I think there is a fee at that ramp as well (I don't know on this). Lake City is a good 10 miles or maybe a bit more by water, but is an option (this is a nice launch). There is a small landing in Maple Springs that is a bit closer than Lake City, but I have no idea how good of a launch this is.

Directions to the launch at Wabahsa:

• Take HWY 61 South through Redwing
• Continue south of Lake City (11 miles south of Lake City boat launch)
• South past Lacupolis landing (3.7 miles south of Lacupolis landing)
• LEFT on Hiawatha Drive (Phillips 66 station)
• Cross RailRoad tracks just past NAPA take a LEFT on Bridge Ave.
• RIGHT on Grant Blvd. to landing and park area.
  

If you miss Hiawatha, take HWY 60 and follow that to Grant.

This isn't the greatest map, but it may help some. The landing is just NW of the main bridge (near the circle on the map).

As always, feel free to email with questions.

------------------
[email protected]
Catch-N Tackle
T.J.'s Tackle
MarCum Technologies
Otter Outdoors
J.R.'s Tackle

[This message has been edited by Dan Wood (edited 04-23-2004).]

[Dan Wood]

Look forward to the first event! Remember we will have a short meeting at 6:30 a.m. before launching (at the Wabasha landing).

[This message has been edited by Dan Wood (edited 05-06-2004).]

[Chris-Neises]

You should be able to get bait in Lake City.

[LuckyFish]

Lunker 4 Seasons in Red Wing would probably appreciate the business. http://fishingmn.com/4seasons/

------------------
Good Luck & Good Fishing. Lucky

[Lunker]

Is there bait store in Redwing or along the way not to far out of the way?

[Dennis Steele]

Good luck tommorrow boys!

So where is al the trash talkd about who is going to beat who?

[wastewaterguru]

Good to see some nice fish weighed. Sadly I didn't have very many of them.

I did get my largest smallmouth ever. He was close to three pounds.

Congrats to the Balsom Lake boys for a job well done. That was a nice pike.

See y'all next time.

[Dan Wood]

Those were some nice smallies weighed in. Looking back at it, I would have targeted smallies all day out near the main channel breaks or up to Pepin.

Our plan was to start on largemouth, as we picked up a bunch of nice ones a week earlier out there. With the storm going through the night before and the water drop (it was 1-1.5' lower), the largemouth shut down. The pike must have loaded up before the storm, as they weren't active for us either. We only picked up 1 short pike and had about a 3-4 pounder up at the boat early (turns out that would have been nice to have in the boat ). Last week when BigMike and I were out, we literally couldn't keep the Pike off our line. Mike hates the slimy pike and was pulling his lure away from 4+ pound fish. We still landed at least 20 of the toothy critters, while targeting bass mainly. I was expecting the pike to be a slam dunk. Oh well, that's fishing! Glad to see some guys found a few good fish. I wish everyone could have faced the fishing conditions of the previous week, but that's how it goes.

Sounds like at least 4 of the smallies weighed came from the same general area. We only picked up one on that spot, but when we got that one, we had a double and ended up losing one of the fish. We tried it again later though and couldn't coax another bite.

[Jonesin4eyes]

Great event - good to see the fish come in with somewhat tough conditions. Surprised not to see anyone target Catfish after Dennis posted 60+ pounds last year and blowing the field away.

We started the morning fishing Walleyes on the last set of wingdams before the dam in Alma. We only picked up one - a nice 2.4 pounder, right next to a permanent day marker in about 9ft on a 3/8 oz chartruese hair jig tipped with a fat head. We had a couple of pickups but only caught the one walleye and a couple of sheep head. We also tried pulling cranks and live bait rigs on the flat there without any luck.

We also fished with the crowd on Teepeeota point, basically drifting the gap with jigs. Sounded like the locals were picking up one or two here - but we didn't have any luck.

After lunch we concentrated on the backwaters. All the fish we caught (two pike and large mouth) were on spinner baits - chartruese and black with willow leaf blades. We got lucky and picked up the bass with five minutes left before leaving for weight in.

Looking forward to seeing everyone on Rush.