The river is rising extremely quick over the last week.  With that being said that did not stop the walleye and sauger from doing the spawning ritual they do every spring at this time.  The spend months with these eggs in their bodies and they no will do what they have to do to try and lay them in areas that are safe for them to hatch into little babies walleye and saugers.   
 

Fishing this time of the year can be so rewarding with a quick and easy bite at times but if a cold front or fast rising cold waters can really slow things down like we had the first week of April.  If you have the time and patients on those days you can probably trick a couple into biting but in my opinion I'd wait a couple days like I did that week and then attack them as it warms back up. Walleyes and saugers are very temperamental fish so learning their patterns is a big must in being able to put my clients on the right bite.  
 

Now to the patterns that worked for my folks in the boat this spring so far.  We Dubuque rigged 90 percent of the time with the warmer water temps we did not use minnows after March 28 th. Now could I have gone out and pitch blade baits of course we could of but what we were doing seemed to produce a quicker bite than blade baits at the times. As for blade baits I like several that are out there.   Try Tied tackle owned by Jeff Trumar is a great blade bait,  Acme v-rods are another I like to use and Hutches blade baits are a very good bait to use as well.  Every blade bait chosen above has its place to be used.   
 

The plastics of choice each day I have been using have been both Authentics plastics like pulsars, moxies and ringworms.  I also use Hutches ring worms which can be found on his web site if you look up hutches jigs you can find great choices of plastics and jigs.   The other places I get my plastics from are Everts resort and Four seasons sports. 
 

Colors this spring have been purple chartreuse, chartreuse green core, chartreuse pepper,  fire and ice, stewart pro blue, chartreuse orange core, chartreuse white core, peanut butter and jelly, black night, and last but not least oyster shell.  Every color mentioned had it time and place each day on the might Mississippi so far this spring.  
 

Water depths that I have been fishing last couple weeks have ranged from 5-17 ft.  As the days went along and the water temperatures warmed it seemed the walleye and sauger seemed to go up looking for a little warmer water shallower.  The walleye the hit in our presentations absolutely demolished our baits. At time we would have to dig the baits from deep down in their mouths.  When they crushed it like this at time would absolutely surprise you at thier force and made you grab ahold of your fishing rod like you were gonna lose it. This makes fishing the mighty Mississippi River so fun this time of the year.  
 

I would like to thank all the folks that chose my guided fishing service and I look forward to our future outings.  We had some amazing days the last couple weeks with some personal bests to boot.  
 

Good luck out there guys and gals !!!!

Mississippi River, St. Croix River, Pool 3, Pool 4, Walleye Fishing, Sauger Fishing, Red Wing, Hastings