Fishing Report Log
Fishing has picked up a little over the last few weeks. Serious flooding issues have made things a hassle at times, but fish are starting to be found
April 12th-Rock River-Fort Atkinson
Fished a river rig with a pink floating jig head and a pearl white colored Gulp 3” Minnow. Caught three saugers while letting bait drift through current downstream. Two saugers met minimum of 15” to keep. Fished before sundown.
April 20th-Rock River-Jefferson
Fished a Doc’s Dip Worm with Doc’s Blood Dip Bait. Needed heavy sinkers (2 0z.) to get bait down. Ended up catching three small channel catfish after sundown
April 24th- Rock River-Jefferson
Fished the same Doc’s Dip Worm with Doc’s Blood Dip Bait, as well as jig and twister tail for white bass. Caught one large channel catfish and one small catfish on dip bait, no results from twister tail.
Tandem Rigging and Other Thoughts
Not too long ago, the Alabama rig was a big hit in the fishing world. The set-up that mimicked schools of baitfish was celebrated and persecuted for it’s success. A lot of people were using “schoolie rigs” with great success, but the fad died out after the Alabama rig was banned in most large fishing tournaments. Recently, I’ve seen a lot of anglers using tandem rigs for walleye and white bass.
This is the aforementioned tandem rig. For the most part, it’s a rig with two hooks and two identical swimbaits. Generally they are spread out by a couple inches, and they imitate two fish swimming together. As for my opinion of the lure, I’m critical. One of the knocks on the Alabama rig by BASS and other governing bodies was potential snagging concerns. With all of those hooks, snagging was a problem. While tandem rigs don’t have nearly as many hooks as Alabama rigs, Instill have concerns about this rig ending up in fishes bellies more than their mouthes. In the river systems, there are times when it is easy to snag fish with a single hook. Right now, with spawning migrations happening, I feel like this rig is not completely ethical.
As an aside, while I’ve said that I’lol be condensing fish reports during the spawn to protect my spots, I will still make safety reports if necessary. My follow up to this will address that.
