Recent rains have pushed Ol’Man River to the edge of the ‘action stage again, coming up one foot overnight. Forecast is for this pattern to hold for at least a week. That’s OK.

High water is the new normal in this incredibly muggy buggy summer, which weather guys say will come to an abrupt halt in the next 48 hour, with a FIFTY DEGREE temperature drop overnite…now THAT is a cold front!

The fish kinda expect a temperature drop. After all, it’s almost October. The bite will be good again by Tuesday–but we’ll still be tickling the ‘action’stage, which makes the wingdam walleye bite a little tricky for the short term.

Right now, water temps are still in the low 70’s. In three weeks they SHOULD be somewhere in the 50’s and walleyes will be migrating upstream. Bass will be aggressive until water temp drops below 55. Pike will be just happy, toothy guys between now and late October, and panfish will be on the move but certainly willing to bite.

I got out for a couple hours yesterday morning ahead of the rain and caught about 20 SMB and WB on my ultralight Croix, throwing a topwater. The rain is supposed to back off by mid-morning, with air temps pushing into the mid-80s with cloudy skies. These dynamics, coupled with a rapidly rising River mean today’s best play will be targeting areas not directly impacted by runoff and choke points in migration routes in the running sloughs where there is at least 18″ visibility. since the atmosphere will be muggy, the surface tension will be high and the pike should hit buzzbaits like big dawgs. They will be concentrated and cruising in areas where the panfish live–submergent vegetation, especially elodea. So today I will go piking, then catch a few perch for supper.

When that 50 degree air temp drops in a couple of days, coupled with belly-full River this weekend will be a good time for digging out the mittens and doing some serious thumb twiddling.

But for the next 48 hours fishing will be good. And it will be good again by about Tuesday–if we don’t get a bunch more rain.

Consistent success in fishing is all about time on the water.