Rain over the past several days has energized fish activity on pool 9. My favorite trips are those with young anglers with skills who want to hone their craft. had 2 such adventures last week–Trey & his buddy and siblings Blake & Lauren.

Trey is starting to get his feet wet on the tourney trail. Lauren is just 1 of 3 kids from Cheeseland to attend a major Trout Unlimited GTG in Montana. Her brother, Blake builds his own spinners as well as tying flies like his older sister.

both trips were multi-species. Trey’s crew had 26 gamefish on the clicker in a half day before rains raised the River; Lauren and Blake put 42 mostly SMB in the boat in 6 hrs.

Boat control is at least 40% of putting clients on fish. Angler ability is 55%. But the fish get to vote, too…and their 5% can cancel out everything else.

Reaction bites were key both before & after the rain. If I had a nickel for every fish that came up to the boat then eased away without biting it would be well beyond a fistful. but that’s fishin’

River level is lookin’ good @ just over 621′ @ Genoa, with stable levels forecast for the next 10 days. Water temp is a sultry 78 on the River mainstem. Fish–especially big ones– need to be revived after just a couple minutes out of their environment.

This means putting them in the livewell with that scaly face in the bubbles for at least a few minutes before release. Foto ops often double time prior to release.

Walleyes from 20-27″ must be released on pool 9. If one of these fish has dimensions that result in a foto op, they go ‘in the box’ until ready for a tail splashing release.

Game warden “Sprink” Hensal was a childhood mentor who said “you’ll never go wrong if you put the resource first”. This holds true for game wardens as well as sport fishers.

Doing the right thing for the resource ALWAYS supercedes the DNR. If a “carp cop” ever gives me a citation for reviving a fish prior to release saying ‘tell it to the judge” That is EXACTLY what i will do!

tight lines!