The Immortal Mississippi is screaming my name. Most years I’m chasing ‘eyes by the last week in February. This year ice will keep me away until at least March 7.

There are several access points on the Wisconsin side below the dams at Genoa & Lynxville. With the Lansing bridge out Lynxville tailwaters are my closest option, launching At Harper’s Ferry.

Fishing dam tailwaters at ice out is profoundly dangerous. The dilemma boils down to risk/reward. The short window between ice out locally and substantial runoff from snowmelt is one of the two best times to potentially dance with a walleye of PB proportions.

The other big fish window is just before winter’s arrival is heralded by departure of tundra swans.

Last fall the bird white birds left two days after Thanksgiving. This was my last open water trip of 2025. I had just five bites. The smallest fish was 25″. Three days later the iceman cometh.

Wednesday seemed like a good day for a road trip. I headed for Guttenberg. Used to fish there a bunch in the last century before moving upstream to Pool 9.

Murray’s Outdoor store on the south side of town was a MUST stop. This is the only place I know of where 1 1/2 ounce jigs can be found. The phone # @ Murray’s is 563.252.3138.

My three fave ways to chase big ice out walleyes on the Miss are snap-gigging B-Fish-N Tackle B3 bladebaits. Vertical jigging Northland Tackle Buckaroo hair jigs and pulling three-ways with a stickbait like a #9 Rapala on the long dropper. The shot dropper is about 6″ long, requiring considerable weight–especially once runoff becomes a factor.

heavy sinkers are one solution for solving the weight issue. But i’ve NEVER caught a walleye on a sinker and jigheads weighing an ounce or more are hard to come by.

I like to run a 5″ purple, white or chartreuse fliptail on the jig–or a B-Fish-N Tackle plastic, usually in purple or firecracker.

After shooting the breeze with the boys at the baitshop for an hour I went to check the ramp behind the Casey’s in Guttenburg.

It was right around the time that the Casey’s opened here that an incident at this ramp made a lifelong impression. Angling legend Jimmie Oberfoell just showed up. We were gonna take my boat and start fishing down in Ackerman’s cut about 3/4 mile downstream from the dam. A couple other rigs were there, too. We were all waiting for some giant ice floes to pass before putting the boats in.

We heard the sound of a small outboard across the River. A few minutes later a silver shallow vee boat–maybe 12’ long came putting out of Ackerman’s heading back to the ramp.

We all watched in horror as the lone occupant tried to navigate between the floes. The little Johnson outboard pushing this boat didn’t have the power to dodge between floes. The boat was caught between two huge chunks. It looked and sounded like somebody crushing a Coors can under a Muck boot.

The boater disappeared for a minute , then popped up–clinging for dear life to one of the floes. For just a couple minutes. Then he just slipped away.

There is nothing any off us standing at the ramp could have done. I don’t know if his body has ever been recovered.

Looking east from the ramp this morning my mind’s eye replayed the scene. Seems like it happened yesterday. But it was 30-40 years ago, bringing to mind Grandpa’s sage observation ‘ On the River all mistakes must be paid for immediately. Sometimes in full.

Don’t be in a hurry to get out there! I plan to start the 2026 guide season on March 15.

After more than 70 trips around the sun every single day i get to chase walleyes on my beloved River in March are few…and so, so precious. But stupid isn’t going to be part of the equation.