River FIshin Tips

[oates]

Hi all,

 

Was at my favourite river spot, water was down, so I was able to wade around nicely, eventually reached a small island (nice hawks flying overhead too), only marks were the footprints of birds! Gotta love the river. Nonetheless, perhaps it is the time of year but I can't find the Walleyes when they were so active around the same area last autumn. Amazingly, whilst on this island, I saw 3 or 4 pike, cruising up and down in 1ft of water. I could almost touch them! They were needlenosed and about 1 1/2 foot in length (not monstorous like the lakes), so I tried a crankbait, small rapala, didn't work, they just looked at it, tried a tail, they didn't pay attention, tried a pink worm, one of them bit it and spat it out. Yikes! Tried jigging, crankbaits, surface popper - nada. I was dropping the stuff on their mouths and they weren't interested, the week before I did the same to a Catfish and he couldn't care less. I must be missing something. My questions:

 

1. Best way to catch Pike

2. '' '' Catfish

3. Do walleyes have a different pattern in Spring (deeper water?)

4. Approach of river fishing vs. lake (different?)

 

I landed three bass looking for eyes, had to let go. There seems to be a big difference in the aggression of Bass over all other fish in the river. I have been fishing since last Summer, I'm getting there, slowly!

 

Any advice apprreciated.

 

Thanks guys

[johnnyb]

In shallow water, just about any fish is likely to be rather skittish, and not willing to bite.

Sounds like the pike you saw were gar pike, if in fact they were distinctly needlenosed. Minnows or small silvery spoons are your best bet for them. But again, with such shallow water and them being so openly exposed to you, they may be too scared to bite.

Catfish like stinky baits...fresh sucker meat is popular, chicken livers are as well.

Walleye...not a fish I should even attempt to give tips on but not likely to be in the same places now as they will in the fall.

That's all I got.