BY BOB AND GINNY RIEGE

March is the season of rivers if you are a northern walleye or sauger fisherman. The fish are plentiful and found in very predictable locations. Unfortunately many anglers are either poorly equipped for the conditions or don’t fully understand how to attack the river in a methodical and scientific approach

The most obvious of our March conditions is dealing with pre-spawn fish. During this pre-spawn the fish may move many times from their winter holes up to the spawning flats or into creeks and back down into the holes. The single most influential factor in this is weather and more precisely water temperature. Let’s first find the fish, and then we can

better refine our techniques to advance our game plan.

Knowing that the fish have wintered in deeper holes in the river, we need to identify specific holes as more attractive than others. Ideal holes will have a nearby spawning flat or incoming creek channel. A good spawning flat is usually 5 to 12 feet in depth and has a sand, gravel or sand/gravel substrate. In the big scheme of things you can look for primary opportunities in areas where the river widens slightly just above or below a hole. Make sure of the bottom content in that widening and you can identify or eliminate the area as a prime habitat.

Since we are dealing with March, and the water is usually fairly cold, there is a high probability that the fish will still be somewhere in the hole rather than up on the flats. Determining where in the hole they are is the key. Once you determine where in the hole the fish are occupying, that same depth will probably be repeated up and down the river for that day. Without major environmental changes, the movements within that hole, up or down a couple of feet of depth, will be fairly methodical and easy to pattern from day today.

With fish in the hole the number one tactic to take them is vertical jigging. Being able to vertical jig properly in a river isn’t really a tough thing to get the hang of with the right instruction. They big keys to vertical jigging properly are boat position and speed, line attitude, jig weight, and being able to detect strikes. All of those factors are intertwined, so it’s difficult to separate one from the other without affecting the whole.

Boat position is fairly simple. What I do is map the hole first by getting just enough speed out of my Mercury 225 Optimax to keep my Ranger 620 up on plane and find the edges of the hole and the contours within the hole. The whole time I am doing this, I have a feature called “structure scan” turned on, on my Lowrance HDS-8 depthfinder that will allow me to actually see these river fish even when they are hugging tight to the bottom and sides of the holes. This will give me the data as to what depth I want to begin working at through the hole. Your approach should be systematic in working the area. If I choose to start in 17 feet, I’ll work the hole trying to maintain that depth throughout the pass. If fish aren’t contacted, then I will make a 2-foot depth move and take another pass. Eventually, I will wind up with the optimum depth that the active fish are using.

When it comes to making the first pass, you need to have the right setup to work jigs properly through the hole. The criteria for tackle is a medium action rod with an extra fast tip, like my 6’ Shimano V Rod model VST60M, and a reel with instant anti-reverse for positive, quick hooksets like my Shimano Sustain SA-1000FA. You need to spool your reel with a hi visibility line to be able to see your jig touch bottom and detect strikes quickly, my personal choice being 6 lb. Stren Gold. On the business end, the best jig I’ve ever used is the Northland Fireball jig, but we need to determine size. The weight of the jig is highly important, because in most spring situations you want to use as light a jig as possible to slow the fall, yet heavy enough that you can tell when the jig contacts bottom. This leads us into the technique of working through the hole. By placing my Ranger 619 at the upstream head of the hole, I drop my Motor Guide Beast trolling motor in the water and point the bow into the wind. If there is no or little wind, then point the bow into the current. Understanding that the current in the river doesn’t run at the same rate from top to bottom is key to your approach. The idea behind vertical jigging is that it is imperative that the line is at a totally vertical position from rod tip to Fireball jig.

This means that when a fish hits, and they usually hit as the Fireball jig falls, we can immediately detect that with our high vis line and a vertical position. It also means that our hookset, which is a sweep upwards, will immediately impale the hook into the fish without having to take up slack from a non-vertical position. To do this properly, you need to be able to watch your line while controlling the speed of your trolling motor without distraction from the line. With my foot constantly on the pedal of my Motor Guide Beast, I tap the on/off switch with my toe each time I notice the slightest straying from vertical. The boat is usually going to want to be pushed faster than the line, except in the circumstance of wind blowing up against the current, in which case your bow will be pointed downstream and you will actually be trying to catch up to your jig. With occasional taps on the foot switch, you can virtually hover over your jig as it travels downstream, a major key to vertical jigging success. The weight of the jig is also key to the system. This is a common source of mistake by many anglers because they feel as though they need the confidence that they have contacted bottom by actually feeling their jig thunk on the bottom. In reality, if I can feel my jig contacting bottom, I’m usually using too heavy a jig. Knowing that you are contacting bottom is the key, and achieving that key can be done without feel, but by sight. By being focused on my hi vis line, I can visually see when the line goes slack for a second before the current pushes against the line and takes up the slack. That visual cue is what we need to make positive contact with bottom, not the feel that is transmitted to the rod tip.

As I begin to move down the hole at my prescribed depth, I need to achieve a rhythm in my jigging to be effective. With this rhythm I can efficiently fish one rod in each hand with a simple lift drop. Count a 4 count in your head to start the rhythm at the beginning of each day and as the day wears on you’ll find that rhythm to become automatic. My general rhythms center around either holding the jig in the up position for 3 counts and then dropping, acknowledging bottom and returning to my lift and hold again, or the reverse of dragging the jig for the 3 count and then lift and drop on the fourth count. Don’t be overly aggressive in either of your presentations either. A lift or drop of 3 to 6 inches is plenty. Remember these fish in rivers are tight to the bottom. That means that lifting anymore than 6 inches in most circumstances is taking the bait out of the fish’s strike zone.

By taking this systematic approach to identifying areas, determining depth for the day, and using proper boat position and technique, you can fish the rivers just like the pros.