What is the bite like on the Red river this fall? Since there’s nothing like firsthand experience two friends and I headed out Thursday to find out.Fishing between Selkirk and Lockport, we fished hard for eight hours. We ended up catching seven nice walleye, none bigger than two kilograms though.
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| Jim with first green of the fall |
Four of them were caught trolling crankbaits along the main river channel in three metres of water and the others came on a jig tipped with a salted shiner minnow. Other anglers were catching walleye this way from an anchored position. We did do some drift fishing with little success. With a stiff east wind blowing and some rain falling, it seemed a better jig bite even though we caught more on crankbaits. That was probably because we spent a lot more time pulling #7 and # 9 Berkley Flicker Shads than jigging.
We did find some current, but it was mostly within two kilometres of Lockport and it certainly held the most fish, including a large number of hungry saugers. When the water temperature is still 16 Celsius like it was Thursday, you will catch a wide variety of species. This day we caught pike, white bass, drum, stone cats, goldeye, sauger and walleye, enough to make the day very enjoyable.
OCTOBER IS BEST: Last year the action really picked up the first week in October after we had a week of cooler temperatures combined with north winds. My first day out, a strong south wind had cranked up current as all the water that had been piled up in the river from the lake with the north wind during the week emptied out. This had the fish on the bit and it was not stop action all day. I would anticipate this will probably be the case again this year, but there are enough fish in the system to make it a worthwhile trip.
