HOW TO FISH WING DAMS DURING COLD WEATHER

On fall days on the upper Mississippi River, Minnesota pro Austin Felix is just winging it.

The 2020 Bassmaster Elite Series Rookie of the Year is certainly an easygoing man, but don’t error this for complacency he’s a male with a plan that includes taking advantage of seasonal fish motion by targeting one of the most trustworthy autumn situations: wing dams.

Essentially man-made rock piles protruding diagonally down-current from the river bank, wing dams direct the water flow towards the swifter primary channel.

This does two things: It lowers sediment build up, while reducing coastline disintegration. Really, there’s a 3rd advantage: fish magnets.

“On the Mississippi River, fall is the best time to be targeting wing dams because the water level is about as low as it’s going to be all year,” Felix said.

“Also, the water temperature is falling, so fish are pulling out of the backwaters, plus all the bait tends to pile up on top of the wing dams.”

“A lot of the largemouth and smallmouth will winter behind a wing dam in those deeper holes (carved by overtopping water flow). It’s kind of the perfect storm.”

Target Acquisition

You can use jig/minnow rigs or jig/plastic rigs to fish these wing dams from the upstream side of the rocks.

You have to keep your rod tip high when you do this and reel as soon as your offering hits the water. If you don’t, you may get snagged–wing dams love to eat lures.

For best results, cast those same small crankbaits parallel to the wing dam. If you fish them this way, more fish get a chance to see your offering and strike it.

The Mississippi also has a lot of back channel wing dams, but as the water level drops, most of the action happens on the main channel.

The wing dams will be clearly visible on navigation charts, but you’ll usually see surface evidence of water breaking over something solid below.

Also, watch for bird activity, as gulls and terns will not miss baitfish schools. He said fish can hold anywhere along a wing dam, but he finds them 90 percent of the time on the tip or at the shallow end of the dam.

“A lot of it depends on how old the wing dam is or how new it is,” Felix said. “Depending on how much current it gets, it’ll be silted in or it’ll be really rough and there will be areas you won’t be able to fish too well because it’s too snaggy.”

It is more likely that hungry bass will be attracted to a wing dam that’s connected to something else, like a point or the head of an island, where a side channel dumps near the dam.

Predators will be attracted more if there are more baitfish to gathering.

 

Sources: wideopenspaces