Got a late start on a cold morning fishing the Arm. My buddy Jay started off throwing a Cabelas blade bait in a bluegill pattern and picked up some active eyes. I was throwing a jig but quickly switched over to a blade bait. We moved around a bit but finally located some eyes on a deep channel edge.

We were initially throwing jigs but based on the current we were dealing with I switched to a drop shot; this allowed us to keep our Powerbait minnows in the strike zone longer. Front of the boat was in 42 FOW and back was in 54 FOW. The eyes were hanging right at the base of the channel edge so all Jay had to do was fish straight down off the back of the boat.

Total for the day was 40 eyes and 2 burbot. Jay and I were even at 1 burbot each. We caught a lot of dinks but managed to keep eight that were between 15 1/2 and 19 inches. Water temp varied between 42 and 45 degrees; got cooler the further up river you went.

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