Pool 8 fishing, from La Crosse down to Genoa

What is Pool 8, exactly?

The water held back by Lock and Dam 8, which sits at river mile 679.2 adjacent to the village of Genoa. The pool runs upstream from there to Lock and Dam 7 at Dresbach, Minnesota. The dam went into operation in 1937 and was rehabilitated between 1989 and 2003; its observation deck is open to the public, which is the easiest way to watch a tow lock through if you have never seen it.

Two tributaries change how this pool behaves. The La Crosse River enters from the Wisconsin side draining 480 square miles, and the Root River enters from the Minnesota side draining 1,660 square miles. The Black River now empties into Pool 7, but a minimum discharge is maintained through the Onalaska Dam and runs down the last four miles of the old Black River channel into Pool 8. After heavy rain on the Root, the upper pool colours up well before anything shows at Genoa.

Structurally the pool is not uniform. The upper section has high bank islands next to the main channel and deep secondary channels, the middle is braided with low islands and small backwater sloughs, and the lower third opens into a large expanse of water above the dam. All of it sits inside the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, which publishes pool-by-pool maps marking closed areas, sanctuaries and slow-no-wake zones.

Which limits apply on Pool 8?

Pool 8 is entirely Wisconsin-Minnesota boundary water, so Wisconsin anglers work from chapter NR 21 of the administrative code. Unlike Pool 9 downstream, there is no second chapter to reconcile — one table covers the whole pool.

On licensing, the boundary-water area is defined by the railroad tracks paralleling both banks, which takes in far more backwater than most people assume. A license from either state covers you, except that residents must hold their own state's resident license in their own state's water. OurMississippi River license finderworks through the residency and age rules and quotes the current price. Two weekends a year — the first in June and the third in January — no license is required at all.

Where can you get a boat in the water?

The anchor site on Pool 8 is Goose Island Park and Campground, run by the La Crosse County Facilities Department at W6488 County Road GI, Stoddard, Wisconsin 54658. Three miles south of La Crosse on Highway 35, on a wooded island in the Mississippi backwaters. Three boat ramps, over 350 campsites and a marked canoe trail, open from 15 April to 30 October. It puts you straight into the backwaters of the upper pool rather than the main channel.

Further down, Stoddard and Genoa both have village landings, and the Corps of Engineers maintains public landings along the reach. Rather than reproduce a list that goes out of date, work from theWisconsin boat access inventory — more than 2,000 sites with current fee information, and the department is upfront that anything it holds can change without notice. Cross-check it against therefuge pool maps, which mark closed areas and sanctuaries, before planning a route into the sloughs.

Which fish should you target on Pool 8?

Walleye and sauger are what most people drive here for, and the four-fish aggregate with a single twenty-inch allowance shapes how you fish: on this pool, numbers of eating-size fish matter more than hunting one big one. Channel catfish carry a ten-fish aggregate with one over thirty inches allowed. Largemouth and smallmouth bass run a five-fish aggregate at a fourteen-inch minimum, and the braided middle section is where the largemouth water is.

Panfish limits here are noticeably tighter than the Iowa boundary water downstream: fifteen bluegill and sunfish combined, fifteen crappie, fifteen yellow perch, ten white and yellow bass. If you are used to twenty-five-fish panfish limits elsewhere in Wisconsin, this pool will catch you out.

For a weight without a scale, thewalleye weight calculator runs the published standard-weight equation and starts with a sauger identification check, and thechannel catfish calculator deals with the fork-length measurement most people get wrong.

When should you fish Pool 8?

There is no season to wait for. Wisconsin lists walleye, sauger, bass, pike, catfish and every panfish species on this pool as continuous, so the calendar question is really a conditions question. The gauge reading at the top of this page is the first thing to check: a rising river after rain on the Root moves fish off the main channel and into the sloughs, and the stage tells you that before the forecast does.

Lock and Dam 8 is the other timing cue. Current against the dam face concentrates walleye and channel cats when the river is pulling; the same water is a boat-handling problem in high water and a snag farm for light braid. Dawn and dusk against that current are the hours we launch for; bright midday behind a rising high is when we check the hatchery overlook instead of burning fuel. The Genoa public landing and the Blackhawk / Stoddard accesses are the usual put-ins for the lower half of the pool — pick the one that matches whether you are fishing the dam or the braided islands upstream.

For the hour rather than the week, thebest fishing time calculator scores light level, moon position, moon phase and barometric trend separately and tells you how strong the evidence behind each factor actually is. It will not promise you a percentage, because nothing published supports one.

Questions anglers ask about Pool 8

How big is Pool 8?

Pool 8 covers 20,800 acres at its project pool elevation of 631.0 feet and runs 23.3 river miles from Lock and Dam 7 at Dresbach, Minnesota down to Lock and Dam 8 at Genoa, Wisconsin. Its drainage area is 64,770 square miles.

How many walleye can you keep on Pool 8?

Four walleye and sauger in aggregate under Wisconsin rules, with a 15-inch minimum on walleye and only one fish in the bag longer than 20 inches. That is two fewer than Pool 9 immediately downstream, and the twenty-inch cap is the part people forget.

Is there a live water level gauge for Pool 8?

Yes. United States Geological Survey site 05386400 at Brownsville, Minnesota sits inside the pool and reports gage height. It does not report discharge, so this page shows stage without a flow figure rather than borrowing one from another site.

Where does the La Crosse River enter Pool 8?

From the Wisconsin side, at the upper end of the pool by the city of La Crosse. It drains 480 square miles. The Root River enters from the Minnesota side and drains 1,660 square miles. A hard rain on either watershed will colour the upper pool before it touches Genoa.

Can I fish below Lock and Dam 8 on the same rules?

No. Below the dam you are in Pool 9, where the walleye bag rises to six and a 20 to 27 inch protected slot applies. The rule change happens across a few hundred feet of water with nothing marking it.

Heading downstream? The rules change at the dam. OurPool 9 fishing guide covers the 31.3 miles from Genoa to Lynxville, including the mid-pool state line that splits it between two sets of limits.