July 7 & 8

[Walli1]

Got out to the river early couldn't buy even so much as a keeper the first hour and a half, then I went bottom bouncing and things changed for the better and fast, broke off on one dandy on the side of the boat, just doing that catch and release thing but I'd like to have gotten a photo to add to the book, caught quite a few shorties and finished the morning with two nice walleyes. Most of the fish came out of 18' fow on gold spinners and crawlers, I'll be or the river again in the early morning hours

[croixeyes]

A similar start to the day with me.Started out trolling cranks and for the first two hours only 1 short and 1 small sauger.It seemed that the flat calm conditions had the fish in a funk,or I just wasnt using the right presentation.Started running spinners and crawlers around 8:30 and soon after pulled a nice 16in Saugeye.Started covering ground with spinners pulling about 1.2 to 1.6 mph and was rewarded with 6 more nice eyes ranging from 17 to 21 inches.Boat traffic started getting nasty around 11:30 so a trolling I went and the sauger were putting on the feed bag.Shad Raps and stick baits both worked well and my boat partner and I ended up boating around 20 sauger and one more 21 in eye before the sun got the best of us.The walleyes today came out of 21 to 23 feet with the bigger fish coming off sand breaks,The Saugs came in slightly deeper water 24 to 26fow.As in Walli 1s report we used pounded gold and plain gold blades tipped with a crawler.Firetiger and green patterns also produce.Be out again in the Am before the natives get restless see ya on the Water

[SS 9 IRON]

Well it sounds like the veterans are putting fish in the boat. I was out earlier in the week (Wednesday). I got a total of 4 fish and missed several more. My buddy from Wisconsin was on the rough fish and the little lady got skunked...I'm still a pansy in her eyes. Boy she let me have it. Anyhow, I've tried trolling with cranks and using bell sinkers with deep divers. My 90 horse merc trolls down to about 2.0 to 2.3 going backwards. Is that too fast? I wouldn't think so but trolling for me has been a futile endeavor. I've had my most success with a gold colored jig and a leech. Maybe I just need to committ to trolling for an afternoon until I find the fish. Anyhow, it sure has been hot and I keep thinking the fish are gonna head deep but I've got fish in 20ft all the way to 30ft.

I'll be off to the BWCA for a few days. I washed and waxed the rig, topped of the gas tank and she's ready to fire. Some day I'll be the old guy posting that the I boated 20 fish and the action is hot...until then

[Stratosman]

Nice reports guys!!! I was at Mille lacs Saturday chasin smallies so no river for me this weekend...Probably Tuesday. Supposed to cool down by then too.

croixeyes, were you trollin lead core or 3-ways/bouncers?

[baldav]

Walli1 and Croixeyes, Thanks for the reports. I was on the river Saturday morning and found myself struggling to put fish in the boat (just one sauger for 4 hours of fishing). I launched at the bluffs around 6am and fished downstream. Started out pulling a bottom bouncer and crawler downstream on the MN side in 20 FOW. Switched to a lindy rig crawler and later tried a lindy rig with leech, which caught the lone fish of the morning. As I'm still new to fishing generally, and the croix in specific, I'd like to ask you pros a couple of questions:

1) How do you decide when to use a bottom bouncer vs. a lindy rig? Is it bottom composition that helps determine this (using a bottom bouncer over snag-prone rocks)?

2) Is there a particular direction that the fish seem to key on when pulling a spinner/bouncer combo (i.e. upstream vs. downstream)

3) Speed: I was moving anywhere between 1-2mph trying to find the right speed. What speed do you generally target when pulling spinners?

4) Structure/Location: I understand the general concepts of current breaks and structure for fishing walleyes on a river system, but are there particular structures that are better suited for bottom bouncing then others?

Again, I appreciate your guy's reports and tips and any assistance that the river veterans can help me out with respect to my questions above. Thanks again.

[croixeyes]

Well today was a little slower for me than yesterday.Got going a little later than saturday so I skipped trolling and went right to pulling spinners.That was a mistake I couldnt seem to hit on anything and missed the few fish that hit.The heat was oppresive,started to troll around 10:30 and popped several more Saugers.Today I was joined by my neighbor,a 15 year old up and comer to river fishing who had gotten a taste of skunk yesterday on the river.On our last pass he nailed a 21.5 inch Saugeye on a shad rap,thats about the biggest Saugeye ive seen come off the Croix.Im sure there are larger ones out there but I was impressed by it.Covered a variety of depths today,most of the Saugs came from 24 to 28fow,oh well thats fishing

Baldav Ill try to answer a few of your questions the best I can.1st off I myself dont use bottom bouncers to much,I mostly use egg slip sinkers when I pull spinners or rig.Bottom bouncers preform well in rocky situations and they do come in a slip sinker style,but im comfortable using the egg sinkers in these spots.As far as when to rig and when to use spinners,Ill rig when ive got a group of fish in a small area and pull spinners when fish are scattered .Most of the time Im pulling spinners at 1 to 1.5mph,It depends on what kind of blade im using.Colorado style for slow,Willow leaf style for fast and Indiana Style for inbetween.Hope that helps with your fishing.SS 9iron thats about the speed I troll at.Do you own a tiller or a wheel boat?A trolling plate may help you to get slower if you need.Just keep plugging away out there youll get on em,And have fun up north.Statosman,yea I was pullin lead out there this weekend.The better half is out of town this week so im gonna be livin on the River as much as possible,gonna fill up a couple of buckets of food and water for the dogs and clean up that mess later ...Good luck out there....

[Walli1]

Today for me went alright, picked up 4 shorties lindy riggen 14-18 fow, then about 6ish went over to bottom bouncing spinners, ran into FWA, nice to see him again, then went over and bounced the rocks and more then got started and put a decent one in the boat, stopped and put down the lindy and crawler but there were no takers at least not eyes, give it a shot for awhile and then went bouncing again and picked up two more in the sand 19-27fow left the river by 8:30am sure was nice to have a little wind!

[FWA]

Walli1, after we made a couple of runs around the dock, our battery for the trolling motor started to die, so I decided we would go and explore pool 3 around the corner. We got into a nice school of silvers surface feeding, so that salvaged the morning.