St. Croix River Fishing Reports

[reinhard1]

you're right in those circumstances that is fair. i thought it was for one day. i should have read the post more carfully. thanks for the post. good luck.

[huskyguy]

had a great morning on the river, the fish were just hammering the crank baits

from about 7am to right around 10 when the wind started to kick up a little ,

which is normally a good thing but for some odd reason we got one good flurry

for about 20 minutes and then nothing. that's fishing for ya .

here's a picture of a smallmouth I caught using a drop shot rig and perch colored jointed rapala . see ya out there !

[huskyguy]

oops, here's the fish

[TruthWalleyes]

Yep, 3 days x $15 a day. It's steep since i'm used to something called "public launches"...which are unheard of in that area apparently.

Just looking for cheaper launches for another 3 day trip.

[DonBo]

The only public launch on the St. Croix is just north of Stillwater. There is not much parking there so it's usually a poor choice in the summer, but may be less used this time of year.

[MuskieJunkie]

There a public one in hasting that I THINK doesn't have a time restricition (if it does you could probalby park on the street in the nieghborhood near there), but there's no dock, it's single lane, the ramp is in poor condition, I've heard about break-ins and (this is the big one) you'll be waiting a long time as it takes people a while to load for all the reasons stated. Personally I avoid that ramp during the summer.

[TruthWalleyes]

Sounds like every ramp on the Minnesota river... I can handle that.

[Dale Rueber]

The boat ramp in Hasting (Lake Rebecca Park) closes 10pm to 6am. Parking on the street would be a fair hike.

[Turk]

September 15, 2010 The St. Croix River water temperature is starting to cool and the fish are responding. The number one environmental factor that is changing is the cooling water is causing a shad die off. Two trips ago I was up on the bow jigging and I witnessed a shad come to the surface, twitch, swim in a circle twice, and die. Whenever this die off starts the fish respond.

Walleye, sturgeon, sauger, and white bass are all starting to bite better than the last three weeks. For walleye, saugers, and white bass present a jig and minnow, Lindy rigged minnow and crawler, trolling cranks, trolling spinner and minnow all are putting fish in the boat. Lure tips: I have been using glitter jigs and Rapala Shad Raps. I would like to give you a tighter depth range, but the depths have been spread out and we have caught fish from 14 to 28 feet of water.

Sturgeon. The bite is also improved and fish are being caught from 15 to 35 feet of water. Again this is a wide depth range but fish are not in a tight depth zone as they will be in a week or so.

The river is 676.33 in Stillwater, and will be two feet higher by next Wednesday.

Have fun!

[tunrevir]

Hit the Croix this evening and what a nice night to be on the water. Little to no wind and had the river nearly to myself tonight. I went after crappies and managed to find a few willing fish but really had to work around to find them and once I found them had to poke around some more to find the decent sized fish. I found fish in 12-20' of water with the larger fish located downstream from the rubble areas I fish. Once I got into 20'+ the jigheads would blow downstream. I didn't upsize to 1/4 oz heads and work deeper as I found willing fish inside the heavier current areas. Water was pretty turbid with alot of floating grass and weeds. 1/16th oz -1/8th oz jig and minnow did the trick. I found that hooking the minnow through the lips upside down proved more effective then the standard presentation this evening.

Tunrevir~

[eckum54]

thanks turk and tunrevir great tips...my next question...im going out this weekend, my only problem is that im going to be shore fishing at taylors falls...any tips

thanks

matt

[counter545]

nice photos yup there ... Husky Hunter, that carp looks like a big mouth buffalo.. Nice fish either way though.

[counter545]

Great night to be fishing! Fished in St Croix near Prescott. Free-floated minnows near shore and got 3 sauger of average size, nothing big. Could get no fish to bite with minnows off bottom. . .. Also used dough to catch 8 carp and two buffalo. A few carp +20 pounds. ... Carp may not be the most respected fish species in the river, but as far as sport, they put up a fight second to none.

[MoMo]

The boat launch at Red Wing, MN is free and decent. Don't think or I guess I don't know for sure that it would be a problem leaving your truck and trailer overnight for 3 nights......not too far downriver (15-20 minutes south by car from prescott, wi) to consider versus paying $45 for the alternative.

[huskyguy]

thanks, I don't know all that much about buffalo or carp for that matter, as I've always been a northern, muskie and walleye kind of a guy.

that's the first buffalo that I've ever caught in over 30 years of fishing the croix, after that battle though I hope it's not the last!

going to head out and check the bite and maybe stay late for some sturgeon action.

my dogs starting to give me "the look" so I'm going to get rolling.

good luck out there, and here's a pic of what I know is a walleye lol.

[fishuhalik]

i was wondering, when we were after sturgies in 60 fow we were marking a ton of fish both bait size and bigger all through the water column. i mean thousands of fish. thing rhose were white bass or something? im thinking about bringing the flasher and ice rod out next time to see if i can catch whatever it was. do white bass bite at night?

[MAC29]

I usually don't post but I thought this was interesting.

I was fishing with my 8 yr son yesterday morning. We were lindy rigging with fatheads and had just enough action to keep him interested. I had a hit that was really light and as I was realing in what I thought was a small perch, it suddenly got heavy and started taking line. After a good fight on light drag we netteed this musky with a 10" sauger with my hook in its mouth. The musky was never hooked, it just refused to let go of the sauger until it was in the net. I have heard of this happening but have never witnessed it before. Needless to say, my boy is hooked and is begging to get back out.

[MAC29]

Oops, I guess I need a little help in adding a photo

[MAC29]

[huskyguy]

If you look above the dialog box , there are some icons.

I use the 5th one,with the blue arrow pointing up.

click on and you will see a green screen that says,

inline image upload, click browse,that will allow you

to access your photo library. once you find the photo

you want double click it, that will bring you back to the

green inline upload screen. click on the add file tab,

note; depending on the speed of your computer this may take

a few seconds to finish loading, at which point you should see

the photo in a little black box,if you want more than one photo

click browse again and repeat steps above, if not then click the

done adding files tab, that will bring you back to the dialog box

and you will see the URLs under you post. I always preview my post first

but at that point you can just hit submit and you should be good to go.

good job on taking the boy fishing, it's little things like your muskie

adventure that create the next generation of fisherman.

oh ya, I check the bite last night and yep they still biting .

caught this nice small mouth and several walleyes.

all of them were just stuffed with minnows, probably the result of the shad die off.

[MAC29]

Thanks for the help Huskeyhunter. It took quite a few tries before I realized the photo was too large. The musky was 42".

[ndfisherman]

I was thinking about doing a canoe float on the river just north of hwy 70 bridge. Has anyone heard of any good smallmouth reports or what they have been biting on?

[dudewheresmyboat]

Spent the afternoon on the croix. Windy and got sprinkled on. Lots of whitebass caught, all small, caught a Musky with a whitebass , and a few FAT walleyes. Great day!!! All fish caught were less than 15fow.

[jwmiller33]

headed out right now for the night to chase some dinosaurs. ill be in a older style 16ft red lund tiller w/ 35hp johnson. stop by and say hey if you see me out there. i'll post a report later

[blakeb]

hit my spot for a bit, let me know how it panned out. Good luck jake

[counter545]

In response to MAC that was a he11 of a story.. Nice musky catch!

[counter545]

good photos up there and thanks for sharing. Looks like fish are going shallower as they always do in the fall. Good news for us shore guys.

[jwmiller33]

I went out last night up river from the 94 bridge. Finally got into some sturgeon for the first time and it was a blast. Caught a few fish right after the wind died down around 11:15-12:00. After that wind died down it was an absolutely beautiful fall night. The sturgeon I caught weren't small, but weren't that big either. Low to mid 30s. Crawlers and fatheads were the ticket. I'm going up north to rainy tonight for the weekend and going to chase some eyes and sturgeon all weekend (I think sturgo are still in season out there), but after I get back from there, in definitely going out on the croix again on monday. I'm determined to land a 50+ incher!

[Jmeyers]

Nice report miller...call me when you go back out to the croix!

[blakeb]

have fun at rainy i am supposed to be there right now thru saturday but my wife is haveing some pregnacy issues so i stayed back. worked a few spots today didnt get much more than a few sheepies, target was for sturgeon.