St. Croix River Fishing Reports

[Herky2002]

My son nailed a nice 20" sauger yesterday on a jig and minnow in 15' of water. It was hard to keep the sheepers off the bait long enough for the eyes to get to it, but we boated a couple of 16"ers along with many shorts.

[Turk]

Nice!

[Steelhead Chaser]

Report 05/29/14: Launched at the Bluff's yesterday early morning. Ramp and launching conditions are great once again that the water has gone down. Managed a good day on the river (for me anyways). Fished from 6:30 to 12:30. Most of the action was from 7:00 to 10:00. Managed to get around 15 eyes and saugers. Total of 5 keepers and the rest were too small. A lot of 13 and 14 inch fish. Almost all fish caught trolling Minnow Raps. As usual firetiger color was the ticket. Did get a couple rigging leaches. Preferred depth was 15 - 18 feet of water. Water temp was from 66 to 68 degrees. Speed from 1.8 to 2.0 worked best. Good luck out there.

[Steelhead Chaser]

Report 05/31/14: Launched at Lakefront park boat launch and fished the Hudson area Sat morning. Plenty of company on the water. Fishing was a little slower than the past few times out but still managed to get a few fish. Boated 5 walleyes and 1 sauger. 3 keeper fish at 16, 16 and 18 inches. All fish caught on Minnow Raps. 140 feet back with a 3/4 oz. snap weight at 70 feet. Preferred depth was a little deeper this time 18 to 21 feet of water. Water temp was around 69 degrees. Good luck out there.

[DonBo]

Nice reports steelhead, keep 'em coming.

[Steelhead Chaser]

Report 06/04/14: Launched at the Bluff's yesterday early morning. Water temp was from 69 to 72 degrees. Water rising with a fair amount of debris and no wake. Slower day out there. Trolling cranks today was not the ticket and it only produced one fish 19 feet of water. Wasted to much time trolling. Switched to rigging leaches and managed to get 4 decent saugers and 2 short eyes 17 to 21 feet of water. Should have switched sooner. Good luck out there.

[Big Jeff]

crappie, one short eye and a bunch of sheep. Lindys and bobbers. Water 73.6 degrees. Launch dock blew over and cut the ramp off made for interesting end of day with the high winds. Heading back Friday with a friend tring differnt part of the river more for eyes.

[YiGGiN4SLoBS]

family camping trip at William O Brien this weekend. Been planned for quite a while so we are stuck fishing the river. Is it way too high to even try right now? We would just be shore fishing. Are there any decent spots to try from shore in the park or near it for Flatheads, walleyes or anything in between?

[Turk]

There will be no shore - it will be flooded trees that you will be standing in. Shore fishing will be challenging. Sorry for the bad news.

[YiGGiN4SLoBS]

Thank you for the heads up. Bad news, but not surprising

[OnAFly]

It is up past the bank on the path going up stream from William OBrien? I haven't been there since April when it was too fast to canoe, but it looks like it could be a decent shore spot in high water if you could find a good current seam to fish.

[SteveD]

I was out last night - picked up one chunky 25" channel cat at 2200 on cut bait. Hardly any flow right now. The Mississippi has the St Croix pretty well backed up and for all this high water there is very little current. I was fishing backwater areas and there were lots of minnows and surface fish activity. Water temp was 72 degrees, river level last night was 687 feet and still rising. All the islands are flooded and the river is out of its banks everywhere.

[Turk]

Steve,

Glad to hear you are out and getting the cats! Thanks for the post, All the best!

Turk

[OnAFly]

Well, in that case it sounds like I should be getting out there in my canoe. I figured since it was so high it was running fast. I need to go check my cast spots!

[SteveD]

Hi Turk - When are you going to start chasing some of those nice channels like you had last year? I was going through my journal from last year and we had similar high water right into July. I didn't pick up my first flathead until 9 July last year. I caught that first one with the river at 679' and falling. Looks like we might have similar conditions this year. Last year it was good catfishing from July on and I am hoping for the same this year.

Looks like she is coming down now - 687' and dropping. River is down 0.3' in the last 24 hours. We need about 679 to get it back within its banks and from then on the cat bite should be on. We are still 8' too high and it will take about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks to get the river down and stable. I'm after them now - we need some nice hot, dry catfishing weather.

I've already been seeing some nice minnow pods in the backwaters. I think they are early season shad and from the looks of it we will have tons of shad pods again. That will turn the cats on for sure.

Hope to see you out there.

Steve

[Mike_Bennewitz]

Steve, I am glad to hear someone is still toughing it out and catching fish! I have kept the two river gauge websites you sent me in an email up on my computer and I see similar predictions, about 684.0ft at the start of July 7th. With only a 30-40% chance of rain most days I don't think we will see enough to send it back up any time soon. I enjoyed our trip out earlier this year and hopefully those big Flatheads start biting for everyone! I need some more points for the KOTC board!

[Buck_Hunter04]

Nobody post fishing reports anymore?? I went out from 7-11 this morning and it was pretty slow for me. Didn't mark much in my normal spots so I tired some off the wall places. about 32fow and marked tons of fish but all I could catch was sheep. One northern up shallow and 1 walleye 14in. in about 26fow. 76 degree water temp. Also, on a personal note. I have finally seen not 1 but 2 paddle fish jump out of the water. I thought it was pretty cool. Always heard about it but never seen one jump. Seen everything else jump out of the water. Oh and the water is about the clearest I've ever seen the river!

[fivebelow]

My weekly trips to the river have not been very productive for walleyes or crappies of late. Been running into a lot of white bass and sheepheads though. Using anything from jigs with fatheads, lindy rigging crawlers, to pulling cranks.

Been hitting usual spots from Kinni down to Prescott and Hudson to Stillwater.

I have yet to figure the summer pattern for eyes.

[budboy]

Ya im haven a hard time also cranks have really gone down hill for me

[wildsmallie]

Afraid I have to add to the so-so reports, was out on Tuesday. The weather was spectacular, the fishing....eh. Did catch one full size [20"-ish] smallie, otherwise my panfish fish spots had little to nothing on it. Where did the bluegills go? Folks were complaining about them a couple years ago. Now they've been replaced by small rock bass. Did run into the first incident of smallies bustin' shad, it was short lived and my girl hooked a nice 2 lber

[hitthebricks]

I'm with you guys, fishing has been very slow the last few weeks.

[OnAFly]

Anyone been out for cats lately?

[FshBloodRiverMud]

Had good luck a week ago strolling Santee cooper rigs near new bridge const.

[OnAFly]

I got out last night on the upper croix and it was not good. Every spot I went to I caught...turtles. I got pretty good at unhooking them by the end of the night. Ended up with one med sized cat at the end of the night in the same spot as last time.

I tried deep current seems, shallow current seems, slow holes, fast holes, deep brush, shallow brush and everywhere was the same thing. I don't know if they've just found some other area of the river with more food or what. I might have to start taking the big boat out and learn the lower croix.

[dispatch1313]

Went out on the upper river on Friday night for a couple hours. Got one on chicken liver right when the sun when down. Turtles kept stealing our bait after that so we tried another spot. Hooked a nice one within 15 mins but lost it near the boat when it tried going for the anchor rope. Called it a night by 10:45, my fishing partner had to get up in the morning. The little action we got was in the deepest current seams within that section of river (6-7 feet deep). Upper river is shallow now, normal flow for this time of year.

On a side note...what are the water levels like downstream from the Interstate State Park landing in Taylors Falls? Is this section boatable this time of year? I have a 14' jon with 25hp short-shaft. I'm curious how the smallmouth bass/catfish fishing is in the section between TF and Franconia - I've never fished it. Thanks.

(sorry for the bad pics...apparently iPhones don't take pictures well in the dark. Or I don't know how to use the thing which is probably more likely)

[tunrevir]

Nice fish there Dispatch! The TF to Franconia has some deeper holes that would work for kitties and your rig would be just fine up that way. As with any new body of water that you are unfamiliar with you will want to take it slow until you have an idea of where the sand bars and other obstructions are. Good luck!

Tunrevir~

[dispatch1313]

Thanks, I will have to try that area

[dispatch1313]

Put some fish in the boat the other day with the neighbor kids' help. Boated mostly smallies (biggest went 19") and a couple northerns. Switched to crawlers on the bottom for a bit and caught a bunch of suckers and a walleye. All the bass were caught on soft plastics in shallow rocks. Nothing better then watching kids catch fish!

[huskyguy]

Fished the flats out front of the bluffs landing this morning,

fishing was so, so... caught several small walleyes and kept

3 nice fat saugers. All in all not a bad morning. After leaving

the park, some where around 12.30 pm, I turned onto 110th street

heading n.w.towards hwy 95, right near that apple orchard on the left.

Much too my surprise a medium sized black bear ran across the road and

headed north through the soy bean field towards those nice elevated

tree stands you can see way back in that little valley on the right...

My buddy and I gave the traditional fist bump, all and all a cool day !

P.S. before anyone asks... my eye sight is just fine, thank you, Lol !

[john.wells]

Fished the top side of the dam today, went out at the worst possible time of day (10 am to 4 pm). One bite and that was it. Pulled cranks for miles, jigged, tossed the shallow rocks, etc... I figured with the front coming it would be good. Normally I would consider any time spent fishing to be better than anything else, but the heat and humidity was terrible... Lesson learned.