sturgeon... a few questions

[fishuhalik]

So I was wondering about the size of sturgies on the croix, do you think they have the potential to get to the same average size as those in lotw/rainy? Is it just because they haven't had a chance to recover as much as the lotw fish? I would think with all the forage (shad) in the river they should be monsters, but it seems like the fish in there are on average alot skinnier, not to mention shorter, than those up nort fish.

[jwmiller33]

you raise a good question fishuhalik.... i have heard of some monsters being out there in the croix... i think part of the reason is that the season is sooooo much longer up on rainy and there are just in general, a lot more guys fishing for/targeting sturgeon up on the rainy than out on the croix throughout hte year, that you are going to get more bigger fish caught up there. i think there is more info out there on the sturgeon in rainy/LOTW because of the effort the DNR has done in terms of tagging and collecting info on them up there (i have not heard of nor seen any tagger strugeon in the croix). i think it is really cool how you can catch a tagged sturgeon on the rainy and submit the info to the dnr and learn a ton more about the fish you caught...

i heard a the former state record sturgeon came out of the croix out in front of beanies a while back.. i think with the season being not as long as the rainy's season has a big thing to do with why you dont see as many big sturgeon caught on the croix... personally, i dont see a difference in sturgeon from the croix or rainy in terms of girth.. i have caught sturgeon on both and i really dont think there is that big of a different in terms of high end outliers (60+)

[fishuhalik]

high end no, there's huge fish in both bodies of water. Let me ask you this though jw. a 45" fish up there is on the smaller end. On the croix that's a pretty nice fish. It's not uncommon for guys to catch way more fish over 50" than under. Never heard of that on the Croix. And there are alot more big fish up there, 60" fish aren't common but I would say a group of 2 boats fishing for a weekend can pretty much count on at least 1 over 60".

personally i just think the fish in the croix haven't had as long to recoup, so the length should get there. It just seems those rainy fish have a TON more mass.

[anordqu42]

Was also out last night and I'd second that something turned the fish off. It was by far the slowest night we've had. Just two nights ago (Wed) we boated around 20 fish. In an effort to continuously understand these fish, I'd wager that cold fronts do effect them.

I watched the graph a lot last night and it looked like there were quite a few fish around (same as any other night I watch the graph). Obviously I can't tell exactly what species is down there, but I would guess many cruising the bottom are sturgeon, and I can tell that they weren't feeding heavily last night.

[Nick Kuhn]

I've noticed sturgeon sizes are pretty varied depending on bodies of water. The biggest fish always seem to come out of true lakes (or the connecting rivers). Lake Winnebago far and away has the biggest lake sturgeon. But even the modestly sized lakes up the Yellow and Clam rivers throw out some monster fish. but for the most part all the central Wisconsin river fish are also in the 40's and some 50's. 60+" do turn up occasionally though, usually in the flowages.

[jwmiller33]

was out last night again and we did ok. not a great night but not a bad night by any means... posted up in 39 fow and were using crawlers, fatheads and shad... was at gander mtn yesterday and found some shad that they sell in these plastic bags.. i have heard that shad is the main forage base of the river, and sturgeon love to eat it... so we were using shad as well as fathead combos on our hooks... managed a few fish but nothing huge. bite still seems to not have recovered ever since that cold front moved in.. i am hoping that once the temps get a little warmer this week, it will turn the fishing on.

anyone ever try using shad as bait for sturgeon? im not sure what the ideal size is.. i bought a bag of ones that were about 3-5 inches in length, but i could have bought ones that were bigger.. i was trying to guess what would be the most common type of size shad in the forage base that would commonly die and fall to the bottom for the sturgeon to eat... any suggestions?

[GRAND DAD]

Well am not an expert by any means first year fishing for them But I was out friday night from 6pm till about 1am Caught 2. Was back out around 5pm on sat till about 8pm caught 5 then went back out Sunday from noon till 5pm and got 22. So I think along with this high water the water got pretty dirty and kind of switched them from night to day time. I don't know just a guess. 22 by far has been my best fishing to date for the year Biggest this weekend was 49 just can't seem to break the 50 inch mark but It will come.)

[jwmiller33]

thanks for the input grand dad... thats some great info you provided.. i havent been out in the day fishing for them yet... i guess i will have to give it a shot one of these days before the season closes on the 15th.

check out the mouth on this guy!

[bobbymalone]

how come i don't see the zubaz when blondie's in the boat?

[TruthWalleyes]

how come i don't see the zubaz when blondie's in the boat?

HaHa ROTFL

Glad i'm not the only one that noticed the Zubaz!

[Baitchaser]

Haha yes the zubaz were on. I just had to wear them under my rain pants. I'm not afraid to rock the zubaz because they seem to bring a little luck

[Mr Special]

Got out last night with WWG. Boated 3 sturgeon biggest was 40" and a mud puppy. however, the water was smooth as glass, in between the boats on plane of course.

Still a good outing

[jwmiller33]

i was out last night... best bite wasn't until after 1 am... between 1:30-2:30 is when the action started to pick up. had a few bites last night that almost ripped my rod out of my rod holder.

[jwmiller33]

i will also note that there was a lot of funky activity going on the top water last night.... it seemed like every 5-10 seconds there was a fish that swirled at the surface next to the boat, and appeared to be eating some bugs or something on the top water... ive seen sturgeon swirl and roll at the surface tons of times too and this was something much different, although there were a few sturgeon rolling last night also. i didnt have a spotlight with me last night but i had a headlamp and a flashlight and i was trying to catch a glimpse of whatever this was and never worked out. however, i was able to see little wakes on the surface (if i looked in the right place at the right time) from whatever was swimming around... i thought perhaps it could have been bass or muskies? but i was in 40 fow and i dont know if bass would come out that deep.

anybody have any idea what that was last night? i know there was one other boat out there next to me for a couple hrs and they must have experienced the same thing i did... im thinking about bringing a few muskie lures to toss out there every now and then

[DTro]

You were seeing schooling shad most likely. Like I said before, when you start seeing this activity around your boat, it is usually followed by a good bite.

Your report coincides with other recent ones I've got

[SteveD]

I wouldn't be surprised if those were muskies chasing shad. That warm water plume off the King Plant attracts a lot of bait when the water cools and the muskie follow. I've walked the shoreline of the King Plant outlet in the winter and the muskies are right up in the outlet chasing shad and other bait. St Croix muskie season is from May 29, 2010 to March 1, 2011 for those wanting some late season open water fishing.

I tried to catch a muskie in the winter at the outlet quite a few years ago (in February if I remember right) but after I watched my 3rd $15 muskie lure break off and go flying out into the drink I gave it up. My rod guides would freeze up and snag the line and the torque of that big muskie lure just snapped my mono line and that lure would fly for a mile and splash there goes $15. Maybe some heavy weight superline would work better but I was freezing anyway and it wasn't that much fun so I chalked it up to "been there, done that" and went home and sat near the fire. I like catfishing when its 90 degrees much better -

[anordqu42]

We were out there last night with you and saw a lot of surface action too. I know I pointed out one spot that had a swirl 3 times in a row to a boatmate. Some splashes were shad, but I think overall it was a variety of fish. I heard a few sturgeon splash and the only full fish jump I saw was something much smaller; bass size. Probably a good variety of fish out there feeding on the shad.

[fishuhalik]

Sounds like it might be alotta fun to have one sturgeon rod and one rod set up with a silver popper!! Hopefully heading out on Sunday night, so I'll be keeping that in mind.

[jwmiller33]

was out again last night again and it was really slow for some reason.. only got 2 fish, one of which was a runt, the other was a healthy 46. the bite was non existent last night for some reason. there was still a ton of surface action just like there was the night before. the surface temp sky rocketed to 70 yesterday as well.. that could have altered the feeding pattern for the area we were fishing

[bobbymalone]

Any reports from over the weekend? I was hoping to go out but it wasn't in the stars. Gonna get one last hurrah before 10/15 and I hope it picked up from what you guys were saying last week.

[GRAND DAD]

Well I fished Friday from 5pm till about 8pm got 14 biggest was a 48 that my 17 year old daughter caught witch was a blast for her. it was her first. I told her that either she goes fishing friday night with her dad or we are waking up at the crack of dawn to go on sunday morning and she picked Firday witch turn out to be a great choice. Becasue I fished from 7am to 3 pm and GOT NOTHING, Sunday when I rolled to my spot we marked a lot down there for the first hour but then it turned to the dead sea. So I was humbled to say the least.

[DTro]

Friday was the day to be out there. I fished Sat early morning and only got three, everyone I talked to said the same thing. No change on Sunday morning either...slow slow slow. Last night was by far the slowest of the season.

yeah I've been putting on some miles

[pureinsanity]

Boated 9 saturday night. biggest was 36" smallest was 30"

To bad you didn't make it out again Darren. Did you guys get the hubs fixed?

[DTro]

Yeah my evening session of the double tripper on sat was axed due to technical difficulties. All is well now though.

[bobbymalone]

you guys still fishing out of beanies or did ya move upstream a bit?

[fishuhalik]

ended up gettin out at 900 last night, pretty slow. got 2,one 30 and one just a little over 50. seems like the spot weve been fishing theyre either big or small. 8 fish in 2 trips 5 around 30, 1 36 a 52 and a50

[pureinsanity]

ended up gettin out at 900 last night, pretty slow. got 2,one 30 and one just a little over 50. seems like the spot weve been fishing theyre either big or small. 8 fish in 2 trips 5 around 30, 1 36 a 52 and a50

What were you using for bait?

[fishuhalik]

fatheads and crawlers. We missed 3-4 fish too, the only time we started getting bites was when we squished the fatheads. We weren't getting anything and I heard about that trick on here, that's when we started getting a couple of bites. Oh, and we were in 48 fow, saw a ton of fish on bottom.