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Smally Bite North Of Sartel


CS26

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I fished around the Rice sportsmans park this past Saturday. We boated about a dozen smallmouth and a couple catfish throughout the morning. The water was very low and clear. The biggest smally was 18.5" along with a couple 17". The best action came from poppers along the fast water seams. I plan on fishing the river again 2or 3 times in the next week. I'm not sure where I'll be fishing so I'm wondering if anyone else has any info on where to go between Royalton and Sartel.

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I was out last night for a couple of hours after work. I caught about a half dozen smallies, some pretty nice, just fishing tubes in the rocks north of the Sartell access. Would have liked to fish more, but it gets dark pretty fast lately!!!

lt

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CS - first of all, welcome to the site. Get away now before you get addicted! j/k. You find a lot of good info, as I'm sure you already know...

Congrats on the smallies. There have been good reports coming in from all over. I've never been up past north monticello - but have the st.cloud/sartel/royalton areas on my list of spots to explore; if not this year, for sure next year.

Lumber - you are right, the nights have been getting shorter and shorter. It stinks! By the time I get off work I've got maybe 2-3 hours max after I drive to my spots, wade out and start fishing. Luckily I get off at 4 and can beat a little of the traffic headed north out of the cities on an average day and be fishing by 5-5:30ish. I'm dreading day lights savings time...

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Have put in at Royalton and fished up to the dam and also down to the campground at Two Rivers and had great days 40 plus fish for the 2 of us. Most fish 12 to 16" but enough ( 5 or 6) both trips in the 17 to 19" to keep things exciting. Upstream is very shallow and requires dragging over several sets of rapids. The River is beautiful and the fishing is great. We were flyfishsing with Clousers mostly. Its hard to beat a 4 pound smallie on an 9' flyrod!!!!!!

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I fished South of the Royalton park on Wednesday and had a great day. Boated about 30 bass with the biggest at 19". I think the fog made for a great midday bite. I fished some of the same spots today but the fish were scarce. I only boated a couple of bass in 4 hours of fishing but they were nice. There was a lot of people hunting and fishing the river today I wonder if anyone else had better luck. I plan on floating from SCSU to the Clearwater landing on Monday. Has anyone else been fishing this stretch of water lately?

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