St. Cloud to Clearwater

[uphill]

I floated from St. Cloud to Clearwater with a buddy on Sunday and had one bad day of fishing. Between the 2 of use we caught 8 smallies and none with any size. Talked to 2 other guys they did the same. Pretty bad day for a stretch of river that you can catch anywere from 40 to 200 fish in a day. I guess we will try again.

[Keith_MN]

Uphill,

I was out on that stretch of the river on Sunday and had the same experience. Threw a lot of lures and rigs at 'em but couldn't make 'em bite. Fortunately the guy I was fishing with was just as happy to fight with the carp (which WERE biting) as the smallies.

I'd have to say that Sunday ranked right down there with one of my poorer days of fishing on the river.

Hopefully things will improve by Thursday when I will be chasing after the smallies again.

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Keith_MN

I plan to live forever......so far so good!

[uphill]

Keith, do you live in the Valley View addition down by the river across from the country club. Just wondering I know a guy by the same name and has the same occupation just wondering if you are that guy.

[Keith_MN]

Uphill,

Must be more than one 'Keith' in central Minnesota. In fact I know of one other Keith in Central Minnesota that has my last name too.

Anyway, I live on the Clear Lake side of the river by Clearwater. So I generally put in at the Clearwater landing and fish upriver 3 miles or so.

I'm gonna try it again tomorrow afternoon. It can't be any poorer than it was on Sunday even though the water will probably be up another 3 or 4 inches.

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Keith_MN

I plan to live forever......so far so good!

[Scarlet Mink]

I to was on the River Sunday morning & fished until 1:30 PM. I only caught two smallies, and that was the only action I had. I was happy with that, as they were
17 1/2" and 20", but I didn't consider that a good outing.

If you follow flow levels(USGS website) on the River,you will notice that on Sunday, the River was dropping all afternoon and into the evening hours.

I have never had much success when the River is dropping.

Mink

[BigMike]

Mink - first off, welcome to Fishing MN! This is an awesome site for sharing info with other anglers that share the same passion for fishing!

Even though you may think a 17.5'' & a 20'' is not a good outing, some people would fish a whole day just to catch a 20inch smallie! That is a big fish for the river by everyone's standards. I remember last fall I only caught one fish, a 19.5'', on an outing with Ebass and that made the rest of my fall (until I caught a 20.5'' a few weeks later ). Last Saturday I caught a bunch of 15-16.5'' all within a hour and I would give that action up for just one hawg 20incher! If you are fishing a tourney that may be a little different, but for recreation - go for the biggest fish . Either way, welcome to FM .

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Mike
TJ Tackle Pro-Staff

[Keith_MN]

Fishing improved yesterday (Thursday) over Sunday. But the smallies only wanted night crawlers. I'm not to proud to use live bait; I release every bass I catch anyway. But I long for the early days of August when the smallies were jumping out of the water to hit my topwater baits.

Yesterday we had to work to find 'em, but once we did it seemed we could pull a half dozen of 'em out of a 6' x 6' hole.

Biggest for the day was caught by my fishing partner - 19+ inches. CPR'd her.

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Keith_MN

I plan to live forever......so far so good!