St Croix Report – 6 May

I got my first channel cat of the season. Fished the St Croix from 6:00pm to 11:00pm last night. Water temp was 58 degrees and river elevation was 675.5 which is low water especially for this time of year. Picked up one 21″ channel at 8:10 pm on cut sucker and had two short runs at about 9:00pm. Drowned a bullhead on one rod for most of the evening but nothing touched it. It got pretty cold later in the evening. Twins lost to Seattle, 2-1. All in all kind of a slow evening

Does the police or anyone there care about how late you can fish from shore by the stillwater bridge?? I’d like to do some night time catfishin but i’d like to make sure of this first

The riverfront along the St Croix in downtown Stillwater is called Lowell Park. I have seen people fishing all along Lowell Park usually set up in lawnchairs or sitting on the levee wall. As long as you don’t block the sidewalk so people can get by, I don’t think you would be hassled. Driving is allowed along the levee road right under the bridge so you can get close to the bridge or the levee to unload your gear. The best and easiest parking is along the north end of the park by the railroad tracks. It does get crazy down there on the weekends and parking can be difficult. The boat traffic along that waterfront is incredible – it looks like Highway 94 at rush hour into the cities. There is a lot of people activity in that park every night in the summer because of the bars and restaurants downtown. The north end of the park has a large culvert with a good steady runoff from the watersheds up the hill from Stillwater. There is usually a lot of shore fishing in the area of that culvert because of the water flowing into the St Croix. Most of the fish caught are rough fish but the people are mostly fishing nightcrawlers. Not to many people specifically cat fish so it would be worth a try. I have seen people fishing there late at night and I don’t think the police have ever hassled anybody. If you would like to call the Stillwater Police Department their non-emergency phone number is 651-351-4900. If you do some fishing there, let us all know how you do.

My wife and I were fishing down there one evening several summers ago. We were catching Sheepies left and right. I was unhooking one and a passerby stopped to take a close look as I was working to get the hook out. He asked me if that was a bass? I explained it was a sheephead/freshwater drum. I looked up at the guy and it was Sam Shepard (playwright/actor). Right behind him was his wife, Jessica Lange! At the time, I guess they had a place up by marine – I think they’ve since sold it. Man oh man . . . It is unusual to see that much mature beauty “on-the-hoof” (Jessica, not Sam). Gotta love Stillwater!!!

She was still around last year to join the Iraq War protestors down at the bridge. She’d join in for about 30 minutes and split.