Skunked on the Croix!

Wow what a difference a day can make! The rain that moved through that dumped a few inches from oct 4th to the morning of the 5th(about 3″) shut everything down like someone turned off a switch!

I set out in the afternoon with stcroixer for a few hours and we only managed a few sheephead nibbles.. they werent even interested in biting! Jarret had to leave early, and I stuck it out and tried several more spots just to find a couple more sheepies to nibble on my shad or crawler offering. I heard blacksportsman caught one sheepie, and MNfishHunt caught one small fish about 30″.

Very poor results on the river yesterday. The fishing should pick back up as the weather stabilizes. The baitfish were all on the surface yesterday in numbers I have never seen before. Sometimes the water would appear to erupt when you cast from all the shad. Very few fish were coming up to take advantage of the masses of bait.

I have no doubt it will pick up very soon.. but wow it sucked out there yesterday!

Hopefully I have better things to report this evening. Good Luck to anyone heading out.

I hear you Dave.

It was my first time out last night in two weeks. Only on 10 pound flat that came it around 8:30. We packed up around 9 because of the lightning coming our way…only to find out that the storm missed us. But better safe than sorry.

The other boats out reported some fish..but it certainly wasn’t anything to write home to mother about. Today sounds like I’ll need a cooler to keep the bait from going sour!

Is it October or August??

I just got off the phone with MNfishHUNT and stcroixer. Mike(MNfish) managed 1 more upper 30″ fish before he headed out late, and Jarret caught a 35″ immediately when he returned to the water, then sat for hours with no more fish.

These were all in very different locations, the fishing was just shut down everywhere.

The water temp was at 63.1 yesterday on my temp guage.

Just like Dave said, nothing to show for hours, went home for dinner with my boys, got back out at 8pm ……….. 8:07 BAM, 35″ (#38400 tag #), started sprinkling with the light show to the south, gave it 45 min and got out of dodge.
Thanks again Dave, we’ll get ’em next time.
STCROIXER

The bite is really On again Off again with this weather. I was out on Wednesday evening with DTRO and we picked up 21 sturgeon. Darren caught a 49″, 48″ and 47″ fish. Here are some stats from Wednesday night:

Fatheads: 4
Crawlers: 8
Shad: 9 (all big fish on shad)

Darren: 14
Steve: 7

0-19″: 1
20″-29″: 7
30″-39″: 8
40″-50″: 5

Darren had a much better bite detection and hookup percentage than I did. He was holding both rods and fishing a tight line right below the boat. He could feel the fish as they bit and he would set the hook very quickly. Of course, I think he could catch sturgeon in a bathtub – he is uncanny in detecting a bite.

Quote:

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Shad: 9 (all big fish on shad)

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AMEN

I had some luck last night. 10 or 15 with most coming in the early morning hours between 3 and 6 am. That storm coming in at 6 am looked pretty nasty! Probably shut things down even more..

Did I mention a few days (or should I say mornings) before it was more like 30-40 fish.. 3 or 4 over 50″ and one a little under 58″..

Cut Shad!

Hey Darren or Steve. How did Darren like the new rod? I got to see it at Moore’s before he headed out that way. VERY NICE set up. I loved the light weight of the rod. I got my new Tekota 600 with a tigerrod to try out myself now. I’ll have to keep it set on higher friction until I get the hang of it so I don’t get the rats nest of line but I’m looking forward to trying it at Mill Ruins tonight.

The fishing picked back up today. It was very slow int he morning hours until the sky cleared up. I would estimate about an hour after the sun was out the action picked up steadily. We boated around 20 surgeon this afternoon in a few hours. A couple fish were in the low-mid 40″ class. I heard of a couple larger fish caught including a 51″ that was harvested, and a 61″ caught by WWG’s passenger that was safely released.

The weather stabilizing made all the difference in the world. These fish generally bite great before a major system moves in.. but they can sure shut off quick for a undeterminable amount of time after a major weather event.

Was out Saturday and as Dave said, we released a 61″ fish around 4 PM and managed around 20 for the day. The morning was absolutely dead, but the bite picked up significantly at around 2PM to 2:30.

SWEET!!