Just you and me Pug, not sure but won’t three get a bit crowded with 6 poles in one boat?
Just curious, how are we to contact the DNR, we’ll have both cell and marine band, so either a cell number or freq for the radio would be nice for us.
Or??
Al
Show your smiling face at the 8:30 meeting at Beanies.
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Show your smiling face at the 8:30 meeting at Beanies.
All things come to those that wait huh? 
You find someone to go with Briank??
Al
I’m out Friday, Sat and Sunday nights.
If everything goes perfectly, I’ll be showing up for a few hours to fish with anyone that will let me on their boat.
Seldom does everything go perfectly in my world, so I’m not counting on it even though I’ll be thinking about how it’s going.
I will hand out instructions with cell numbers and radio channels along with an orange flag at the briefing in the morning. I’m still working on printing up the sheets so I don’t have all the number stuff straightened out yet.
I dont know where beanies is, and im launching out of hudson to participate in this, is there any other way to get the dnr numbers, or should we just bring out something orange to use as a flag?
Once you launch out of Hudson, head down stream to just past the I-94 bridge. It’s the large dock on the Minnesota side.
Can’t miss it!
Thanks for your efforts! 
Seems the boat and fish count were low, not sure how many the DNR got tagged, seems they had left by the time we finally hit a cat, crawlers seemed to be the ticket though.
We tried…:)
Don’t think I’d want to be out there on a nice day, we got hit with enough waves from the big boats that I’m still kinda wobbily..:)
Al
the waves were horrible. we were out for it but had motor problems so we stayed by the pilings. wrong choice. trollers would drag up our lines and cut within 10 feet of our boat consistently. other boaters would blast up right next to us and not shut it off until they were under the bridge. that was greatly appreciated. when we finally did get a bite it was so big it took the anchor and wouldnt let go 
dnr came by at about 3ish and said they hadnt heard of anything boated. we mananged a sauger for the day before motor problems forced us in. slow day on the river, and makes me dislike trollers, but alteast the shore bite was good with the rest of our minnows, 5 for 5 smallmouths in a row in the 2-3# range, and then a 4 1/2 hog. if only the cats were on fire like that today.
We fished the bridge pylons, sunken islands and canary point. We pulled in 3 cats (2 channels and the world’s smallest recorded flathead, pic forthcoming)… but our bite didn’t start till 5:30.
I’ve never fished the St. Croix before, so it took me a healthy part of the day to get oriented… but I will fish it again. Aside from one wake from a speeding cabin cruiser that hit us with 4-5′ rollers (the thought of flipping actually crossed my mind — in a pontoon), we didn’t really have much excitement with other boats/fisherpersons.
We finally came in off the water at about 9PM with a couple eater-sized channels (5 and about 2) and a lot of good memories. Oh and some deep freaking sunburn on our faces and necks.
Since the cat take and turnout were low, I hope the DNR does is again with a lessons-learned view of this time out.
PS – Is it just me or do St. Croix cats run almost double Mississippi cats for a given length? It seined like the fish were shorter but a helluva lot thicker, so a 2# channel on the Mississippi would fill out to 4-5# on the Croix…
Well we tried. We had one of the boats leave around 1:30 and our boat left about 3. We took a tour of the water looking for boats before we left so we could let you guys know we were calling it quits for the day but were only able to find the one boat. Figured by the time any cats were caught, it was going to be such a minimal amount that it was hardly worth the extra hour of waves and traffic. We didn’t get a single catfish tagged.
I think that could be a good way to get some numbers of fish tagged, but the planets might have to align for it to work out. A tournament format would certainly produce more fish, but that would screw up the fish location data. Maybe I would have to concede the location data just to get the numbers we need to get tagged. We’ll have to brainstorm on this one.
Thanks to the guys who showed up and braved Lake St Croix on a Saturday.
Joel
So we can let the one in our livewell go now? 
If nothing else, it will show up in the cat fish log at the end of the year.
Told you I caught the world’s smallest flattie on hook and line.
Caught this guy right around 8:30PM.
PS – Peak time for boat traffic looked to be around 6, by 8 it was almost quiet, I’m thinking 7-9 would be pretty productive, especially if we moved around together in groups, trying different things in different spots. Being out there mid-day was torture.
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Well we tried. We had one of the boats leave around 1:30 and our boat left about 3. We took a tour of the water looking for boats before we left so we could let you guys know we were calling it quits for the day but were only able to find the one boat. Figured by the time any cats were caught, it was going to be such a minimal amount that it was hardly worth the extra hour of waves and traffic. We didn’t get a single catfish tagged.
I think that could be a good way to get some numbers of fish tagged, but the planets might have to align for it to work out. A tournament format would certainly produce more fish, but that would screw up the fish location data. Maybe I would have to concede the location data just to get the numbers we need to get tagged. We’ll have to brainstorm on this one.
Thanks to the guys who showed up and braved Lake St Croix on a Saturday.Joel
I think the conditions were poor for fishing Saturday during the day. It seemed like all the boats on the lake were moving to new locations constantly, so I don’t think anyone on that lake got into active fish. I think most fish across all species were shut down.
I know that we’ve had tourneys were at least 30-40 people are fishing them. The problem is that these tourneys had great ranges as far as where you could fish. Of course you want everyone on the same body of water so you can tag them.
But I also know of get togethers where people are in the same good numbers of people show up for those. They are at night, however.
Don’t give up Joel. I am disappointed that there were not as many boats, but I hope it does damper your or the DNRs enthusiasm for studying the cats of Minnesota.
By the way, I never formally introduced myself, but I was in the last boat to arrive. I was with Al and we were on the end of the dock on the right.
Too bad we weren’t around for the “smallest flathead ever.” Looks like it was at least 10 inches. I would have tagged it.
We had a small channel for you too at 3:30 too, but all calls went directly to voicemail.
I was curious why you chose that location? There are other areas where where catching more cats are a higher probability. Were you specifically try to learn more about the cat population in Lake St. Croix or was it the convienence of a launch point like Beanies?
That location was suggested to me as it is a vast amount of water and anglers could spread out. I’ve heard of cat guys getting into them around the 94 bridge. It’s kind of nice logistically because it is so open there with good sight lines to see a boat waving an orange flag, but it’s just a zoo on the weekends. Just annoys the heck out of me that we have had such a hard time getting numbers of catfish tagged in the St Croix.
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That location was suggested to me as it is a vast amount of water and anglers could spread out. I’ve heard of cat guys getting into them around the 94 bridge. It’s kind of nice logistically because it is so open there with good sight lines to see a boat waving an orange flag, but it’s just a zoo on the weekends. Just annoys the heck out of me that we have had such a hard time getting numbers of catfish tagged in the St Croix.
Joel,
I think Lake St. Croix is an awesome idea for tagging, but (highsight being a tempestuous lady) I think just scheduling one day was more than risky. I think scheduling 3 or 5 or 15 days, different times of day, different days of the week, would do several things that would improve the odds of tagging lots of fish:
1) It’d give more fishermen a chance to get involved.
2) It’d help gauge the fishing on that body of water and find the more successful times of day, phases of the moon, what-have-you.
3) It’d give us a chance to fish at times when boat traffic isn’t a monstrous drag.
4) It’d be in keeping with the expression “that’s why it’s called ‘fishing’, not ‘catching'”.
Nobody’s guaranteed that one particular day is going to be good fishing, but spreading it out over several sessions would really improve the odds.
I HOPE WE DO IT AGAIN, because I believe in the idea and I want to get some fish tagged. We know that with some adjustments it would work, too, because those of us that stuck around on the water actually did bring some fish in; it was just too late in the day to have them tagged. If we’d planned to still be on the water then, we’d have gotten at least a half-dozen fish tagged, anyway.
PLEASE, let’s get out there at least a couple more times and see what we can do!
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