January 18, 2012 The ice on the St. Croix River is forming well. I continue to be a walk on angler as the ice is 8 to 9 inches and unsafe for vehicle driving. Fishing for crappies has been steady. I have not had a lot of non stop action but enough where all trips so far this season have resulted in a good meal of fish in 3 to 4 hours of fishing. Reading the sonar keeps the pace moving as the fish actively chase your bait. In addition to active fish, there are light hitting ones with a “whiff” hookset by yours truly on a bait steal. Then mix in a slab coming to the hole and the overall action keeps the time moving quickly.
The size of the crappies is impressive 75 percent of all fish I have caught this year have been keeper sized crappies above 9” in length. Two trips ago I landed a jumbo 14” crappie that upon hookset I thought was a white bass or walleye.
The white bass are also running large. Actually the white bass always run large on the Croix and are a dime a dozen at 15 to 16”. White bass move in packs and the sonar turns a bright red mass 6 to 10 feet high, here doubles are common. Ice cold winter white bass when cleaned properly are fantastic. I recently filleted crappies and white bass, fried them up in a beer batter, served them hot to two 14 year old boys and they, unsolicited preferred the white bass over the crappies when asked which they prefer. I agreed with them. White bass have and enormous lateral line and reddish meat between their skin and meat. For great eating fish cut out the white basses lateral line and shave off the red meat, fry whities fresh and there will be nothing left but crums!. By the way the shore lunch brand beer batter is a winning fry mix on sale at Fleet Farm for under two bills.
I am doing most of my catching with jigging spoons and minnows, I am employing some bobbers, and dead sticking. I like to work fish on the sonar as it is my favorite style of presentation. Depths are 38 fow and over the soft basin of the Bayport area. The fish do roam. I however do find crappies relate more to structure and flow than the white bass do. Keep Catchin’
but managed a few eaters between 9-13 and a nice whitie. im also around the 38 ft range. i agree The size of the fish this year has been pretty impressive. i am averaging 9-10 inch crappies as well. Pimple/ minnow head is my go to for those willing to chase. They do smack em pretty hard if you get an active pod of fish… almost had to do surgery on some to get my lure back. taking tomorrow off… to dang cold 