Over the past decade I’ve grown to love fishing the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers. My good friend River Dan, who I met about seven years ago, has played a big part in my river fishing life. He’s given me a lot of knowledge on presentation and how to figure out variations of bait, weather patters, river bottom, etc. It’s not often we get out fishing together but when we do we generally put a hurt on the walleye. I haven’t had the opportunity to fish a whole lot this year and felt the river calling my name. I had watched Dan on Facebook pulling in all kinds of nice fish. With the pictures and reports of fish and my wife saying she sure could go for some fresh fish I figured it was time to get out there. Saturday I called up Dan to talk about some of our favorite fishing holes and what was working well for him. As we got to talking we decided to head out fishing together bright and early Sunday morning. So I went and picked up six dozen crawlers and took a nap before getting up at three thirty.
The morning came fast and my excitement was high. Not only had I not been fishing for a few weeks, I had not shared a boat with Dan yet this summer. We met in Prescott and had the boat in the water by five and were on our way up the St. Croix to, hopefully, crank up some St. Croix gold! We started going up the Minnesota shoreline looking for archs on the graph. The first couple of spots showed us a few stray fish but nothing to hold our attention. We made a couple of passes through a honey hole area with no bites and limit fish being marked. We decided to hit one of our favorite rock beds. The fish in this area were about a foot off the bottom and stacked two feet thick. We had found our gold, now to see if we could crank some up. We put our lines down and made a few passes, starting in sand and then running through the rocks. We would get a couple of hits on every pass but no commitment. After doing several long runs with nothing to show for it, we moved on.
Next up was a sand flat and the fish were stacked like firewood. Pass after pass we would try from ten feet of water to thirty and would get the same results as on the rocks, a good smack and then gone. A couple passes into it Dan told me there was a good sized school of fish a little off the bottom. My rod got a smack and it was on. It wasn’t the gold we were looking for but it was a nice sized crappie.
We continued to fish around the area. While Dan managed a very nice fifteen inch walleye, the gold we were after, I was racking up some sunfish. Then it happened, my rod had the solid thunk of gold, it doubled over and they drag went. As I grabbed the rod and set the hook I knew it was river gold. The dead weight of pulling it in, this was surely a keeper walleye. To my amazement the St. Croix gods blessed me with a pre-canned product.
We trolled a while longer and then headed to a point that generally holds fish and again found stacks of fish. The problem was the gold was short and the sheephead had every intention of gorging themselves on our worm buffet. We made several passes and then decided to head back downstream towards Prescott. We checked different areas on our way but found nothing of value. We stopped, had some pancakes and talked about hitting some good old Mississippi back water. With full bellies we head out to the boat and the backwater.
It was afternoon now and the sun was warming us up. We started out in some shallow water and pulled in more sheep and small kitties. There’s an area in one of our backwater haunts that has a twenty foot hole in it. Generally as we drag through it we are blessed with some nice fish. This day there were fish but it was sheep and kitties. We went back and forth, slipping seems and playing with sheep. Every ten to fifteen fish you would tie into a walleye but they were mainly too short. Looking at the graph closer we could see eyes were stacked at the bottom. The issue was that our bait had to get through about three feet of sheep to get to them and the sheep would not let a free meal pass. After some time down there playing with small fish and junk fish we hit a nice seventeen inch sauger.
We started figuring out the patter and where exactly the gold was, about eleven feet of slack water. What we couldn’t get nailed down was getting our bait to them. We started getting to them a little more often but they were small. Then we pulled out another walleye and it was a sixteen inch keeper. After a few hours down there we had burned through our six dozen crawlers and that’s with cutting many in half, so we figured we’d head back. At this point we had been on the water for close to twelve hours. Time goes very fast when you are in great company. As we neared Prescott Dan said “What do you think of handlining for a while”. I agreed we should give it a go.
We started handlining and worked our way up and down the river. I hit the first keeper on my #5 firetiger rap but he spit it at me as he got close to the net. Pretty par for the course on this day. We both were on fish, many small. We would hit a nice fish here and then but they’d either get off the hook or come in just under legal length. Then I hit a double, two fish, one on each of my leaders on the handlining rig!! This happens when you are fishing this way and it’s always exciting. Well it’s exciting until you end up pulling a cigar in the boat. Is this a keeper?
While I was taking the little guy off my line, Dan pulled one in about the same size. As he was holding it to remove the hook it flopped out of is hands and stuck directly to my back!! It was like velcro!! The hooks in his lure grabbed my shirt and didn’t let go. Not sure how I didn’t get hooked. It amazes me is how can hooks dig into everything that comes in contact with them, yet a fish can spit them out or hit and release it.
The stick of choice that day for both of us were our Limit Creek Rods. Both Dan and I had our Smoothies out, along with it I had my 8’3″ Limit Creek and Dan has his 12′ Limit Creek out. Great feel and action on all of these rods!!
We were hitting the 14 hour mark and both growing tired. We headed in to shore a little humbled by the river letting us know it’s still in total control. I brought home a nice bag of fish for a few meals. One day the river will give it’s gold up to you willingly and in huge numbers and the next it will close the vault and make you work to crack the code. Though the river can be humbling every day on it is special. I spent the day with a great friend, on a beautiful body of water and was totally relaxed for an entire day. That’s therapy that money can’t buy!!