DNR check point

I was wondering if they man this station all week long or is there a chance that someone is not there on the weekdays?? My second question is the most important. Can we come down the river and come through the check point going south and then not return north. My problem is to get to the apple river outlet into the croix and it is only a half mile north of the check point. If I can’t sweet talk them I will have to put in at copas and pull out somewhere south of stillwater. Anyone got any information?? Thanks for the help

I would think they would let you do that.As long as they know where you were headed for.Pull up and ask,Can’t hurt!

Fishhunter,

My experience up there has been in a canoe, which I’d recommend. There are a ton of cool little waterways betweens islands and it’s a heron rookery, so being quiet allows you to see more of the birds and other wildlife. do the canoe if you have one……Concentrate on the area right in front of the apple, with current. The apple is loaded with muskies not too far above the croix.

This area could be good right now, we were going to fish this a few weeks ago but ended up fishing just north of stillsville instead. Troll big cranks, I mean big, or throw dark bucktails with big blades and a lot of thump.

The river is infested with muskies if you know where to find them. This week my parter caught 6, the 2 biggest being 49″ & 47″, I got 2 on sunday. There are some good spots all around the river, fish shallow.

For Pike, throw bass spinners or smaller bucktails. Look for weeds. I’ve got all of my largest pike on the croix, below the kinni. last year I got 2 @ 38″ in the bay behind the kinni on the south side, and got a real nice 34″ pike down towards prescott on a point on the MN side last week.

You really can’t run up the kinni itself, I’ve putzed around a bit but it’s a large sand delta at the mouth.

MikeT

I went over and checked it out a couple weeks ago.
There is a DNR girl staying there 24/7 for the whole summer.
The way she explained it to me was if you LIVE North of the checkpoint you can proceed South to the Boomsite public launch North of Stillwater…that’s as far South as you were allowed to go. Anything from the Boomsite South is considered infested! You cannot launch South of the checkpoint and proceed North of it period. By the way the checkpoint is now under the high bridge so if you launch your boat at Marine or Copas you don’t need to worry about getting to the Apple since it’s also North of the check point. Or maybe your in a canoe and you don’t want to go back up??? After re-reading your post again I don’t think they’d care if you didn’t go North again.
Just stop and ask…she’s cute!

Ferny.

I am headed up there tom to see if I can persuade her a bit. Especially if she is cute!!

I have been reading these posts and wonder what this check point stuff is all about. What infestation are you talking about? Weeds?

BFD

Zebra Mussels

Well they consider it an infestation but I have not seen any in the wild yet on any snags/freshwater clams I’ve pulled up. It’s likely with all those cruisers moored in the marinas from Stillwater South there are some attached to hulls on the river.

My take is that they made it all the way across the ocean there’s going to be little we can do to stop the spread. But being an exotic the DNR is going to throw a lot of money at trying to control them just like milfoil.

Ferny.

We have been pulling zebe’s up on snags from the lower river for the past 3 summers. Numerous times I’ve seen dozens on logs/sticks dredged from the depths. They are definately and issue in the river, no question about it.

MikeT