Osceola

Made my second trip over to Osceola today. Was joined by sliderfish on this trip. Thanks again for dragging my boat over there today. We started out checking out the crankbait bite again since that is a very typical pattern on the upper river this time of year. After checking a few areas with no sign of fish and water temps at 43degrees it was time to dump the trolling.
Next stop was jigging some deeper holes with live bait and plastics. It took a matter of a few seconds before the first fish hit. Things stayed fairly active after that with us finding a mix of walleyes, crappies and a few other fish mixed in. There was no real pattern to the walleyes in these areas today. Front, back, side of the hole all seemed to hold fish. Even out into the main channel in areas. They just seemed to be really srpead out but in pretty good numbers. Size of the walleyes was typical for the upper croix. Lots of 12 to 14″ fish. We didnt realy check but might of had a few legal fish today.
I would think that with the warming water temps and numbers of fish that still seem to be in the upper streach of the croix that a pretty good crank bait bite might not be to far away. Last check of the water temp this afternoon was at 48 degrees. 5 degrees warmer than what we found it earlyer this morning. Water levels are still very low for this time of year so you still need to watch where you are running up there also.

We keep picking up one every now and again. All of these white bass are in deeper water. 15′ or better and we where jigging on the bottom. Look for the bass to get more active in the near future with warmer temps. At one area near where the back water lakes emptyed into the main river Sliderfish noticed a good school of minnows on the surface. I would take this to mean the whites will not be far behind.

Anouther good area to chase white bass is at the mouth of the apple river. You would need to put in most likely at William O brian st park and head down stream. This is due to not being able to go north past the train bridge. Watch out for lots of shallow water getting there and on the weekend You might run into a fair amount of boats also.

Made a quick trip over to Franconia yesterday with the kids to check out the white bass action. If you want to get a kid hooked on fishing take him white bass fishing. The water levels where up again. That was nice to see. Water temps where right around 60 and the white bass where on the chew again. Although we did night find them surface feeding as much as a few weeks before there where still schools to be found. Surface lures where the ticket again. I have been throwing alot of Floating crankbaits ot them this spring. Twister tails and small spoons have been working all so.

We did also get a few walleyes trolling shad raps yesterday. Didnt get to spend much time cheecking out the trolling bite but after hooking up with three fish in 30 minutes it was leading me to believe there might be something going on there. Wish I had more time to spend up there this week.