Well, I wasn’t going to even go out on the Croix this weekend because the last few times out were full of nothing but frustration… My son talked me into taking him and his buddy out this morning and my expectations were quite low (we went out with only a dozen minnows from the backyard pond…).
I set my alarm for 6:00 am but hit the snooze button a few times – my heart really wasn’t in it. I had been playing ‘lumberjack’ on Saturday, cutting down nearly a dozen trees in our backyard woods and my back, legs, arms, etc. all were telling me to GET MORE SLEEP!!! My wife nudged me at 6:30 and reminding me that the boys were going to be upset if I didn’t get going and get them out on the water. So… we had the boat packed, sandwiches made, sodas in the cooler, and on the road by 7:00. We launched from Hudson and headed south under the I-94 bridge. We were going to head down to Catfish Bar but a flock of gulls on the west side of the Croix just south of the bridge caught our attention (that, and the handful of boats fishing that area 
).
We decided to see if we could find any action in that area before heading further south… within a few minutes, my son had his first sauger on the line and in the boat. We decided we’d stay in that area a bit longer….
Between the beautiful sunshine, the hot-air balloon floating overhead, the vintage WWII scout airplane buzzing us, and the relatively good action we found, we soon realized we had used up our meager supply of minnows and headed over to Beanie’s to restock. After picking a few scoops of fatheads and their ‘world’s best’ bottled root-beer (inside joke 
), we went back to ‘our spot’.
All in all, we had an excellent outing. I’ve only been fishing the Croix for two years and she made sure I paid my dues – a few tantilizing two-fish outings, a bunch more ‘zippo’ days, huge wakes/waves from the tuna boats, high winds, etc – just to let me know that I hadn’t yet earned the right to ‘have a good day’ on her waters. Today, however, we felt like the Croix finally offered a warm handshake, a pat-on-the-back “here ya go”, and she let me know that we were “OK” in her books. She gave us a nice stringer of saugers – not without some work (we put in nearly 8 hours today!). The picture is of me and my two best fishing buddies (son on the right of the picture, his good friend on the left). I couldn’t have asked for two better fishing partners.
In addition to having the Croix provide a great catch (we limited out!!!!), we had the great pleasure of watching several fellow anglers plying the waters in search of sturgeon… One guy, alone in a smaller tiller boat, had it dialed in so well today, it was a thing of beauty! I lost count as to the number of fish we watched him pull in. He had a huge fish at one point – a spectacular fight that drew in several boats from the area… I believe he said it measured in a over 54 inches! Hats off!!! (although, I must say I was a bit disappointed when he tied it up to a stringer and kept it boatside for the rest of the day…. to each, I guess).
Oh yeah, I should probably provide some details… We found active fish between 35-25 fow – jigging with fathead minnows. The fish we kept were mostly in the 15-18 inch range with our ‘big of the day’ measuring in at 19″. In between the sauger bite, we of course caught the obligate share of sheephead, a couple of white bass, and I hooked up a 32″ sturgeon that certainly provided the fight-of-the-day (although dwarfed by the sturgeons being caught near us!).
OK…. long winded enough… I’ll close by offering great thanks the Croix and Mother Nature for providing an awesome day on the water and also thanks to all of you that post great information on this site…
Makes my mouth water just looking at em! Hope you showed the boys how to clean fish? Good Job. 
My 9 year old son and I were freezing our buns off battling those winds. Only 1 keeper 17″ eye. But it was fun trying to teach my kid how to troll leadcore….
