What’s happening on the Croix

River Eyes has finally talked me into me becoming a member. We both work for Wells Fargo and have fished with him countless times all over the area.

My last curtain climber is graduating this from Hudson weekend and I foresee a lot of time in the future to fish the Croix. But I haven’t seen many posts lately on how the fishing has been. Anyone out there with any general comments on the fishing?

If you see a loner out there in an older 17 ft Fazer and a 90 hp Evinrude give me a shout and I’m always looking for help pulling them all in.

Geeee I NEVER thought Id see the day!!… Welcome Jeff!… he is indeed a long time fishing buddy of mine.. and in fact here he is this winter with a pool 4 ‘eye… I had to work on him all winter to get him to accept Super Doos and Ring Worms as the real deal!… but hes a believer now…. also hes caught some darn nice fish!.. a 33 .5 incher out of pool 4.. and a 29.5 out of the Croix…. and also LOTS of nice fish out of pool 2…..

once again… welcome aboard….

Welcome aboard Jeff.
I would say the fishing is good on the croix right now. Sounds like people are catching fish on the southern part of the river. And the upper strech has picked up also. South of taylors falls the trolling bite has been dead for me as far as crank baits go. I have not trooled any live bait rigs for awhile but may have to try it in the morning.
Anchoring of the spots and dead lineing has been hot. Sat on one spot last thursday evening and boated about 30 whities, 12 eyes and a mixture of others in about three hours. Had 3 legal eyes out of the 12. This was a big emprovement over last weekend where I hung out for a weigh in at osceola park and watched only one legal eye come in and only about a dozen other fish.
Good luck fishing

Welcome Jeff! So can you really out fish the ol River Eye?!

Welcome fellow Hudsonite.
From what I’ve been hearing, the walleyes are still running a little short. I did catch a fat 17″ er last Sunday in about 9 ft of water looking for the smallies. The bass bite has been good and shallow. Looks like the water will be going up again with that rain we had yesterday.

Welcome aboard Jeff! This is the best “user-friendly” fishing site on the web so I’m confident you won’t regret the decision!

That Rivereyes is a good bucket of ……………… swamp puckey, isn’t he! Just kidding! He’s a great contributor to the better of all of us here and to have him as a fishing buddy is worth your weight in gold………………so long as YOU run the trolling motor! Sorry about that, I’m so used to joking with him that it just comes natural!

I haven’t had any time on the Croix yet this year so I’m not much help with your question. I’ve shore fished a couple of times for a short window of opportunity and only came up with a nice Sheepie.

Again, welcome to the site! If anything good happens out there, I’ll let you know here!

Welcome to FTR Jeff,
I have some positive fishing news to report. Fished yesterday from 6:00 am to 2:00 pm around the Kinni area. Managed to limit with keepers for the first time this year. Still caught a ton of shorts and a few smallies mixed in. Used live bait rigs with crawlers and leeches. Rained for about 4 hours on and off. It was a slow day for pleasure boaters. Watched a boat get a few keepers pulling crank baits.

Sandbar

We fished near the Kinni on Saturday. Caught lots of short walleyes, 1 legal and a bunch of silvers and, of course all the sheepies we could stand.

Question for all…. What do you suppose we see on the graphs in the deeper 50’+ areas? Often see large concentrations of fish much deeper than I’d think they’d be.

If I remember right, the Croix doesn’t develop thermocline so it’s quite possible that any fish could go that deep if they wanted to. Walleyes will go that deep, so will sauger. I wonder if it would be mostly bottom feeders though…………cats and sturgeon and such? Have you ever thrown anything down to them to see what they might be? Would a camera be able to show anything clearly at that depth? It would be interesting to find out!

Lots on the bottom in places deep but also lots suspended. I’m wondering if they might not be shad or something like that.

Ive sometimes wondered what those deepwater marks are too…. the bulk of the bait fish inhabit the upper areas of the water column due to the fact that the phytoplankton dwell in the sun drenched areas of the water column… the croix is pretty clear… and Im not sure just how deep light penetrates but the phytoplankton would be thickest on top and thinner towards the bottom of the “light penetration column”…. most bait fish feed on phytoplankton and algae, and smaller insects, along with some yoy (young of year) fish of all species…. and of course since the bait fish are there… so are the ‘eyes and other predators… most fish cant make abrupt depth changes due to swim bladder problems, so they tend to hang pretty close to the depth they feed at….
other factors intrude
besides merely food (hmmm Im a poet!)..
O2 levels are important and temp comfort levels also play a role…. Im also pretty sure that the croix does not form a thermocline because of its riverine nature… the upper river is NOT that deep….. and it flows through the lake portion constantly, forcing mixing to occur…. thus with no thermocline O2 is probably NOT a factor…. still… I SEE those fish down there on the graph too…. so there is for SURE something down there…. and I WONDER if the saugers and eyes exploit those depths…. maybe there is an ample food source down there…. Ive always speculated that the ‘eyes suspend near schools of shad quite a bit on the croix in the summer… thus making them elusive since there is no structure involved, and therefore they would tend to be pelagic (free swimming)… and so in conclusion perhaps some lake erie trolling tactics might be effective during that time period……

So……………….what you’re saying is…………..not what I said……………….but there might be possibilities………….of certain factors………………playing a role………in supporting other thoughts and ideas……………..which might be moot cuz there’s no structure?

Either you’re too smart or I’m too dumb………….and I’m pretty confident the latter of those 2 choices would hold the bulk of the popular opinion…………….but ………………… where does this leave us? ……………….besides guessing?

Yo Rivereyes – I understood everything you said. So that means the fish are either deep, shallow, or somewhere in between. That narrows it down some for me. Thanks!!

yep… I actually think they DO occupy all zones…
the bottom dwellers can be shallow to deep depending on time of year… the pellagics are suspended over deep water…

Rivereyes – I need to pick your brain What do you know about Flatheads in a medium sized river like the St Croix from Stillwater to Prescott? Without a lot of backwaters and timber to concentrate and locate flatheads, what kind of locations do you recommend focusing on? I’ve been concentrating on the deep holes and any associated flats that hold bait fish. Do you think locating bait fish is the key to finding flatheads in this area?

FYI A few years back in the Fall I caught some nice saugy’s in 50+ feet of water by Afton. I saw them on the graph when I was turning around on a point getting ready for another pass. Thought hmmm there’s fish down there So I dropped my BB’s and spinners down and got some! I was a bit surprised to see them so deep…and biting! Have been seeing lots of clutter down there now.

Ferny.