opening day was great on the ‘Croix. fished from 7A ’til 2P. almost every presentation brought fish but Chigger Craws t-rigged on a 3/0 Red EWG hook produced best for me. I put a small splitshot about 3″ above hook for weight. New Strike King coffee tubes worked well also. love the tag “death before decaff”. 
I was using an insider jig head 1/8 oz for the tubes. Rigging a crawler produced fish also but the bigger ones came on plastics. this nice 17″ came on a chigger craw in 9 ft off rocks. Quite a tussle on my Limit Creek “smoothie” and 6 lb test. it came completely out of the water twice and made several drag pulling runs.
the fish came off a classic spawning area and the females are still up close. Had a 5 fish limit and countless small ones. the smallmouth fishing on the ‘Croix is going to be stupendous this year. 
please practice CPR on the smallies. lots of nice 15″ walleye and sauger out there for the pan.
May 25, 2008 at 1:53 pm
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