05/04/09 St. Croix River anglers are finding walleyes in 14 to 21 feet of water and hitting on livebait rigs and jigs. All three livebait staples the leech, crawler, and fatheads are catching fish. Anglers are also catching fish trolling Rapala shad raps, minnow raps, and floaters in the same depths.
Current flow is moderate in the neck down areas of the river. These necks downs have held good numbers of walleye for anglers; I have always believed these areas hold fallback fish from the up north spawn. Either way these neck down areas hold walleye.
For the opener, we found many walleyes willing to bite, though many were sub legal, we did manage a few for the bag though. Saturday was just a great day to be floating the boat and seeing lots of familiar faces. Many anglers I spoke to caught walleye but had a hard time getting fish big enough to keep The legal mark for walleye is 15” or bigger. Saugers have no rights and are without a size restriction.
Today I made it out by myself on a late morning trip and found bigger fish willing to hit and happily limited out (attached image). I caught all my fish on livebait rigs, either drifted or from an anchored position. I used split shot rigs for the anchored position.
The river is very clean right with low sediment and minimal debris. The water is 55 degrees and is 678.11 (about 2.5 feet high from normal summer level).
Keep Catchin’
Turk
Nice fish 
