July 5th. St. Croix River fishing has been up and down for walleye though with enough keepers coming in to take some home for a fry but two man limits are not common. However the saugers are filling in the gaps and being caught now at a decent rate. Most walleye are from 14 to 18 inches and sauger running from 13 to 17 inches. I have not heard of much or seen first hand many big eyes being caught recently, however last week a young man brought into Beanies a 30inch walleye to be photographed and released. Congrats! Smallmouth bass had been going nuts up until mid week last week, but were hard to find last weekend. Many of these bass are in the mid teens in inches length, and fight well beyond their size. Walleye and bass have been in the depth range from 6 to 18 feet deep. We are catching eyes on crawlers and cranks. I know leeches are working for other guys along with fatheads.
This is a heads up folks, it is the time of year to get the muskie gear out and throw bucktails, bull dawgs, and spinnerbaits for river skis! The river muskellunge that we catch on guide trips are 80 percent of the time over 40inches long and they are well feed believe me! We also troll supersized crankbaits for the muskie once the arms get a bit sore. I’ll provide more info once I get a couple trips in, I do know enough though from weather condition and being on the water and seeing where baitfish are locating that the time is right to hook and release some gray ghosts.
I had little success on my crappie holes last week. Sunfish are seemingly everywhere and good size (for sunfish) 8 inch fish are common though I have not seen one over nine inches yet (just wait till next season, bulls will abound). Last week I anchored up and slip bobber fished a spot where the sunfish were pestering us on our walleye rigging spots, and caught a good number of gills quite easily on crawlers. White bass have been subsurface all but for brief periods, they can get caught just prior to sun down. Channel cats have been absent from our walleye fishing catches recently.
The St. Croix River is 679.73 feet above sea level and steady.
Keep catchin’
Turk
