Good weekend on the upper croix swimming with the family, soaking up the sun and catching a lot of fish. Water levels are still up there but dropping around a foot a day. Perfect conditions over the weekend for finding those out of the way beaches in the back waters and side channels to park the boat on and let the kids swim. The other thing these areas are good for is finding fish that are using these areas to to stay out of the main current and feeding on the loads of minnows that have been swept into these spots. Find the bait and find the fish.
My approach for catching these fish is pretty low key for the most part this time of year. Good part of the trip is focused on swimming with the kids and playing fetch with the dog but there is always one eye on the rod that has a line tossed off the back end of the boat. Typically just a jig with bit of crawler on it to catch what ever is swimming by. If they dont like a bit of crawler then its minnows that the girls have caught for me. Those kids can stay busy for hours on end catching river minnows.
The fish where biting pretty well with this approach over the weekend. Majority of them where small mouth. The bass went nuts yesterday on the current seam going across the mouth of the back water area we had set up on. Must of caught close to 20 there. Also caught a nice mixed bag of fish species to. Pike, white bass, sheep head, red horse, cat fish and one big mean dog fish where caught to. We are not to picky on what the type of fish biting. It more just looking for what ever pulls hard on the other end of the line makes for great fun. The dog is not be picky either as he will chase any fish on the end of that line as its being reeled in.
Casting lures on these seams hooked up a few fish to. I would toss a little road runner type jig in there every now and again. Usually after seeing a fish hit the surface pushing minnows. Typically it was just a cast or two before hooking up. I would imagine being a little more serious about fishing and bouncing around to the many, many seams and slack water spots might just put together some very good fishing right now.
Good luck to any of you guys getting out.
