Look for some regulation changes this year on the St Croix

Story from Outdoor News:

http://www.outdoornews.com/2024/02/07/st-croix-river-fishing-regulations-in-24-will-have-two-sets-of-rules-from-wisconsin-minnesota/

St. Paul — The St. Croix River will see fishing regulation changes on the Wisconsin side, but Minnesota will remain the same this year. The two states had been working on changing some regulations for daily bag limits and fish refuges.

Wisconsin was able to complete the process before the upcoming year, while Minnesota couldn’t finish in time.

Shannon Fisher, Minnesota DNR fisheries populations monitoring and regulations manager, said 2024 will have some differences, but he anticipates similar regulations for the states in 2025.

“The process just got bogged down a little bit in the review portion of getting this done, and we realized that we just simply weren’t going to have enough time to get it put up for public comment, take action on it, and still get it into the regulations book on time,” Fisher said.

All the regulations relate to the lower St. Croix River from Taylors Falls/St. Croix Falls, Wis., downstream to Prescott, Wis.

Wisconsin regulations
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved several regulation changes during the 2023 calendar year, including:

• A reduction from 25 to 10 for the white and yellow bass daily bag limit.

• A reduction from a 10-fish channel and flathead catfish daily bag limit to five channel catfish and two flathead catfish with an addition of only one channel and flathead being larger than 24 inches being kept.

• A reduction from five to three for the northern pike daily bag limit with an addition of only one over 30 inches being kept.

• A reduction from six to four walleyes and sauger daily (combined), with a 15-inch minimum length limit for walleyes and no minimum length limit for sauger. Also, an addition of only one walleye or sauger over 20 inches may be kept per day.

• A reduction from 25 to 15 for each panfish species, including bluegills (sunfish), crappies, and yellow perch.

• An addition of a fish refuge on the St. Croix River from the State Highway 8 bridge upstream to the St. Croix Falls dam from March 1 to June 15.

The new white/yellow bass, northern pike, walleye/sauger, and panfish regulations will be the same as Wisconsin DNR’s regulations for the Mississippi River, pools 3 through 9. The only exception is walleyes/sauger, where it’ll be similar to the Mississippi River, pools 3 through 8.

Minnesota regulations
Minnesota has different regulations than Wisconsin currently and for the upcoming 2024 season. These include:

• A daily bag limit of 25 for white and yellow bass.

• A daily bag limit of 10 combined channel and flathead catfish.

• A daily bag limit of five northern pike.

• A daily bag limit of six walleyes and sauger (combined) with a 15-inch minimum length for walleyes.

• A daily bag limit of 25 for each panfish species including sunfish, crappies, and yellow perch.

Wisconsin had its 2023 spring hearings and the Wisconsin Conservation Congress supported all the proposed regulation changes on the St. Croix River except a continuous season in May 2023. Then, the Wisconsin Natural Resources Board approved the regulation changes in June 2023.

Fisher said Minnesota formally started the rulemaking process in December 2022.

It took time to finalize language and process through administration review, but the public was able to share opinions in August 2023.

“We formally started the process in December of 2022,” Fisher said. “In reality, we had hoped that would be sufficient to finish this process, but if all goes smoothly, it can take up to 18 months. In hindsight, we should’ve probably started about six months sooner. Lessons learned.”

Fisher said the Minnesota DNR is ahead on the process for 2024 to make sure it’s approved and regulations change for 2025. Right now, the agency is going through public comments and deciding if the public supports the changes or not.

After, Fisher said the DNR will review the changes before officially including them in the 2025 fishing regulations.

Enforcement on the river
Typically, the Wisconsin and Minnesota DNRs try to align regulations to make it easier for anglers as well as DNR enforcement officers. When they’re different, enforcement becomes more difficult.

The regulations state that anglers usually can fish shore to shore with either a Minnesota or Wisconsin fishing license. When there’s different regulations, the St. Croix River is split in half to enforce the two bordering states.

Again, in 2024, there will be different regulations, causing anglers on the Minnesota side to abide by Minnesota regulations and anglers on the Wisconsin side to abide by Badger State regulations.

Joe Albert, Minnesota DNR Enforcement Division communications coordinator, said the DNR encourages anglers to read the regulations for both Minnesota and Wisconsin when fishing on any border water, especially with varying rules for the two states.

If an angler has questions about how to fish the St. Croix River or the various regulations to follow, the DNR recommends speaking to a local fisheries office official or a local conservation officer.

Omg that is a mess, what a bunch of idiots that now created an enforcement nightmare. Nice job.

Good Job Minnesota

You could f-up a wet dream.

Kudos to Wisconsin, I like every change I see.

So the river will be split. That’s gonna be tough to do in the narrows.

That won’t cause any law enforcement issues at all!! What a mess. Way to go MN DNR. You guy’s never cease to amaze me.

Let’s not forget that the river is already split with some regulations (number of lines, legal bait, etc) but yeah adding bag limits is going to be an interesting one.

If you have 5 walleyes in the box and fishing the MN side, what happens if you wander over to the WI side and find yourself fishing over there? According to law, once you catch that 5th fish, you best not cross that imaginary line.

3Rivers wrote:

If you have 5 walleyes in the box and fishing the MN side, what happens if you wander over to the WI side and find yourself fishing over there? According to law, once you catch that 5th fish, you best not cross that imaginary line.

Don’t GPS units show a dotted line on the “imaginary” boundary?

A couple of my Father’s friends accidentally drifted into Canadian waters on LOTW once without a Canadian license and didn’t realize it until Canadian authorities showed up and busted them. Obviously that’s an international boundary so maybe its not a very good comparison.

This kind of sucks being I fish from. Hwy 8 to Osceola often. And I’m always back and forth between borders.
Props to the mn dnr

Well, let’s hang on a minute here…

We can fish shore to shore with either license, but they’re going to enforce the regs by a division of the water? Can they legally enforce this? Here’s my take:

We have always been bound by our resident state license for the regulation’s enforcement on the St. Croix River. According to that provision, we can fish the whole river but are bound by the regulations of our resident license. If you live in MN, the WI regs DO NOT apply to you on that shared water. By dividing the river, they are denying the exercise of practicing the rules we are provided and bound by. According to the phrasing, a MN angler is allowed to fish WI waters with a MN license, but if the angler is on “WI turf,” those regulations no longer apply, and the angler is bound by the regulations of a license they did not purchase. Well, if they’re going to play it that way, it should also be legal then, for MN anglers to run 3 lines on the “WI side.”

It is not ethical to split the rules and say that one rule applies, but not another, if the resident license regulations can be forsaken somewhere in the waterway. It is a preposterous notion to state that any MN/WI angler on the St. Croix is bound to his/her resident license regulations, eligible and legal to fish shore to shore, but is subject to the other state enforcing rules that a legal angler is not, by class of enforcement, bound by.

Who can we call to expose this contradiction of public interest?

Most my eye spots are on the MN side so all good here, at least for one more year.

Honestly, I’m not out there much anymore but if I go, I’ve got a variety of spots on both sides between Stillwater and Afton.

stillakid2 wrote:

Well, let’s hang on a minute here…

We can fish shore to shore with either license, but they’re going to enforce the regs by a division of the water? Can they legally enforce this? Here’s my take:

We have always been bound by our resident state license for the regulation’s enforcement on the St. Croix River. According to that provision, we can fish the whole river but are bound by the regulations of our resident license. If you live in MN, the WI regs DO NOT apply to you on that shared water. By dividing the river, they are denying the exercise of practicing the rules we are provided and bound by. According to the phrasing, a MN angler is allowed to fish WI waters with a MN license, but if the angler is on “WI turf,” those regulations no longer apply, and the angler is bound by the regulations of a license they did not purchase. Well, if they’re going to play it that way, it should also be legal then, for MN anglers to run 3 lines on the “WI side.”

It is not ethical to split the rules and say that one rule applies, but not another, if the resident license regulations can be forsaken somewhere in the waterway. It is a preposterous notion to state that any MN/WI angler on the St. Croix is bound to his/her resident license regulations, eligible and legal to fish shore to shore, but is subject to the other state enforcing rules that a legal angler is not, by class of enforcement, bound by.

Who can we call to expose this contradiction of public interest?

You might want to look into this a bit more. No matter what license you hold, you follow the laws of the territorial waters you are fishing in (other than bag and possession limits). For example, yes if you hold a MN license and a MN resident you can fish 3 lines whenever you are on WI side of the river. That goes for all other laws too. It goes vice versa as well. On the MN side? Then you can only use 2 lines if if you have a WI license and a WI resident.
Here is some more clarity for you: https://www.3riversfishingadventures.com/border-water-rules