St. Croix river crappies

Anyone fish the St. Croix river for crappies from Stillwater down to Hudson yet? Any reports?

St. Croix crappie dissapear after ice out…and don’t come back until it ices up again. From my experience.

I usually get an accidental 12″ to 13″ white crappie once in awhile trolling crank baits for walleyes in Bayport. but always seems like no rhyme or reason for it. Just kinda wondering if anyone knows of any spots were they concentrate?

They are probably like the crappie on the main part of the Miss here. They school up and follow bait fish. Could be up along a brush pile or rock bank in 2′ of water or out in the channel chasing small shad/shiners. No way to find them and target them reliably, just have to get lucky.

I agree with that statement. And for crappies to be hitting walleye sized crank baits they are predators at that point. We don’t see very many white crappies this far north so its pretty cool to snag one on the river once in awhile.

Our whites are disappearing fast. 5 years ago we could go out and catch limits of white crappie in the river backwaters and MAYBE catch one small black a day. Every year we are getting more and more black crappie, and this year I have been keeping track. Total fish caught so far are 232 black crappie and 7 white crappie. Not all keepers, most small, but it shows the change.

Personally, I like black crappie better. They seem to be more aggressive, thicker, wider, and more hardy.

Oh, and don’t tell anybody but when the crappie are suspended over 12-15FOW in the hot of the summer, a #4 flicker shad or shad rap RS trolled at about 0.8 is dynamite on crappie.

Add 12 more black and 0 white to the list

I haven’t seen a white crappie smaller than 12″ come out of the river is the funny thing.

I stand by my previous statements from above… Got this dandy 15″ white crappie on the St. Croix river on the 4th of July trolling for walleyes. There’s still some big crappies around.

Nice