St. Croix Opener Report

First off I apologize for lack of pics. Made it to the boomsite landing by 6 am and found 3-4 spots left. Headed north from there and fished a community hole and picked up a 16.5″ walleye on my third cast. Water temp was 47 and the walleye came from about 12′. Pretty slow for the next couple hours. 1 small musky, small pike and a couple white bass.

Headed north to another community hole and picked up about 10 more walleyes and a couple sauger. One more keeper walleye, a 24″ walleye and a couple more pike and white bass.

The most productive water was between 14-17′ with slightly less current than the main channel. Seemed like everyone else was fishing slack water and not doing quite as well. Caught everything on pink or white pulse r or paddletails on 3/8 or 1/2 oz jig. The fish seemed quite aggressive when you could get down to them.

Generally speaking its my belief high water either keeps a lot of the fish in the river, or has more of them migrate up. Most every male was milting good.

We smoked em pretty good north of Obrien. 6′ water or less the majority. chartru am, parrot midday, then firetiger jigs afternoon seemed best with a fathead. Caught a couple on worms, and couple on ringworms.

First time fishing the Croix in a boat. The scenery, the tea colored water, it was truly an amazing day. Today was almost a combo platter of Canadian waters I fish and the rocky bluffy terrain of the North shore. Mix in some green valleys here and there, ton of raptors, I see myself falling in love with this river. Then again, I say that about every new water I’m on! Love being on the water!

Saw more than a few campsites with fisherman on it, how sweet would that be. So close to home, yet so far…..

Do you catch a musky today too? Guys next to me caught a couple too. All about 20″ or so.

I’ve done my best during low water near Stillwater. But I’ve done well in high water too. Best opener for me in about 5 years or so. I think I’m going to fish the croix more often this year for walleyes. Maybe smallish too.

Forgot to mention I snagged a redhorse. One year I remember soaking a crawler and catching dozens of them. May have to do that this year too. So many possibilities.

The saugers I caught today were as thin as a pencil. For some reason I thought they spawned later than the walleyes. None of the walleyes I caught were milting.

Crazy none were milting. All part of the puzzle I guess.

Never got on a good sucker run this year, those are fun, good luck finding some.

Yup, stuck a musk on a stick

We had a good day today too. Fished from 7 until 2 and kept 15 fish between 3 of us. Biggest was 20 inches. Most were between 15 and 16 inches. All were caught on crawlers in less than 20 ft of water. We launched in afton and fished between afton and Hudson.

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I heard you guys did well today Kirk. Good on ya

We stumbled into an early buffet line of big hungry walleye that liked our minnows. We launched about 5:20 and had a 26″ in before 5:30. We wound up with 6 fish over 25″ before 10am, plus a 22″ and some nice dinner sized walleye. We saw a bit of milt. My buddy got a 26″ male that was still laying a good foundation. Fishing got tough about 10:30 once a pile of debris moved through and the flow kicked up a notch.

______________ wrote:

We stumbled into an early buffet line of big hungry walleye that liked our minnows. We launched about 5:20 and had a 26″ in before 5:30. We wound up with 6 fish over 25″ before 10am, plus a 22″ and some nice dinner sized walleye. We saw a bit of milt. My buddy got a 26″ male that was still laying a good foundation. Fishing got tough about 10:30 once a pile of debris moved through and the flow kicked up a notch.

Which general area were you fishing? Prescott, Stillwater, Osceola?

Sweet catches fishwater

What was the water temp around stillwater/boomsite?

Bass_attack wrote:

What was the water temp around stillwater/boomsite?

47

Thanks for the reports guys. Sounds like it was a pretty decent opener on the Croix. Wife pulled my fishing privileges so didn’t make it over. Hope to be over next weekend.

Mike W wrote:

Thanks for the reports guys. Sounds like it was a pretty decent opener on the Croix. Wife pulled my fishing privileges so didn’t make it over. Hope to be over next weekend.

I consider myself lucky for yesterday. She told me that my rainy river trip was my one trip for the year.

Is the William obrien area doable with a glass boat if you are careful?

Right now youd be safe all the way past Osceala. We got up to the backwater area up there before turning around. At least 5′ deep everywhere I saw, mostly 8-9′ Alot of big boats out there yesterday.

Yea not much i could say after spending a week on the rainy. As long as the water is up you should be good. Once it drops you most likely wont even make it out of the side channel. You could also try osceola. Good ramps there. Those parts of the river are best for smaller boats or pontoons. I run my navigator over there most of the summer but thats can be pushing it. Got places to kump up on plane but you better know where you can come off plane to.

I’ve fished the Osceola area before. One year I had to jump out to navigate a sand bar, but that was with the crestliner.

I’ll probably pass with lower water. Looks like high water and nearing no wake by the end of the week.

Great reports everyone, I didn’t have time to get the boat out so I fished from shore for a few hrs, got 1 Smallie, don’t think I got deep enough to get at the eyes, with the water so high the drop-off was out past casting distance. Can’t wait to get the boat out in a few weeks for SCVWL!

Also while fishing, I noticed a few guys fishing near and under the 94 Bridge into the night, wondering if your on here how you did, I’ve had little luck after dark for eyes of the Croix

Tyeye wrote:

I got deep enough to get at the eyes

Don’t sell yourself short on depth. Coming out the launch there is a small Eddy on the right side with 2 timbers protruding out, said well lets get pool 2 on this biatch and stuck 2 eyes hiding under those right away in AM, kind of set the tone for rest of day.

The entire night before read 7yrs worth of reports mostly from Turk, and was pretty set on heading south to the lake and hitting that 10-20′ depths jigging, rigging, trolling. After those fish right away, said we’re heading north and pounding the shallows. Some of the best spots were right at the drop by shore. Well, lets say treeline with the high water

Say fishwater, were those piggies you caught spawned out, I’d assume most were females, never mentioned if they were still holding? Appreciate any info man

biggill wrote:

Which general area were you fishing? Prescott, Stillwater, Osceola?

We fished around Stillwater and Bayport. We tried the same areas this morning and a few new spots around the fancy bridge. We got a snagged pike, 1 tiny muskie and a short. Everything is back to normal!

nhamm wrote:

Say fishwater, were those piggies you caught spawned out, I’d assume most were females, never mentioned if they were still holding? Appreciate any info man

I’m pretty sure they all dropped. I’ll edit out the bridge the best I can and post them later.

Fished out of Osceola. Caught 2 keeper size eyes, one 15 1/2 and the other 17. About a dozen or so shorts. Trolled cranks and pitched jig/minnows on current seams for the eyes. Soaked crawlers in a few spots and caught some suckers and redhorse to mix it up. Kids fishing the shorelines at the park there were catching crappie. Nice day to be on the water!

-J.

Here’s our six fish. Millertime thinks #4 might be his heaviest fish. That was just under 28″. The shortest was a bit over 25″.

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Nhamm I do the same thing and go over previous years forums when planning, between that and my own notes I can get a good game plan in place. Awesome editing fishwater those are dandys!

Sounds like the folks that got out early Saturday did well. We started to get on a few in the channel north of the 94 bridge but about 11 they really shut off. One group we know that was on the water early through there did really well then it shut off for them, too.

We had a couple of keepers and a nice crappie mixed in….for a bit we couldn’t keep the suckers and mooneyes off our baits. I would bet I caught 30 of them.

Got my butt kicked. Was only available to head out during bankers hours. Trolled cranks and pulled spinners. Only saw a few fish caught between afton and stillwater. Sounds like I was out during the slow periods….. but thats just my luck.

We didn’t get on the water till about 8. Boomsite was full at 7, thought maybe some marinas would be open, nope, then went up to O’Brien. Our best bites were around 10ish then 2ish.

My dad wanted to pull the trailer up on the docks at boomsite and truck in the single spaces. I didn’t think that’d be a good idea.

I don’t get why no marinas would be open, they ain’t doing anything else, have a guy at the gate taking $10 like any ice road access and call it a day. Maybe sell some bait, jerky, whatever. Baffles me.

How busy was william o brian? Im guessing Osceola and Franconia most likely filled up early morning.

Mike W wrote:

How busy was william o brian? Im guessing Osceola and Franconia most likely filled up early morning.

Mike is the water deep enough to run a 19ft boat in the Osceola and Franconia area?

The boat ahead of us got the last spot at Obrein, we parked in the lot above and had a warning for parking in the picnic area at end of day.