St Croix Friday. / Pool 2 Sunday.

Hoping to get into some “Last Chance” walleyes before the St. Croix closes, River Eyes and I hit the open water. We fished the 94/Hudson area out of Bennies. We tried the no-wake area up to the R/R swing bridge with no luck. Moved down towards the lake and fished deep drop offs. The walleyes outnumbered the sauger 2 to 1…..(that means we got 3 fish!) Pretty slow day, but was worth the try. Another boat reported good catches recently. Will need to wait till the opener for the next crack at them.

Hit pool 2 Sunday with my favorite fishing buddy. My dog Chopper. Spent a fair amount of time trolling 3-way cranks. Only a small sauger and a pissed off Cat Fish (About 3 pounds…Very fun!) Saw a fair bite for below average size fish at the Airport, some decent fish mixed in. Got lucky enough to jig up 3 fat 18-20 inch sauger in the community hole just up from the 494 bridge. Overall a fair bite going on if you can get out.

J.

The title line should have read, Pool 2 Saturday….just caught that typo……Sunday looked to be a bit windy for this guy!

J.

Jon,

Do you suppose a better bet would’ve been south of the bridge, down towards that point. During normal winters, there’s some ice guys that always do whatever they can to get as close to that area as possible. I know it winters crappies, but what are your thoughts on heading south instead? We may never know, just curious if your experiences there led you to stay away from that area or what ever?

Nice to hear you got Rivereyes out of the computer room and into the real thing! Any chance he tried messing with your gear to gain an advantage? Gotta watch that guy! :O)

Boone and I were out on Saturday also. We spent a bit of time around the airport and picked up a few decent fish. We found a few spots filled with the small fish. One guy next to us had one that was only 4″ long. It was another nice day to be on the water.

Kid,

Yes, downstream of the 94 bridge off that point is where we boated our fish. Ice was not too far off and we could see portable ice shacks off in the distance.

The pup was well behaved! Showed me a new trick too. Those “One Eye” spoons are worth more investigating. Need to add a few to the old jigging box.

J.

Is that St Mary’s point? The large one on the MN side?

Dave,

No. St. Mary’s is a couple miles downstream. I’m not sure if there is a name for that point. We were fishing the first big point just south of the 94 bridge on the MN side. There is a Green Marker on that point all summer. I’m sure we are talking about the same spot.

J.

Ill have you know that my “computer room” is not all that bad!… it overlooks a lake from up on top of a hill.. and ealges regularly fly past…. and lots of other wildlife too….

but then… all that being said….. and even though its the nicest desk Ive ever sat at.. in the most beautiful location…. I would ALWAYS rather be on the river fishing… and its true enough.. that Ive not been there NEAR enough the last couple of years…

so heres hoping for a year of a minimum of 60 days on the water….. Im running behind already…… as Ive only been out 5 times this year… and 4 of those were on ice.. and therefore dont really count!….

Oh.. and BTW… the “KID” = the “PUP”….. in past banter, I used to refer to him as StillaPUP… and it kinda got shortened to “PUP”……..

and thanks to Jon for taking me fishin on Friday!!… he is a great fishin partner….. not always playing tricks on me like a certain PUP!… lol…. JK!

me an the PUP will be out fishin again fairly soon I think…..

I believe the point Jon J and River eyes were on just south of 94 bridge is called Cannery Point.

Hey gang – I’ve always heard that point to be referred simply as “the can”, in reference to naturally the can bouy or the other name Beanies Point… though it’s three hundred yard south of Beanies…

just my thoughts…

Turk

Hey Rivereyes, since it’s your neck of the woods are you up for a north of Osceola St. Croix Mission this year? It’s something along the lines of finding walleye up there in the Spring and Fall! I’ve got some ideas for this spring… Basically old spots and hunches ( as the old saying goes, you can’t be in two places at once!) just wondering…

Keep Catchin’

Hey Turk….

Yep… Im not only up for it… Im planning on it… I live not far from the upper croix as you know… and my new job gives me the day off everyday until 4 pm…. then I HAVE to work from home….. bummer huh? so Im going to be checking out the croix pretty hard….. and even above the dam at TF..

give me any hints you have…. Ive been on it in the spring too… its kind of “strange”… by and large the bulk of people are trolling cranks long line… in fact that must be an 80-90% deal….. so sometimes someone that knows how to jig can really clean up, I think for two reasons… one.. vertical jiggin covers more water than trolling (upstream slowly)….. and two.. if most people are doing the other, it gives the fish a different look…..

another thing I look forward to is trying things like ring worms and super doos….. ringies worked on the lower croix real good… and I will also continue to experiment with jiggin spoons, this last fall this new spoon I was told about on FTR…. the One Eye… really was nailing fish on this edge of this deep hole…… was catching EVERYTHING…. even 2 muskies…. LOTS of smallies…… crappies….. well.. you know… EVERYTHING… even a sturgeon….

there is a lot of structure on this area of the croix…. deep water, shallow water, fast water, slack water, even back water….. but the eyes seem to mostly run small, except for the spring run…. but there has just GOT to be some nice fish up here…. because of the spawn however there is a TREMENDOUS population of YOY and 2-3 year olds… which means endless fish under 15″….. and darn few over….

Im wondering if its going to have to be a night bite… and then my new job is not going to help me much!! I think I better round up some big plastics and try some of that “dark” bite when evern I can……

How are you managing to do this? Just going to blow by the DNR station at the SOO line bridge. Anyways this year is going to be a low water year, which means no 175hp is going anywhere after you come off plane, that boat you have comin isn’t your fathers oldsmobile!!! Now the neck down area in front of the stillh20 bridge is a different story, I’ve heard rumors of big fish caught in this area at nite on jigs and big huskys.

not sure if you were referring to how I was managing to do it…. and not exactly sure what you mean… but I launch up here at one of 3 places… the launchs at Osceola, Franconia, and Interstate park…. its all no wake.. but I dont have to go far… and its all plenty deep, at least for my boat, which is only 14’…. but even big boats were launching, even in the fall… for some reason that stretch of river is deep.. they can run their river paddle boat all the way from TF down to Osceola if they want to….. plenty of water and some real deep holes….

and yeah… Ive heard more than rumors of big fish on the still water bridge… Ive seen/caught a couple of them….. but they were caught during the day, along the pilings, with jigs….

Iwas talking about Turk and his NEW boat that hes going to be causing all kinds of wake with this spring!! Watch out guys theres trouble on the horizon!!!LOL

ahhhhhh now eye sea!!!… yep… no doubt Turk will be power mad!! *yikes*!