IT WAS A GREAT TRIP!!!!

I want to send a HUGE thank you to all of you that responded to my posts regarding my inquiries about fishing the Upper Miss. The info provided was put to good use and my trip was a huge success! We trolled crankbaits at the mouth of the St. Croix both days. In 2 days of fishing, my partner and I landed a total of 35 walleye/sauger, 7 smallmouth (including one over 20 inches!), 2 pike, along with numerous other fish. There was consistant action the entire time out on the water. The only fish kept were 4 of the saugers that were delicious, but we did take snap shots of the monster smallmouths. My compliments to the tremendous fishery that your state provides, and I thank you again for all of your help in making my trip to Minn a success! I plan to return and good luck to all!!!!

I’m glad you enjoyed the fishing! I’m assuming that you were trolling the area below the bridges, as well as up the Wisconsin shore. This area just gets hotter and hotter as the nights and days get colder. It seems like there is alot of 15-18″ fish there the past two years, so hopefully the future will bring some larger fish. If you don’t mind me asking, were you trolling cranks or using live bait and what depths were the best? Thanks. Hope you can make it up again soon.

It took us a few hours to learn the area but we finally found some good structure and after that it was “lights out”. We fished (and bear with me because I don’t know the area) 2 spots primarily. Both were near where the St Croix meets the Miss. After you go under the bridge coming from the Miss and entering the St Croix, we took a left after passing the “no wake” buoy. Within 20 yards of taking that left, we found a break that went from 12-22 ft of water. Me being a structure fisherman, we decidided to troll the 15-17 ft range of the break. The area seemed to be prodominately sand and silt so there were no break-offs considering we were flatline trolling crankbaits that were constantly bumping the bottom at that depth. We had constant hits while tapping bottom on the drop off that went from 12-22 ft. The fish were sitting on the bottom of the ledge waiting for the bait to swim over their head (like most fish do). We also fished a secondary point off the shorline that held numerous small (13-17 in saugers). I’m not sure if these are small, average, or large saugers for this fishery but they were very apt to hit our baits. The big key was constant contact with the bottom. Color and type of crank was irrelevant.

bubba k Great post, Very informative,glad you had a great day on the water. Looking forward to more of your posts.
Stephen Greene

Lead lining works well. I still like pulling three ways and cranks through those areas. Glad to hear you did well. Those are average saugers that are there year around. The bigger ones show up in spring and fall. October and November, it’s back to jigs and plastics. (When the pleasure boats are gone!)
Tuck