I fished the Prescott area and some of the wingdams downstream of Prescott Friday evening but didn’t find anything. I talked to a couple of other people but they were basically fishless too. The water from the St. Croix was about 38 F but downstream a ways after the Mississippi and the Croix had a chance to mix the water temperature was about 42 F. Surprisingly for such a nice Friday evening, there were only about a half dozen rigs in the lot. It appeared that a couple of these had tickets on the windshield so make sure you pay the launch fee.
When I was putting my boat in, three commercial fisherman were pulling out. I talked to them several minutes and they were nice enough to answer all my questions. Here’s what I learned.
1. They were using a seine net along the St. Croix beach in the St. Croix river. I believe they said the net was 1200 ft. long (it darn near sank their huge, aluminum jon boat.)
2. They said the caught about 2500 lbs of rough fish, mostly buffalo. They said the carp looked sickly for some reason they didn’t understand.
3. Walleyes… yes they caught some of them too. They said they had about three in the 10 lb range. I heard they also had several in the 4 lb. range.
4. Muskies… they said they pulled in about a half dozen muskies.
5. Paddle Fish or Sturgeon… One of each but usually they catch more sturgeon.
6. What do you do with all these fish… They make a holding area with stakes and nets and bring a semi into the Hasting ramp and haul them away.
Boone
