<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Seth F wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>rdgallo wrote:</div>
Back in the 90’s we would chase the gulls and dodge all the other fisherman (there would be 10-20 other boats out) usually limiting out after about 3-4 days of fishing.Now this is a curious post…?
No doubt.
Is it him or is it JD? LOL
I don’t chime in here much…been a few years in fact but,as an old timer on pool 3,I will attest to the decrease in big striped bass(as we used to call them) on pool 3. One winter,many years ago on North lake,caught so many BIG stripes that my hands were bleeding and sore from striper gill plates and fins.Ah yes…them were the days.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Seth F wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>rdgallo wrote:</div>
Back in the 90’s we would chase the gulls and dodge all the other fisherman (there would be 10-20 other boats out) usually limiting out after about 3-4 days of fishing.Now this is a curious post…?
No doubt.
Is it him or is it JD? LOL
I’m pretty sure a touring Bass pro doesn’t have time to troll a fishing forum.
Thanks to all that have responded. Can someone fill me in on this, “Now this is a curious post…?” I have no idea what this means.
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>eelpoutguy wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Seth F wrote:</div>
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>rdgallo wrote:</div>
Back in the 90’s we would chase the gulls and dodge all the other fisherman (there would be 10-20 other boats out) usually limiting out after about 3-4 days of fishing.Now this is a curious post…?
No doubt.
Is it him or is it JD? LOLI’m pretty sure a touring Bass pro doesn’t have time to troll a fishing forum.
My thoughts as well. Looked rather odd. I know BK is up in Battle Lake on a sturgeon excursion on Otter Tail and then ordering bluegill dinners at the local restaurant. So he may not be paying attention and not sure about the other mod’s but it would or could be an opportunity as EPG suggested for someone like JD to infiltrate. The “Seth F” post was meaningless, just a random quote from a previous post. There hasn’t been any subsequent posts from Seth, so who knows?
Thanks to all that have responded. Can someone fill me in on this, “Now this is a curious post…?” I have no idea what this means.
Sorry to keep you in a state of suspense. Here is the link to our little secret, it might all make sense to you now…
Idk, but they used to be plentiful with good size even right below the ford dam. Now they’re all but gone. Have caught maybe 2-3 in the last 6-7 years. Used to catch 10+ per year not even targeting them.
I ran into half a dozen unintentionally this weekend on Pool 4.
There are so many schools of bait fish in the system that finding a spot where schools of white bass are regularly located can be difficult. They seem to constantly be on the move.
I’m tossing this out in here too. I look at things and attempt to stay positive in how I see them and really want to think that what I have mentioned is a short term thing. I do however also feel that there is credibility to the observations offered here by others…that fewer of the fish are in the system and quite possibly Mother Nature and global warming are not doing them any favors. Silt laden, fast flowing, rapidly temperature rising spring run-off when the stripers spawn can affectively keep them off traditional spawning sites long enough to erase a year’s spawning success. Now add in how the same three events can affect the food chain that the stripers rely on for recruitment of fingerling fish. I don’t fish stripers like I did at one time but I still think that in any one year, especially the fall bite, that some short term answers can help get people on fish. But I don’t have my head in the sand on these other influences that I think will have very long term negativity not only for stripers but a whole host of fish.
I just returned from fishing in the Two Harbors area of Lake Superior. 8 days. 3 small pink salmon when at this time of year the Lake Trout and larger salmons should be thick in the area. In over thirty years I have never seen the lake this high and in fact it set a record for “high” in August. The lake is the warmest I have ever heard at this time of year….trout trollers were having to run several miles off-shore and run lines at depths over 150 feet just to find mediocre fishing for lakers. Kings and cohos were a dream and loopers and steelhead are still main lake fish. The pinks should have been in the rivers almost a month ago but river water temps and those temps along the shore have the schools stacked all over and not showing any interest in running to the rivers. And these fish are coloring up already long before they’ll go up river. They’ll not have a successful spawn. On the Duluth arm of Lake Superior Wisconsin’s Lake Trout season has been closed for some time due to harvest restrictions, this caused by the abundance of fish on that potion of the coast that normally are way far out in deep water and far less accessible to anglers. Things are changing, but I still like to cling to the idea that this is only a one year thing as seen from one eye while keeping the other eye on the less optimistic side of things.
little pot hole lake up north that ive fished since a kid is changing to. used to be all pike fishing. caught my 1st large mouth out of there 3 years ago. now they make up the majority of the bite. no roads to this lake, landings, cabins, ect. we pull the row boat out there half dozen times a year and very rarely keep a fish. still something is changing.
Tom, were just people trying to understand fish.
I’ve like to say “just when you think you’ve got them figured out they prove you stupid”
So much happening in fish environment and ecosystem we’re foolish to think we’ve scratched the surface in understanding them!!
I really enjoy the frustrating “skunk” or simply missing your anticipated catch… It is an opportunity to add a little more info into the memory bank.
It is amazing what you can learn fishing 5/week on the same body for the same species… It is also comical how little information that is in the grand scheme of things.
I also like to say “the more you know the more questions you have!”
Heck 99% of people don’t understand how we people truly operate. Why when it rains one person finds joy and another sadness…etc etc. Lots of things happening in our pea brain we are unaware of continuously!
Awesome info you share Tom!
I hate to bring up and old thread (and old wounds), but I thought I had seen that the DNR was planning a study of white bass a couple years back and am wondering if there was an update, or if I missed the thread on here.
Anyone know?
I thought they were going to do some radio tagging on the stripers a couple years ago on pool 4 too, but I never heard anymore about it.
On another note, I did some shore casting late into the fall right up until ice up in Lake City and caught more silvers than I have in years, but they were short fish…..10 – 11 inches.
I’ll see if Nick has an update.
They did tag on WB in a back water of Pool #3 and it was caught two weeks later near the mouth of the Apple River on the St Croix.
Transient fish.
Below find a link to the initial announcement of the tagging study conducted by the MN DNR Lake City Fisheries Office.
It provides some background and description of the reasons for the study and goals it hoped to achieve.
https://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/walleye_1245081/
I will try and put together a quick summary of findings to date.
We are not actively seeking tags using electrofishing anymore, but still record the information when tagged fish are captured during normal sampling, or tag returns are provided by anglers (I still get a few each year). Since the fish were all mature (spawning age roughly speaking 3+ years old) at the time of tagging any fish caught today with a tag would be a minimum of 8 years old (the maximum age we measured using scales before otolith aging methods revealed white bass to potentially live much longer in the Pool 4 system).
Also attached is a map showing all of the tag returns we have received to date showing how far some of the individuals in our white bass population travel. I apologize for the clutter with some of the dates, but the information they provide. All tags were applied April 30th – May 31st 2013 Primarily in Upper Pool 4 and to a lesser extent lower Pool 3.
As always I am happy to address any questions folks might have.
Nick
White-Bass-Tag-Returns-to-MN-DNR-Lake-City-Fisheries-as-of-3-30-2018.pdf
So NONE continued up the Mississippi past Prescot?
For such a small fish, those boys MOVE!
Thanks Nick!
Another update I provided in fall of 2013 still working on a current synopsis.
https://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/pool4_1276787/
Nick
Makes one wonder as it sounds like 300-400 Stripers were tagged in 2013 not many tags have been turned in. Tags not reported or fish dyeing off or just not being caught.
Is there a creel limit on Strippers?
Wisconsin limit on White Bass on Lake Pepin when I fished for them was 25 per day and 50 in possession.
Is there a creel limit on Strippers?
Sounds like a question for BK…
Total daily bag limits for Wisconsin fish species Species Total daily bag limit
Rock, white, and yellow bass and bullheads No Limit
Make sure you are checking the limits for the boundry waters of Wisconsin/Minnesota (Lake Pepin). I believe the limits are different from others throughout the state of Wisconsin.
You are correct. That is an inland limit taken off their website. Looks like all boundary waters show a limit of 25.
Minnesota limit is 25 as well but the 25 is also the possession limit. Continuous season.
as an old timer on pool 3,I will attest to the decrease in big striped bass(as we used to call them) on pool 3.
Troutbum As a Old Time myself on pool 4 I agree with you a 100%. As kids back in the 1950s we would fish for the stripers a lot back then on lake pepin. Back in those days I stayed in cabin at Maple Springs with friends of my dads. Starting in the 1970s I had a camper on the beach at Reads Landing for 29yrs. Back in those time frames if you wanted to catch stripers/white bass most of time you could catch them by the boat load. At those times it was not that hard to do, cause there were MILLIONS an MILLIONS of them.!! In todays world its a whole different game simply because there is only a fraction of them now from what there was in the past. . In a more modern time frame i also stayed a Everts for many years from April to November. The month of May is there spawn time. I watched the spawning runs be come less an less as the years went by at Everts. In the beginning of those years there VERY LARGE groups that came to Everts just for the white bass. When the spawning run was on from the end of April thru the month of May. These large groups would fill many coolers a day after day after day of white bass. An there were a number of tickets given out for Over Limits.!! . Now days if you want to CATCH A LIMIT OF WHITE BASS/STRIPERS GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.! . m rrr
This is a repost from 2013 with updates.
Around 2006 the dam at Taylor’s Falls on the St. Croix had dramatically changed its flow patterns. It used to fluctuate the water levels for developing peak power out of the hydro-dam. Now the flow is what NPS calls “natural run of the river” constant(slower) with no peaking. I believe it was done to help preserve the endangered mussels. Unfortunately it has had some rather huge consequences. Beavers now dam across backwaters and seal off backwater lakes closing them to the main river. These areas were the nursery of the lower St. Croix.
When peaking of the Hydro-dam was fluctuating water levels up to 3 feet daily the beavers could not get dams established. The peaking water would also flush and oxygenate the waters allowing the fish and mussel nurseries to thrive.
Old time fisherman that have been fishing the river for a decade or longer know how much the St Croix has changed over the last >10 years. Most river fish species have been in dramatic decline while lake fish species(large mouth, sunfish, perch) have taken over.
Small fish nursery areas north of the turn bridge are no longer functioning as they have in the past. The resulting explosion of sunfish in closed off nursery areas over the last 10 years has crippled river fish reproduction and possibly ended the return of river fish to traditional spawning areas. Sunfish are voracious eaters of eggs, fry and macroinvertebrates. My observations of declining Damsel and Dragonflies in nursery areas lend support to this theory. River fish and minnows are host species for freshwater mussels to reproduce. There has also been a massive decline in many of these mussel species. Shell Middens(piles of shells) from muskrats used to be very common along the edges of the river. Now they are much less common.
Changes to the Saint Croix over the last 10 years are easily visible and profound. Climate change and pollution is not a reasonable explanation. I truly believe the dam flow changes were orchestrated with the best of intentions for river preservation and protections. Unfortunately the results have not been as beneficial as we had hoped. After 14years the river is reaching a much less bio-rich equilibrium. Will anyone step up to restore the river to the previously wealthy, biodiverse river of years past?
As old time stewards of the river retire, there is a generational cognizance lost forever. Soon nobody will remember what the river was like before the dam flow change. A more prolific lake fishery and its corresponding reduction of river fish species is the new norm for the St Croix. New generations of river stewards will readily accept the current river assuming that all is normal.
With fewer river fish, fewer river minnows equating to fewer mussels… It may be time to ask a different question. The current mindset has focused on what “changes” can be made to protect the river? I believe we should be asking what has made the St Croix one of the best freshwater fish and mussel beds in the world? Monumental changes have been made to an area historically known for extraordinary natural wealth. The adage “If it works, don’t fix it” may apply in this situation.
They have really declined in the Winnebago system. Trawl data shows a collapse of the population over the last couple years.
I’ve caught fewer the past 3-4 years, but I don’t really target them either. I think with warmer water they really tend to hold up near more current and deeper water. There’s a few spots I can think of specifically.
I’m not nearly as informed as some on the topic, but I can vouch for the forage on Pool 4 being impressive with many more large schools than I remember 10-15 years ago. Some of the late summer and early fall schools we’ve run into make me assume the transducer is broken. It’s not a coincidence that a 28″ walleye yesterday on Pool 4 weighed 11+ lbs. There’s a lot of food out there which can make fishing a bit tougher for specific species.
I agree that down here we have less Stripies than we did 15 years ago in the Mississippi. But we have more Ring Perch, many more. More Northerns too. Dont know what to tell you. Still enough Stripies to fish, especially during their Spring and Fall runs. That said, they are an edible fish, no doubts. Not even close to my favorite. This dense meat, like Tilapia. But I wont turn it down, and fun fun fun. If you go by the Dams at the right time in the Spring you can catch the big girls too.
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