More of a fishery question.. it seems the bite was pretty solid this weekend with shorts and plenty of keepers caught. I also got 2 over 15″ along with a handful of short fish Sunday. I am curious if you guys consider St. Croix a big fish fishery? Do many big ones get caught or at all? I am talking 28+” type fish. Seems like the forage is there along with plenty of water to hide in even with the pressure but I never seem to hear of big ones.

No knocking what a great fishery St. Croix is, its a blast to go pull a bunch of walleyes anywhere let alone so close to the metro but it seems like I have only seen/heard of 22-24″ type top end fish?

Don’t see how it couldn’t have been treated region by region! Little Falls and our opponents as far as I know are in areas with very minimal positive cases! Wish they could have done a metro and out state type scenario like he did with school

Really starting to get beyond embarrassing with how the powers at be are handling this situation. If you continue to think what is happening is “necessary” and for the “greater good” or “to keep everyone safe” at this point you’re an absolute clown.

Covid is not even on the top 10 list of risks to kids playing football. To make so many kids pay for a political ploy by sacrificing some of the most memorable and influential years of their lives is beyond shameful. If to want to play the “im scared to for the kids to go back to school” or “jeez we don’t know what could happen” grow up or at least quiet down and go away and let the adults get back to normal life.

Go cower in your basement with your mask on so you dont get the big bad Covid sniffles for 2 days and let everyone else live again. We have never been so scared of something like we are suddenly now and statistically speaking its getting ridiculous for mortality rates vs other ways people die. “CASES” are not the same as “positives”. If they wanted to test everyone for Herpes Zoster virus (chicken pox) you’d get the same scary numbers.

Very disappointed for all the kids that got screwed over

So you are obese with high blood pressure, diabetes and eat poorly hardly move but you want everyone around to wear a mask because you care about your health..?

What exactly is she “protesting” again??

Not sure anyone out there actually wants or promotes people dying at the hands of the police..

Worst thing that could happen to alot of these communities is to have no police so not sure what the “fu*k police” chants are meant to accomplish

Congrats!

Excited to see how the lakes/fisheries in Brainerd compare to the Becker/OT county fisheries!

During the Lions Club tourney there always seems to be a couple big pike brought in, how many a guy had to sort through to get it though who knows! I didn’t think that for its size that Whitefish got speared as hard so I was hoping if the snakes were thinned some over the summer the big ones didn’t get hit as hard through the ice but I primarily ice fish the west end of the lake.

I gotta imagine if everyone kept there 10 for 1 or 2 seasons you’d see a difference! That’s a lot of pike ha

Cody don’t worry you will have as much pike for a fry.. on the chain it’s harder to find a technique/depth that doesn’t catch them than does!

Appreciate the feedback and insights though. I agree on the walleye factories and lakes with muskies seem to have less of the snake problem hoping we can make that more common!

I’ll do my part to change the culture on the lakes i fish the most and hopefully in 20 years we can have a different version of this convo!

That’s what I was thinking.. concerned we might never see the effect of the new regs

And no I realize you don’t need shiners to catch them.. naive me was trying for the walleye in the afternoon that seem to only appear in the evening on the Whitefish chain. I was determined to win the war of attrition and tell myself one of these snakes has to be a walleye at some point! And after 50 of them I had to throw this post out to see what everyone makes of it. I would consider keeping my 10 and take what meat I can if I believed that it would make a difference

Given how this spring has gone I think it’ll be a ridiculous busy opener. Missouri River was ridiculous even during weekdays, seems well documented on here what St. Croix was like last weekend. Traverse/Big Stone same deal.. significantly more boats. With nothing else to do you can post all the warnings you want but I expect a full invasion of lakes country

I forgot when Fauci became all knowing..? He’s been really consistent over the past 2 months too with his wild predictions with not one coming true. Might want to look into his 30 years in politics before you follow him blindly

But you nailed it – easy way out to say “hey look how good we did, we stopped the apocalypse #inthistogether” but wait they keep pushing that apocalypse down the road see how long you’ll follow. Walz now saying July is the peak? I thought this week was supposed to be bad?

Appreciate the work of the LTC glad they have masks, I already sit in an empty healthcare facility though so they will need to find help elsewhere if they need it even

They are not short on masks, not uncommon to be allotted 1 mask per per hospital staff. As Comrade Walz wants to continue to spread fear not facts hospitals continue to take precautions against this magical surge that is supposed to come but never comes. They have the masks just do not want to burn through them while hospitals sit empty

For clowns trying to still hang onto the “flatten the curve” narrative and agenda. The following are CDC FACTS look them up I know you people hunkering down scared because “authorities” said you should have time..

There were 810k hospitalizations in 2018 for the flu
There were 400k hospitalizations in 2019 for the flu

How come neither of those events over run our poor under-prepared hospital systems? Covid is going to have around 65k hospitalizations and this is worth shutting down America?

Also why did Walz shut Minnesota shut down in March based on the IHME model but when that same model changed to only predict 500 or so deaths last week he says its “too optimistic” and extends stay at home orders. Hard for liberals to give up control over the masses.

If you are scared stay home but don’t require the rest of us to do so

I think I’ll risk a runny nose for a couple days to continue fishing..

It is not fake news that there is a virus out there

What is fake is this embarrassment of a panic. 100% manufactured! What is everyone scared off? Getting a runny nose and cough for 3 days? My gosh we act like we have never had a cold before!

Worried about hospitals being over run?? Try working in one, they are over run every day not by people who are actually sick but are “worried” or looking for a work note or want antibiotics for a virus! Gosh forbid people take responsibility for their own health we would easily be able take care of people who are really sick that cannot help themselves. The “helplessness” of a vast majority of a society is unreal

And we cannot compare it to the flu because why.. its new? Oh you mean the flu that we have vaccines for and know all about THAT STILL KILL MORE PEOPLE then this virus does?? All these sickening headlines about deaths and cases rising.. give me a break, not a SINGLE DEATH out of 7 BILLION people has been caused by Covid alone, if you can get past the scary headline you see that the causalities all had some other illness.. guess what elderly have a higher mortality rate in the natural world too.

Should we protect our most vulnerable yes, sure limit interactions with people at higher risk of serious problems should they get the virus but the over reach by government and panic is so much more damaging then the virus could ever be

But hey goal will be achieved – make more people dependent on government = control more of the sheep population

Hanging around A hockey stealing Duluth kids.. I’ll pay attention when they play AA.

Not that they wont have their hands full with Cathedral or Warroad this year anyway! It is a great time of year though coming down the final stretch to sections

I suppose they have a separate season then stream trout in lakes.. my fault I was assuming we had until Oct 31..

Well maybe the season is a good sign then – assumes they attempt to spawn and let them without being targeted

Alright I want to restart the conversation and get other’s thoughts.. From what I can gather Lake Trout spawn in the fall. Do you believe that the stocked lake trout in Big Trout lake also attempt to spawn on some of the rock/gravel this lake has to offer or is it a whole different ball game with stocked fish.

I am wondering because like my post this spring – it seems like now could be an opportunity to try a little shallower for them casting or trolling?

I went out early September and did not confidently mark a fish over deep water but I gave effort for about 4 hours trying for them so still puzzled by this lake!

I cannot seem to get out of my head that according to the DNR website 106 nearly 8 pounders were put in there just a couple years ago and that’s not counting the fingerlings! They have to be somewhere!

Something to say about living within your means.. no one forces you to purchase a majority of the material goods that get us into debt

I appreciate the effort! Frustrating nothing to show for it though! I have brought this up on here before but its amazing how good of fishing there can be on the Mississippi (Pool 2/4) and how challenging that stretch can be!

I too have tried this and that with very limited success! I still feel and believe that there are good fish in that stretch. Before they dredged out below the Rum River dam you could have excellent nights catching and releasing walleye in April (fishing for cats ofcourse) and those fish need to go somewhere when the water warms! The structure is there, plenty of bait!

My best tactic was lindy and sucker around the 169 pilings.. mostly smallmouth and catfish but there were walleye hanging there too. never great nights and still waiting on the big one thou but that whole stretch intrigues me

Curious how he did or what local took him out??

Any issues with the Boom Site north of Stillwater? Did it go back to no wake with the rain?

Is the launch below the dam in downtown Anoka usable? Dock in? I have been seeing all the issues Pool 2 is having with accesses and wondering if there is the same problem here. Wanting to get the boat out on the Mississippi this weekend if possible

I mean if you take a V7 chip out and put a V8 chip in, not doing any software updates..

When you update your chip do you lose your coordinates on a Humminbird unit?

Seemed to find more willing biters on Green. Anyone feel that the 17″ minimum has helped anything? Seems like I actually get less over 20″ now then I used to.. just my fishing experience

They are not stocked in there are they? Naturally reproducing population of Brown’s in there do you guys think?

Is the Boom landing usable?

Sounds about right.. made my second trip of the year down there and still no walleye to be found for me. I got 2 white bass casting a crank bait at Goose Island.. thought I would have gotten into a lot more then that but just the 2

Agree on the spearing for sure for so many lakes that have hammer handles! I just wasn’t sure how much spearing the Whitefish Chain took.

You mentioned the stripping.. do you feel that negatively effects the population even though they say the put a lot of the fry they take from the Pine River back into Whitefish?? I have always blamed the slow openers on Whitefish on the wears and tears from the stripping but I always like to tell myself numbers-wise it is replenished adequately from what they take?>

Is Traverse ice out pretty consistent with Big Stone’s? Is it fished similarly? If I cannot make it all the way down to Ortonville and the ice is of Traverse as well would give more fishing time vs drive time!