4th of July Croix Walleye

I finally had a weekend to target the Croix and with the plant manager telling everyone at the morning meeting Friday "if you want to leave a few hours early that is o.k.", it was out the door from work at noon and on the St. Croix River for a weekend of fishing. At 1:30 I was backing the boat in with trolling on the agenda seeing as I was going to be off the water by 6 or 7 for dinner with the woman. Friday was by far the best day of the 3 spent fishing for numbers but the size just wasnt there. I must have trolled up forty 10"-16" walleye and sauger but I just couldnt seem to find any big fish. I was also suprised by the number of white bass I caught. The white bass were anywhere from 2′ to 15′ below the waters surface and were very eager to hit a crank that was being reeled in to check and see if it was fouled up with weeds or small fish.

On Saturday I was joined by IDO member Onestout. I was hoping to get on the water before all the cruisers and do some rigging in Kinni as I have had good luck there in the past during high water but to my suprise we were un able to rig up some walleye in the Kinnie in fact we couldnt even long line a walleye out of there so it was off to the walleye summer haunts for some more lead core trolling action. I dont even think we got all the line out and sure enough there was a fish on. Another short fish but it was a fish and thats all that matters in my book. After covering a lot of water and catching many shorts we finally trolled our way to some decent fish and broke the 18" mark. Onestout took some fish home for a hot grease bath on saturday. Sunday I took the day off as I needed a day to re-coop from the severe sun burn.

Monday as I was getting ready to get on the water and it started to rain so I didnt get on the water until later in the day, I had planned on a lazy day of trolling some lesser known spots for big fish as I had my share of 10-14 inch fish to last me another month or 2 until I get some time away to fish the Croix again. I hit my 1st spot with a few more shorts to show for my efforts. On to spot #2 that was a big producer for me in the past turned up a big ZERO, not even a short fish. So after the first zero in a spot for the weekend it was time to cool off and take the dog for a swim so I met up with Onestout and his wife down in the Kinnie for some chit chat and beers while the woman took the dog swimming. Around 3pm we decided to start trolling our way home. around 4pm I hooked into a 18" walleye a good start for the ride home as I got about 20′ of line back out my other rod about folded in half with some extremly violent head shakes. I threw the first riod I was dealing with in the rod holder and quickly grabbed the other rod (luckily the woman was at the helm while this happened). I knew as soon as I grabbed the rod this was the fish I had searched all weekend for so while holding one rod I reeled in the 20′ of line from the other rod and told the woman to put the boat in nuetral and grab the net. After a 180′ of line fight the fish was finally visible and the woman was in complete awe when she seen the 8 lber crack the surface. She couldnt believe what we had just trolled up out of the Croix. The 28in 8lb eye barely had a hold on the Natural Perch JSR. Numbers were’nt there for me Monday but size was.

It was a great weekend of high numbers of fish and some good size fish. I found most fish holding anywhere from 20 FOW to being suspended at 24′ in water as deep as 35′. Reef Runner Rip Shads and # 5 JSR in Firetiger or Natural Perch were top producers, I could not get any fish to go on #7 anything. I fished mainly on rocks all weekend even though there were reports on sunday (a 20" and some other keepers) of fish being rigged up off the sand falling victim to leeches and crawlers. I was trolling at speeds of 1.5mph up to 2.5mph with an average speed of 2.1. My reels are spooled with 12lb test lead core and I run a 6-8ft leader of 10lb test Trilene from the lead to lure. I expected fish to be holding in typical high water haunts but was suprised to find most of them in their summer homes.

(click on pictures to enlarge)