October 19, 2010, Walleye fishing on the Lower St. Croix River is excellent. The water temperature is 55 degrees. The river is still two feet high, but a far cry from eight feet high as we had a week or so ago. Now that the river is normal level for this time of year, the usual fall locations are producing walleye and sauger. To clarify the fish are leaving the shallows and locating deeper. Water clarity is fairly clear and debris minimal.
This last week on guide trips top lures/presentations are crankbaits, minnows, and now plastics. Many of the fish are nice 16 to 18 inch walleye. Yesterday in the morning trip the first six fish caught were all in that range. We are also seeing larger fish as well and we voluntarily released five yesterday over 20inches, and caught a total of 24 legal walleye and nice sauger combined. I also had a report from a friend that is an awesome angler that they landed a nine pounder last weekend (nice job Scott!).
For Lures I am using Rapala Shad Raps, minnow raps, and original floaters (bright colors). For jigs I am using glitter jigs. I like 5/16 and 3/8 ounce for vertical jigging the Croix. Depths have been around 20 feet of water, but that may be deeper any day.
The forecast is poor for a few days, but I expect November to be fairly nice after the first cool burst. This is just fine as fewer folks will be out and about, so some peace and tranquility is found in mid November. As long as they bite we will be out fishing the great St. Croix River. Keep Catchin’ Turk
Proverbs 3:5
Great report Turk!!!! Sounds like the Walleye are finally putting the feed bags on. Hope to see you on the water one of these days!!