St croix season almost over

[StillwaterAaron]

The Bite is still slow but still managed a few fish.

Tried to make this one look big!

[SteveD]

Great pics, Aaron. I haven't been out yet chasing sturgeon. How long were you out and what bait did you catch your fish on?

[erickol]

Yeah, you guys did alright last night. I did not get one single sturg last night! I fished until almost 4am, no sturg. (I still haven't had a chance to sleep at all!)

As far as I know, all the sturg last night were caught on crawlers and shad, at least all the sturgeon caught in may group of anglers was on shad and crawlers.

[StillwaterAaron]

Steve it was a toss up between crawlers and shad. As far as I know no other baits worked. There were 15 of us out there between 2pm-5am in a friendly contest the largest ones were 47-46-42-41.5-41 they were also thicker on average than other years. All larger fish were caught after dark. The wind was brutal and made bite detection impossible.

[croixflats]

Have you tried loading the hook with 4 or 5 fatheads,

Thats what I primarely use over the years. Smash one for sent and the others help with movement I suspect.

[StillwaterAaron]

Have you tried loading the hook with 4 or 5 fatheads,

Thats what I primarely use over the years. Smash one for sent and the others help with movement I suspect.

Yup some tried with no fish to show for it.

[erickol]

I fished a nice hookfull of fatheads for a number of hours with no sturg taking. In fact out of the species caught that night (Flathead, channel cat, drum, silver redhorse, rockbass) none were caught on the fatheads as far as I am aware. I do know a fellow angler had some sturg action earlier this week on the fatheads though.

[fishuhalik]

When's the season done?

[croixflats]

Oct 15

[croixflats]

Fished today in the morning Caught 7 the one I measured, not accurately though tape went into the water, was 56 inch others I would say mid 40's.

caught them with fatheads. Fished on a ledge in a pocket 18 ft on one side and 45ft on the other side of the boat. With the water being around 64 I had feeling they be in both places.

Had 2 lines out one on each side of the boat. Caught 2 smaller fish in 18 ft the others were in 45 ft. I gave up fishing 2 lines after the second from shallow water was worried about hooking two at a time being I was alone today. Most fish were caught between 8 and 10am.

Got the bug now have a lot of time to make up, I may be out tomorrow if its not raining to hard. Wednesday for sure.

[Mrkeb]

Well, I figured I'd post here too. Haven't seen too much activity regarding the sturgeon this year compared to past seasons. Dont know if people aren't fishing this year, not catching or just staying hush hush. But either way....for all those of you looking for good reports in hopes of maybe getting out there before the season is over, i'll add another.

So I got out with the wife, my cousin and his wife yesterday. Woke up here in Minneapolis at 5am to a brisk 40 degrees and wasn't feeling to motivated to get out there. An hour and a half later we were out on the water near Bayport. The goal was to get my cousin and his wife into some fish, as they've never done the whole sturgeon thing before. It didnt take long and we were into fish as my wife got into a 41 incher right off the bat. From there...things just got better as my cousin got into some good fighters as well as his wife who ended up with the biggest of the day at 47 inches. Couldnt have asked for a better day on the water. No wind. Decent temps once the sun came up. The least amount of river traffic I've ever seen on the croix. Maybe 2 cruisers all day. We were out from 6:45 ish to around 2:00pm. All in all we caught 19 sturgeon. I'd say roughly 6 or 7 of them were in the 40 inch class. 2 fish had tags. We fished 30 ft. of water. Crawlers produced. Fatheads produced. Suckers produced. Crawlers and Fatheads really produced as the combo really was the best bet all day. The bite was definitely best well into the morning as we had to fight and move around to catch fish in the afternoon.

An awesome time. The fish were biting! New and old to the game caught fish! Awesome weather! No Cruisers!!!!! What more could we have asked for. So, that said...if you're looking for the bite, I think it has begun. Get out while you can.....

[JimBuck]

Awesome report Mrkeb. It's reading reports like this that make me want to take work off and get on the water. I'm gonna give it a go tomorrow afternoon from Hastings and fish into the evening. Congratulations on a good day fishing and thanks again for the report.

[Ralph Wiggum]

I agree. Thanks for the report. Was planning on hitting P4 tomorrow, but active sturgies might make me change my mind!

[croixflats]

Great report Mrkeb. So, what was your cousin and his wifes reaction to first contact of the sturgeon.

[Mrkeb]

It was great! The initial hook set into dead weight was always fun to witness. Smiles around... Then just as it goes from easy reeling to watching rods start dipping into the water was definitely my favorite part. Just watching the struggle and hearing the "holy ****"s was awesome. Never forget it. Of course....tons of pictures and smiles all around. I think they'll be back out there again....

[wastewaterguru]

I will likely be out this weekend as well. We got 5 on Sunday night.....and that's about enough action to keep ya going. Missed a lot of short taps and managed a sheep head and redhorse mixed in.....

Looks like cold weather this weekend but that don't bother me too much.

[Roman_K]

Boated 2 last night. Still kind of slow for us. We were using the infamous crawler, fathead combination. Fished at 32' depths. Wind picked up after 8 making bite detection nearly impossible. Not much of a season for us this year.. Maybe I will brave the cold and go out this weekend...