St. Croix River

[tkcatfish]

I have recently moved to St. Croix County Wisconsin and am wondering if anyone has fished cats in the St. Croix River near Hudson, WI. I have fished the Mississippi extensively around St Paul; but I no longer want to drive there. Any tips for boat or shore fishing would be appreciated.

[Dan Thiem]

Welcome tk! Sorry but I aint got a clue what to do on the St. Croix. But I am pretty sure my Whisker Wrangler team mate Steve D. has some really good knowledge he could share. I read a recent report of his somewhere that mentioned drifting. Very interesting read! Hopefully he'll stop by here and pitch in some good advice for ya.

[SteveD]

Hello TK - As Dan mentioned I primarily fish the St Croix River. I do a lot of channel cat fishing down in the Hudson area. The channel cat post spawn bite normally picks up in late July to early August at about the same time that the shad schools show up. Shad are the primary forage base for most species on the St Croix and we normally get a big explosion of bait schools in August. Find the bait and you will find the cats.

Here is a technique I use for drifting for channel cats. This is a pretty simple approach to catching cats. Tie a size 1/0 or so snap swivel on your main line. Tie a 5/0 circle hook on about an 18” to 24” leader and then tie about a size 1/0 barrel swivel to the end of the leader. Hook that barrel swivel on the snap swivel and you are ready to fish. I am fishing fresh cut sucker for bait. That is it! Pretty simple. The weight of the cut bait and the two swivels is about all you will need to get your bait in the strike zone.

I try to fish the flats along the main channel targeting that first break into deeper water. That is where the shad schools seem to congregate. Another location I found is a main channel hump with water in the 15 to 20 foot range and shad schools in the vicinity.

I use my GPS to mark each fish caught so that I can return to another drift close to that same location. When the wind dies down or is calm I use my trolling motor to just sustain the drift between the light breezes, that seems to work pretty well to help me stay on drift. I've found that a drifting speed of .5 to .7mph is about the best speed. I will either use my trolling motor to speed up or if it is too windy I use a wind sock to slow down my drift speed trying to get to about .5 mph.

I've found the best bait to be fresh cut sucker. Change your bait about every 15 minutes or so to keep a good scent trail going. I use circle hooks and put the rod in rod holders and let the rods load up while in the holders before grabbing them. You will find that the channels just hammer the cut bait and your hook up ratio is very high with circle hooks. Sometimes it is a struggle to get the rod out of the rod holders when they hammer it.

Give this technique a try and you will be surprised how effective it is. Good Luck on the St Croix - let us know how you do.

[tkcatfish]

Thanks for the tips on the drifting technique. I will put them into play and see what happens. I used to work on the St. Croix so I think I already have a couple of spots in mind that this might work well in.