If 80% of the fish are in 10% of the lake…FFS can concentrate 80% of the fisherman in that same 10% of the lake and provide more room for the recreational boaters!

Caught 2 @ 19″, both were milting. Water temp was 53…south of Hudson.

http://www.kare11.com/story/news/local/2014/05/22/boaters-face-no-wake-zone-on-st-croix-river/9446879/

Nice fish Mo!

I just sent you a PM.

It’s not mine but as a side note…your best chance to save a wet phone is to remove the battery immediately, shake out the excess water and stick everything in a ziplock bag of rice.

Hope whoever lost it gets back to you and thanks for looking out for others Ingy.

As I understand we need to go below 683…patience.

Here’s MN DNR news release from yesterday…
MN DNR – St Croix nowake

…at .13 feet (1.5 inches) above no-wake stage I’m holding out hope that I’ll be able to “run” the river tomorrow. I’ll have my Droid X in one hand and the tiller handle in the other.

Look for sand, if macrophytes are present this will make those areas even better. Over the past 6-8 years the rusty crayfish population has exploded to the point I think they have become a considerable food source for northern, walleye and (of course) smallies. Whitefish Bay is deep in areas and quite clear, low light conditions will be your best bet for walleye. When the walleyes are stubborn try throwing spinnerbaits, jerk baits and large (5″) tubes for pike or grubs and tubes for smallies. Smallies will be on the deeper rock reefs and larger pike will be on the deeper weedy reefs or hanging with schools of whitefish and cisco.

Whitefish Bay is beautiful part of LOTW, good luck!

Helliars, cabin 32 this year.

Thanks for the PM Fish4Blue, got it a little late so I’ll have to try your suggestions next year.

As for this year our trip included personal bests for 3 of 4 in my group…42″ Muskie (14 y.o. son), 38″ Northern (75 y.o. f-in-law) and 41″ Northern (mine).

I’ve used IRFanView, FastStone and some others…

If you run Windows XP the PowerToy plug-in Image Resizer is by far the easiest. Once you have this free plug-in from Microsoft installed simply right click on the photo, the pop-up menu includes a resize option.

Try this link… Image Resizer can be found among the list of power toys…

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Last Friday I caught a smallmouth with a lamprey halfway down it’s throat. Probably not a preferred forage but I was happy to see a smallmouth prey on lamprey for a change.

I have definitely seen an increase in Lamprey’s on the Croix in the past couple years. Rarely do you catch a large pike or muskie without a lamprey or lamprey scar.

Thank you for the input, I picked up a 4900M and the Lakemaster WI chip.

Lakemaster covers the St. Croix from approx. 1 mile North of the Stillwater bridge down to Prescott.

Regarding your interest in a GPS…

Over the past couple years I’ve been researching some of the same issues regarding when to jump into a GPS for fishing and then who’s maps to get (I primarily fish the St. Croix between Stillwater and Prescott). I finally broke down at the Sports Show and picked up a Lowrance 4900M (GPS only, monochrome, 7″ display discontinued unit) and the Lakemaster WI chip, together they ran $350. I was seriously considering the Lowrance iFinder H2Oc (handheld, color LCD, high resolution), I could have bought this unit with the Lakemaster chip at the Sports Show for $300. I opted for the larger display with more pixels, its less portable but I will be purchasing a DC adapter and plan to use it from my truck for ice fishing (not on the Croix). If I had unlimited financial resources I would have definitely gone with a large color LCD unit.

I talked with the Lakemaster guys at the Sports Show in Mpls.. It sounds like they’ve only worked over as far East (and North) as Miles Bay. I appreciate you checking and will watch for your reply.

Thanks.

I own 3 digital camera’s, 2 Canon and 1 Kodak. For the boat I’d buy one of the Olympus Stylus weatherproof cameras.

I’ve been doing some research recently, my specific interests are in utilizing the Lakemaster Pro maps for Minnesota and Wisconsin for both open water and ice fishing. The most important thing for you to consider is how and what you plan to use the unit for.

I’ve owned 3 Garmin handheld GPS’s for the past 10 years, used them primarily for hunting. The only items I’d add to your list of features to consider are LCD size and resolution.

I’m leaning toward the Lowrance iFinder H2Oc (c = color). The color helps but I really like the high resolution screen. Compared to Garmin is seems like you get quite a bit for your money with Lowrance.

So my concerns about Lowrance handhelds…durability and reliability. I’ve heard complaints about the power cables shorting out and the LCD screens getting scratched up and difficult to read. In the store I experienced a problem with the memory card seating…hope this isn’t too much of a problem.

My current Garmin Unit is a GPS V (discontinued), while the Lakemaster maps will work with this Unit the LCD is too small for the boat and doesn’t have the resolution of the Lowrance H2Oc.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Wow, good feedback…thanks everyone!

…decision time.

Results?

I agree with you Buschman, there does seem to be an increase in lamprey’s in recent years. 30 years ago I’d see a couple a summer on carp, never on game fish. Then they seemed to cycle down and now, in the past 2 years, I’ve pulled 3 into my boat 1 on the Northern and 2 on Smallmouth, additionally I saw one free swimming a week ago.

Tally for 5/24, 4:30-8:30 pm – 1 Northern (9lbs w/lamprey), 1 sand pike (short), 4 walleye (up to 18″), 12 smallmouth (up to 16″), 1 sheephead.

…below Hudson, water temps. mid 60’s.