This season is absolutely flying by, it’s already August and we find ourselves rolling into the 3rd and Final Regular Season stop of the 2024 Champions Tour, Presented by Skeeter Boats. This time, we venture to another new location, and another new state. We are hopping the border to Hudson, WI and tackling the St. Croix River.
The St. Croix River is located on the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. It starts up North of the Twin Cities and makes it’s way down, to where it meets the confluence of the Mississippi River in Prescott, WI. Our anglers will be attacking the portion of this river that stretches from roughly Stillwater, MN down to Prescott, WI. Champions Tour Pro’s will not be able to fish the Mississippi River in this event. This over 20 mile stretch of river channel is a new place to a lot of our Pro’s, with most only ever being on this river recreationally over the summer, as the boat traffic can be extremely busy on the weekends.
We caught up with Champions Tour Pro’s Dane Vocelka, Terry Vang, and Brad Leifermann to give us a little insight into what we may be seeing at the St. Croix River.
“I’ve known this (St. Croix River) more as a recreational boater and party river,” Vocelka immediately said. “And to be honest I didn’t think it would be such a good fishery.” There was a lot of unknowns heading into this St. Croix River event, and still is to this day. But reports from Champions Tour Pro’s is a (surprising to them) good bite so far.
Leifermann shared some of the same sentiment as Vocelka saying, “I don’t know if it’s because we’ve become better fishermen or the river has gotten better, but it seems to have gotten way better since the early 2000’s. Which is the last time when we were here.”
The St. Croix River, geographically, is basically only a main river channel that runs from North to South. The best way to equate it to people is to imagine Pool 4 of the Mississippi River, but take away all the backwaters, and now you have the St. Croix River. When explaining the fishery, Leifermann excitedly said, “What’s cool about the St. Croix is that it’s a lot like the Mississippi but you don’t have to worry about ruining your stuff.” Referring to how much deeper it is, and the lack of wind dams, stumps, etc. to hit. However, that also eliminates structure for fish to live on.
It’s a challenging fishery from what our field has said, but once you start getting the groove going, it’s quite patternable. When speaking with Champions Tour Pro Terry Vang about the fishery, he explained that it can fish small at times, however it’s all about timing. If you’re on the right spot, at the right time, you can catch them fast.
If you get into a bad rotation? He’s seen days where it can be hard to get a bite. Sounds like a fun puzzle for our field to try to dial in!
“When you hear the St Croix River you assume a lot of current,” Vocelka elaborated. “No, actually, there’s very little current unless you’re neck downs.” This has also been surprising to a lot of our field of anglers is the lack of current in the fishery, there really isn’t that much to it. Terry Vang explained, “Right now there isn’t really any current, but if you can find any of it, you’re going to catch way more fish.”
Vang expects current to be a major factor in this event.
Most of our Pro’s have talked about how fun of a fishery the St. Croix River has been for them the past week or so of practice. One, it’s absolutely stunning, being one of the site seeing hotspots in the Upper Midwest. But also, the smallmouth fishing is quite simplified according to most of the field. Leifermann added, “It’s a kind of place that if you’re a novice bass fisherman, you can get on the bank, throw your favorite lure and catch a bunch of smallmouth.”
However, to all of our field’s surprise, and mentioned in their interviews, was the healthy population of Largemouth Bass. Vang immediately explained, “Depending on the year it (St. Croix River) fishes really good, I think the largemouth are going to play big time, and most years it’s smallmouth dominant in the summer stuff.”
Leifermann and Vocelka also added the same tune, saying the size average seems to be much better with the Largemouth Bass. Although the population is smaller, they can get you right in a hurry. Look for some of our leaders tomorrow to be mixing in both species as they try to bring this one home.
“This time of year the largemouth typically don’t play because the water is lower, but for some reason this year we’re catching a lot of them,” Vang added, “and they tend to be bigger.”
It’s pretty clear the Largemouth Bass are going to be the X-Factor of this tournament from speaking with our field.
Patterns we may see play? If you are into watching our Champions Tour YouTube Videos, you should be in for a treat. The St. Croix River is known for the bait chasing population of fish it has in it, and right now it sounds like there’s a heck of a Topwater bite going on. Leifermann explained the bite transition throughout the day right now as simple as, “They come up and feed up top in the mornings and drop off the edge after that.”
And with there being less current in the St. Croix River, there are some offshore fish that could play a factor in this event. There’s been murmurs of a potential pelagic population of Smallmouth Bass that we could see targeted with FFS. Speaking with our anglers, it sounds like you may be able to catch them all the way out to 25+ ft of water dragging baits, or throwing a minnow profile.
However, they all shared the same thought when it came to a winning weight. It sounds like 60-70 lbs is what everyone is targeting and thinks will be doable. “I don’t think it’ll be more than that because I think there’s going to be quite a bit of sharing water” Vocelka added.
We are excited to get down to Hudson, WI and see how this one shakes out. Right now we’ve got a Cold Front ripping through Minnesota with a lot of rain hitting the state. We’ve already got curveball #1 being thrown at our field before the event at this new venue, now it’s time to see how it all shakes out!
We’ve got our friend Rich Lindgren, Aka Hellabass, back to give us a little insight as we head into the final regular season stop of the Champions Tour Season.
HellaBass Forecast
For being just minutes east of the Minneapolis / St Paul metro area, oddly the St Croix River rarely receives any tournament attention from most tournament organizations, so there is not much history or research to help us predict how this event will unfold. The St Croix River is known for its strong smallmouth bass population, but most anglers tend to focus on the fishery in the spring and then again in the fall. It has a reputation for getting a little stingy in the summer months. There is also a decent population of largemouth in certain areas as well. If there is a group of anglers that could unlock the St. Croix Summer Puzzle is this group fishing the Champions Tour.
With this being the final regular season event before the year end Championship, I am going to give you 3 anglers near the top that I think will position themselves for a shot at the AOY at the Championship and then 3 anglers near the Top 30 bubble that have a good shot to punch their ticket to the year end championship.
Tommy Parker is 2nd in points just 4 points behind leader Hunter Wendt. Tommy got his first Champions Tour victory just down stream on the Mississippi River finessing finicky smallmouth, that skill set could serve him very well this week.
Kyle Schutta’s down south experience fishing regional Toyota events should galvanize him to be ready for a grinder on the summer river fishery no matter how tough it gets. Schutta didn’t return to the Champions Tour to settle, he definitely wants an AOY.
Wisconsin’s Kevin Fassbind is no stranger to fishing rivers and seeing success. He has some ground to make up, but look for him to get himself into striking distance at the St. Croix. Expect to see a few old school tricks from Kevin on the river to trick some bass into biting.
2023 defending AOY Champion, Arnold Helgerson finds himself one spot and one point out of the top 30. This will be fun to watch, as Arnold doesn’t want to be a spectator at Lake Minnewaska which is a target rich environment for the way Arnold prefers to catch them.
Last year fan favorite Sam “Sobi” Sobieck was one of the first anglers out of making the championship. Now we get to see if he can hold on to his slim 13 point cushion as he finds himself tied with Matt Holweg and sitting in 22nd. Not sure how much river experience Sobi has, so this could be a precarious spot. Either way, should make for a good exciting YouTube video on his Sobi Channel.
Noah Schultz is arguably the GOAT of the Champions Tour, yet he finds himself clinging to a slim 8 point buffer above the cutline with one regular season event to go. After a rough start at Okoboji, Schultz balanced things out with a solid Gull Lake event. Can one even imagine a championship where Noah isn’t fishing for a New Skeeter Boat? There are about 20 anglers within 30 points of knocking Noah out if he doesn’t have a good event. There would be an interesting energy if the 30 anglers in the Championship knew they didn’t have to beat Noah on Lake Minnewaska
