Upper St. Croix Lake -- Solon Springs

[upnorth]

This was an interesting weekend, because we decided to spend it using my F-I-L's little Rangeley boat without any electronics and only a 4hp yamaha motor.  It was super windy, and without a trolling motor, it made fish hunting very difficult and finding our normal hot spots nearly impossible.

We were going for crappie and walleye so were mostly using minnows on jig heads using ultra-light/medium light tackle.  I got a couple small northerns, and a couple crappies.  No walleye, but....  A very nice 18 inch smallie.  I have never caught one on a minnow before, so I think he was just swimming by and wanted a snack.  That was the biggest one I have caught, the previous year I caught a few 16.5" to 17" ones on that lake.

[Joshawa]

I can imagine that the wind was brutal. We had to put docks in before going out on Saturday and the wooden slat pieces would catch the wind and almost take you for a ride