St. Croix surprise

[Ric]

Decided to hit up the river for some panfish action since I've never really targeted panfish on this body of water before. Being a flowing body of water, I headed for some still backwaters. I first hit the marina but no panfish. I head further to a more secluded and quiet backwater that is 6' deep at the time. To get here, you gotta cross through 2' shallow sand bars. Once there, I start at the end of the backwater and work out. Right away I picked up some 5"-6" bluegills in 2' of water close to the bank. As I moved outwards, the water got deeper and deeper until I was in 5'-6' of water with a steep sloping shoreline with lots of fallen trees and submerged lay downs. Along the way I stopped at every fallen tree and submerged lay down that I can see visually and on my 360. I worked those areas by anchoring in place with my dual talons. I used just a plane 1/16oz jig with a 1" pinched section of a berkley gulp worm. I can see fish on my 2d sonar as I vertical jig for them. Majority of the bluegills was 5"-6" but throughout the day I picked up near 2 dozen of  8" class bluegills. It was quite the surprise for first time targeting bluegills on the St. Croix.

[John Sheehan]

What a nice Gill!

[Keith Ritter]

Great post Ric. I enjoyed it.