Scenic St. Croix River Shows Out for Champions Tour
The final 2024 regular season event for the Champions Tour was held on a brand-new body of water, not just for the Tour, but many of the 65 Tour anglers never had previously wet a line on the St. Croix River.
Hudson, WI was the host site for the event, and the anglers were limited to the St. Croix, where they couldn’t go into the Mississippi River, nor north of Stillwater. This large chunk of scenic riverway provided the Champions Tour anglers with a plentiful amount of water to fish for both largemouth and smallmouth bass.
Leading the way for the Northland Fishing Tackle Pro Team was defending Championship winner, Noah Schultz. Schultz who came into this event being just on the inside of the bubble for making the 2024 Championship, easily solidified his chance to fish for another brand-new Skeeter boat later this month on Lake Minnewaska with a 4th place finish, having 28 bass for 54 lb 8 oz.
Noah had two patterns going on the St Croix, the first was targeting bait chasers on the northern end where there was more sand and less rock. “For those fish I used a 1/8 oz Smeltinator with a 2/0 hook paired with a 3.5" Eye Candy Paddle Shad in Smoke Shad color,” said Noah. “I would locate wolf packs with my MEGA Live and shake the bait above their heads to get them to eat.”
During the afternoon session, Schultz targeted bass that were feeding on crawfish on the southern end where there was more rock. Noah caught all these fish on the 1/8 oz Elite Series Nedster Jig with a Z-Man TRD.
“I’ll tell you one, thing the Eye-Candy Soft Plastics are DURABLE,” exclaimed Noah. “I opened one pack of the Eye Candy Paddle Shad’s my first day of practice and I am still on the same pack. You can literally catch 50-100 fish per bait. Once I glued it to the Smeltinator, it was on for life. The durability of these swimbaits must be the best on the market hands down.”
Noah did make it out to Minnewaska to pre-practice and is very excited about the Championship event. “It is a very cool fishery and fishes well,” said Noah. “You have a very big largemouth population with big offshore schools to be had, and there is a good smallmouth population.”
The largemouth population is higher, but the smallmouth run much bigger with lots of three- and four-pound bass to be caught, while the largemouth run smaller with the average being around that 1.5 - 2 lb range.
Noah anticipates seeing some huge flurries in the morning half. “A guy can pick his poison out on Waska; you can basically catch them anyway you want so it will be interesting to see how it goes down.”
Right behind Noah, was Tyler Bahr, in 5th place with 27 bass for 49 lb 7 oz. Bahr started off throwing a Northland Fishing Tackle Elite Series Marabou Jig along the rock for St. Croix River smallmouth. Then in the afternoon he made a risky run down south to fish a patch of deeper grass and caught them on a Neko rig. “Overall, the St. Corix was a super fun place to fish, and I will definitely be back,” said Tyler.
With this finish, Bahr also qualified for the Champions Tour Championship, on August 27th. “Minnewaska is one of my favorite lakes to fish, it’s been a few years since I’ve been there, but it fishes to my strengths of finesse fishing deep weedlines,” explained Bahr. “I’m super excited, it will be fun!”
Rounding out the top ten finishers on the St. Croix for team Northland, was Dane Vocelka, who with this 7th place finish, is now going into the Championship as the 2024 Angler of the Year leader. Dane will take off as boat number one on Minnewaska with an 11-point lead over Kyle Schutta who is in second place, and 13-point lead over Tommy Parker in third place.
Dane caught a total of 19 bass for a total weight of 44 lb 10 oz on the St. Croix and found these fish at the beginning of practice using the Elite Series Pro Sunny B and Elite Series Pro Sunny B Deep. Dane relied on the latter to dredge the personal channels that lead into docks around rock.
“These fish needed the vibration from the crankbaits, to get a reaction strike out of them,” said Dane. “I caught a few on the Marabou Jig, but only when it was calm.”
Dane fished his Elite Series Crankbaits on 10 or 12 lb fluorocarbon in the cleaner water but did up his line size when the water became dirtier and when he was fishing shallower water.
“Minnewaska is going to be a fun twist to the end of the year,” smiled Dane. “It’s known for large groups of schooling largemouth around isolated grass and edges throughout the entire lake.”
Dane looks to employ lures like the Elite Series Nedster Jig and Elite Series Pro Sunny B Deep Crankbait to locate these high percentage areas on the Glenwood, Minnesota lake. “The wind can be a huge player out there and can really stir a game plan up. This is one of those events where triple digit weights are extremely possible.”
In all, all members of the Northland Fishing Tackle Pro Team qualified for the 2024 Champions Tour Championship, which will be held on Lake Minnewaska, on Tuesday, August 27th. Competing for a brand new Skeeter Boat/Yamaha outboard package at the Championship from Team Northland includes (current point standings): Dane Vocelka (1st), Aaron Teal (10th), Noah Schultz (14th), Matt Holweg (23rd), Tyler Bahr (25th), and Joel Willert (26th).
Be sure to stay tuned to the Northland Fishing Tackle and Classic Bass social media channels on Monday, August 26th and tournament day (27th), for expanded and detailed media coverage of the event.
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