- [Bret] The St. Croix River that forms the Minnesota-Wisconsin border from Hinkley to Prescott, has been federally protected since it was designated a wild and scenic river in 1968.

Much of the upper St. Croix has been free from the pollution pressures of agriculture and urban development and it's known as one of the country's cleanest rivers.

In October, we joined three guys who have spent thousands of hours fishing the Croix.

(upbeat music) - Well, I used to fish a lot of lakes and I got to admit, I just keep coming back to the river 'cause I know it and there's no houses, and I catch a lot of fish.

So I had to stick to the river.

Put in at William O'Brien, and a lovely park.

It gets busy in the springtime, but this time of year just the locals are out there and maybe a few duck hunters.

Very few people, unspoiled shoreline, you can't beat it.

Rice Lake area of the St. Croix.

- [Ryan] It's an amazing fishery and it's just, it's scenic, it's beautiful.

Fishing the river is not like fishing lakes and it's something more exciting about the river.

It's always moving.

- [Eric] Ryan who started a guide business, I met him through my buddy Kevin.

They lived near each other and Ryan details boats and likes fishing so we started fishing and got him hooked up here too.

And I've been showing him some spots and how to read the current and stuff and he's a good learner and now he has his own guide business.

- So I just started guiding as of this year, named Croix Boys Guided Adventures.

Kind of after these guys, the Croix Boys they call 'em.

(upbeat music) Eric's a hell of a guide.

He's taught me pretty much everything about this river.

I guess I introduced, ooh, I just missed one.

I introduced you to swim baits, I guess, huh?

That's about all you learned from me.

- [Eric] Yeah.

- Yep.

There we go, that's a good one.

(fishing line whirring) (Ryan straining) That's a walleye.

Little floater here you get, I'll let you get some, It's a keeper.

Are we keeping fish today?

We don't, nah.

So this is about average up here.

It's all about your eyes.

You don't need a fish finder.

Not up here.

- [Fisherman] There's a shoreline there.

- It doesn't help me any.

I'll net you sir.

Whoa, get him outta the motor.

Agh!

(fishermen laughing) - [Kevin] You see that mouth come at you?

He was trying to swim out here.

- There we go, take him out.

That is a dandy.

There you go, Kev!

(blues guitar music) - Grew up on a little river down in Rochester, but limited to fishing, of course, very limited.

I mean, the river's so small you couldn't put a boat on it.

Maybe a canoe if you were lucky if a flood came through, and then finally graduated to having a boat, and fishing bigger water and loving every minute.

My wife Eileen and I came out here on our honeymoon, back in '89 and camped with my brother on the St. Croix.

And we loved it so much, we got back to Philadelphia, made a mental note if we ever moved back to Minnesota, it's gotta be the St. Croix area.

And that's exactly what happened.

(blues guitar music) Most memorable thing on the river is probably catching a 45-pound flathead at night.

It was really fun, yeah.

(rhythmic music) And one time I saw a paddlefish come outta the water and do a back flip like a dolphin would at Sea World.

And I didn't believe I saw it, but I did see it.

My wife heard the huge splash and I'm like, "Did I just see what I just saw?"

And it was a paddle fish.

That thing must have been five, six feet long.

That really floored me when I saw that.

- I grew up fishing.

My dad was a hardcore fisherman, he was a boiler maker.

So we moved all over the state, but I call Thief River Falls, kind of my home.

So I grew up fishing Lake of the Woods and Red Lake during the crappie boom, and the Red River.

And my dad got me hooked on fishing and I've loved it ever since.

My first sturgeon I ever caught.

It was that Lake of the Woods.

We were jigging for walleyes and I snagged a sturgeon right in the fin and we chased that thing around for an hour and we had a hundred walleyes on the clicker already.

My dad wanted me just to cut it, I'm like, "You gotta be kidding me!"

I had a six-pound test line on and it was stretched man.

And we had to throw it all away, but we got it in the boat after an hour of chasing it around.

My parents are divorced.

So I would go to my mom's in the summertime and I would ride my bike three miles to the Minnesota River and I would bring tinfoil and butter and onions and a filet knife, and I would catch channel cats out of the river and I'd filet 'em up and cook him on a fire when I was 12, 13 years old.

It's just something I enjoy, just being in the outdoors and enjoying nature and especially up here without houses and things around.

And really nobody, it's nothing better, it's peaceful.

(upbeat music) I have three kids, I have a family and it's hard to fish and get out fishing very often.

So I spent 10 years buffing boats and I thought it was time, it was time to get my captain's license.

It was time to make the guiding a reality.

And after meeting Eric and Kevin and learning the river, I felt confident that I could get people on fish, so I did it.

You gotta go through your captain's school, you gotta learn the rules of the road, rules of the river, Safety, navigational buoys is a huge one, you gotta do first aid, you gotta do CPR, you gotta get your TWIC card, you gotta do a drug test, and then you send all your paperwork into the Coast Guard.

You gotta get sworn into the Coast Guard.

Not all about the electronics finding fish.

It's honestly, it's about river seams, it's about finding these sandbars.

Depth does not determine fish, right?

It's the bait that does it.

The bait will be in shallow water and follow these fish up river into the shallows, and that's why you happen to find walleyes in three feet of water.

And it's not normal like lakes where you find 'em, in that 17-feet range to 20-feet range.

- You don't know what might happen given day-to-day, and the variety of fish, I mean what's ever in the lakes is definitely here in the river, plus more, plus more.

The muskies, Northerns, catfish, sturgeon, white bass, paddlefish, sheepshead, crappies, catfish, channels, flatheads, suckers, buffalo, carp.

You could go on and on.

You got to know, get to know the currents and the the eddies and where the fish will lay.

And also know the birds help too, where the seagulls are feeding on the shad, you want a fish there if the birds are up here.

And also visually just look for fish feeding, chasing minnows along the side.

And they're usually silver bass or large- or smallmouth bass.

Today we've been catching all our fish on shad raps and some top water and minnows do very well this year.

But I think we're gonna be sticking to what we've been doing, casting shad baits.

I got a hundred minnows in here and probably use only three of them.

So, lures are working.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

(upbeat music) Every year it's the fall bite, especially the bass bite.

I love it.

'Cause you can come out here and catch 30 nice three-, four-pound fish every day.

And as long as you throw 'em back, they'll be here next time you're out.

I will keep a few walleyes to eat, but 95% of the fish go back in the drink.

- It can definitely humble you on days, but when the fishing's good, it's good.

Like today.

We got a what, two doubles, maybe a triple.

We got what, 40 fish this morning alone.

And we catch a variety.

I mean we got, so we got silvers, we got smallmouth bass, largemouth bass.

We got a few walleyes this morning and a Northern, I mean we had, it's a multi-species day, so, can't beat it.

(upbeat music)