St. Croix River Trip
This year for our annual Campanoe river trip we chose to take on the St. Croix river which forms the natural line between northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Andy is working this summer a few miles from the river at Polaris as an engineering intern so he was the first to see it's potential for our trip. We decided to make the group this time smaller than previous years because we wanted to have a closer group and we also didn't want to have to deal with extra canoes. We managed to comfortably fit this years five guys in the campanoe for four days. The group left to right: Andy, David, Joe, Steve, ( Luke met us a day into the trip as he is horribly whipped by his near wife and was unable to escape.)
We started the four hour drive from Madison on Sunday and as usual we got on the road late. We didn't reach Andy's place in the town of Oceola until after dark so we decided to get to bed early and get an early start in the morning. We decided to put in at Norway Point landing about an hour north. We stopped at a small bait and tackle shop right before the landing and suddenly I was reminded of the movie deliverance. The place was like an abandoned house that this woman had taken over and began selling the items left in the cupboards. We bought some worms and sped out of that place before we started heard dueling banjos.
The first real adventure of the trip came after picking up luke on the hwy 70 bridge. David never ceased to amaze us with his ability to get fishing lures stuck on the very tops of nearly every tree that dared to lean over the river. This particular tree Andy decided was easily climbable and after come considerable coaxing he decided he also decided it could hold his weight. Because of David's remarkable ability to get his bait at the worst possible place, Andy was to go all the way to the top of this tree. The first crack that the poor tree made left little time for Andy to do anything but hold on and try not to let it drown him. It was quite a sight. I did manage to capture this incident on video and for a good laugh, you can download it HERE.
We decided on this trip that we would try to paddle as much as possible and not rely on the motor as much as previous years. Having a smaller crew was a great way to allow this because we never had to worry about towing the canoes behind. The wind during this trip proved to be quite an adversary. One day It seemed it took four people paddling full out just to travel at the same speed as the water. When we finally turned to the motor we realized we would put our arms to the test. It seemed in our haste to get moving we brought a gas tank that had been filled with drain oil! In order to get the end of our journey we would need to either paddle hard all day or get new gas. Pulled up at the next landing by the sunrise river. We managed to haggle the bus driver for a tubing outfitter to give us a ride to and back from towns as she hauled teenage tubers back and forth.
Because the river was very high the fishing was somewhat unremarkable aside from andy falling in the river. Joe did manage to snag a few keepers like this small mouth and another nice walleye. We cooked them along with our huge feasts that the Campanoe allows us to bring.
Probably the neatest spot on the river that we came across was called sand cliffs. It was hidden from the river behind a large island close to shore. On top of the cliffs was a nice camping area where we found a young couple enjoying the sunset they advised us not to jump off the cliffs because at regular water levels the channel that led us there was bare rock. So I guess it was a trade off that the high water took from us good fishing but gave us a chance to see this remarkable place.
This is the last night of the trip. We had gone 15 miles this day and passed up several decent camp sites but finally found one that was just right for wind to hold off the bugs, a breaker island to stop waves from rocking the boat and an excellent view of the river ahead. After dark we could feel a massive storm brewing in the distance. Suddenly the wind stopped then began in the opposite direction. Then the rain came down as hard as we had ever seen it. and we retreated to the campanoe to play cards by lantern light.