St. Croix River at Stillwater

I'm thinking of taking my boat to the St. Croix River this weekend. Anything I need to know about the river? Does it get low this time of year? The only time I have been on the river was back in April and there were like 0 boats. I saw 3 moving boats from Stillwater to Afton...the rest were moored at the various islands.

It's a 17.5 bowrider...one of the cruisers gave me a rattling experience with their wake but I think I was trying to overtake the wake too close to the boat creating it.

Re: St. Croix River at Stillwater

The St. Croix in April vs. August are 2 totally different scenarios. Personally I wouldn't take my boat anywhere near there, it has become a drunken boaters hotspot, combine that with the amount of yuppies that bought a new boat so they could show off to their buddies (even though they have no experience in a boat). It had all the ingredients for a boaters nightmare.

Re: St. Croix River at Stillwater

Sorry this is late, Kory, but the St. Croix is in great shape.

All the rain has kept the water levels up this year so it's been good boating, but as always on the rivers you have to watch out for floating debris. It can happen anywhere, but be especially aware when levels are high and keep a sharp watch.

The biggest problem at Stillwater is getting on the river. The public accesses are woefully short of parking and the local yolkels have managed to have all roads leading to the accesses sealed off as no parking zones to keep the unwashed masses from using "their" river. It's very difficult to launch on weekends because of this parking problem that has been allowed to block the people from using the public ramp that we've paid for.

An 18 BR is fine for the Croix. Yes, there are large cruiser wakes, but they shouldn't present any problems for a boat your size if you use the standard techniques and slow down a little.

As SM says, there can be a lot of Weekend Warrior traffic on the Croix, but it's nothing compared to that giant satellite toilet they call Minnetonka. I'm not sure if drunken boaters are any more of a problem on the Croix than anywhere else, more boaters tends to = more drunks IMO.

If you want some river runs with less traffic, PM me and I'll give you a few suggestions.

Grouse