Champlin North Smallies

Although I can not give you advice on boat control because we just run a canoe, and your lucky cause I have always wanted to fish the mississippi in the area that you were describing!

We fish the Crow river a good amount. We have caught many catfish along with pike – walleye – and smallies, however they do not seem abundant. We are able to work pretty slowly upstream with just a 30 thrust trolling motor, however, the crow does get very shallow in some areas, so be careful.

If you looking for some good smallie action, i would recommend the rum river, which dumps into the mississippi in anoka, and I have seen many people with their boats out there, we usually start more north (isanti, st. francis, etc)

Thanks for the advice. If I put in at the crow, I’d probably go towards Otsego on the Miss. rather than up the crow. Is there enough water to float my boat on the Rum at St. Francis? I would like to run up the river and fish back to the landing. the boat is comparable to a Lund Pro V 1660.

Jeff, be extremely careful, there are a ton of rocks between dayton and elk river.

Anything north of the Crow with a prop boat is gonna be touch and go. It gets very shallow from there up through Monticello.