Dam Area

Anything going on in the dam area in Red Wing?

Just a lot of bumper boats, way to many people with a give a crap if I put my boat 1 ft from your 80,000 boat. I watch a guy about ram another fancy big money boat get t boned, owner of big boat stop it from hitting his boat! Wtf this is really how people are getting to be! It’s like putting 3 boats in a 24×24 garage!

Saturday was…ummm busy. Many folks were anchored along the sides casting minnow, hook and split shot. A few trollers and a good number of vertical jiggers.

Sunday thinned out nicely. Good enough for one guy to troll from side to side…LOL! Nothing wrong with that but funny to see when everyone else is trolling up and down the river.

I spoke to a fella at the Hager City (backchannel) launch and his 3 man boat limited out in two hours. A good mix of size and mostly walleyes.

Stay to the WI side an go slow with your motor trimmed up over the closing dam by the upstream no wake markers. It will bite you if you don’t!

Maybe with this weekends MN deer season opener, the river will thin out. The funny thing is a person doesn’t have to pile into the dam area to catch fish. Plenty of fish below there including the Y. 🤭🤭🤭🤭😎

Brian, I found out the hard way last fall. Was on my way to the landing and got too close to the marker on the right. Wrecked my stainless prop and bent the shaft. OUCH!!!!!!! Expensive lesson to say the least.

Thanks everyone for your replies. I stay away from that area on the weekends.

nord wrote:

Brian, I found out the hard way last fall. Was on my way to the landing and got too close to the marker on the right. Wrecked my stainless prop and bent the shaft. OUCH!!!!!!! Expensive lesson to say the least.

For next time check with your insurance…they should cover that type of damage.

Was out today. Only found saugers and we had to work for them. Still good to be out. Water temps are in the mix to low 50’s

you would have to point a gun to my head to try that clown show on a saturday or even sunday, thats why i go during the week when i can. went today and had maybe a dozen boats to deal with. absolutely spanked them today. going back for seconds tomorrow and hope my arm can make it one more day! have fun at work guys!

Some guy pulled in a BIG sturgeon today. Said he didn’t want to lose his jiggin rap haha. My brother and I managed 4 saugers and 1 walleye.

I did Matt, they covered it but I still had to pay the deductible. That was a whole lot better than the total bill.

nord wrote:

I did Matt, they covered it but I still had to pay the deductible. That was a whole lot better than the total bill.

That’s good. I hit a submerged log on the river a few years ago. Almost paid out of pocket til someone mentioned the insurance thing to me.

With the temps on the rise for this weekend, the dam area won’t be for the faint of heart.

The current is so low (12600 cfs today) that it would be a good time to explore the river from the Y South to the Lake. There are fish moving up all the time. MN side in Red Wing, Head of the Lake, Hay Creek area… just to name a few with 100’s of unnamed locations left.

I hope to anchor up just downstream of the scour hole with the Ella J and take a looky see if there are any sturgeon left up there.