And the River Rises

Just a word of caution,
River is going to be heading toward flood stage,
Not sure if it will hit that in the lower metro, but they are expecting a crest at flood stage in Jordan next weds. There is a lot of debris in it right now.
Temp is going up. Should be able to start fishing pretty soon.

Link showing the rise.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/mn/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&cb_00011=on&format=gif_default&period=7&site_no=05330920

Here is another interesting link:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=mpx

-J.

Please use caution out on the water whether or not you are in flooding waters. The water is frigid and you will not survive for long should you go in the drink. Wear your life vests especially with the winter conditions. Go slow as there are all kinds of ice flows and debris coming down river. Keep an eye on ice flows jamming up and keeping you from getting back to the boat ramp.

Here at Dubuque the river is supposed to crest in the next 3 or so days at just over 9 feet. Our flood stage is 16 ft. I know there is still lots of snow to melt up north but the colder weather seems to have slowed the melt off. We’ll certainly get higher water whenever you people up north get a bigger melt off. We lost almost all of the snow and ice we had on the ground here in Dubuque over the last week. Kind of nice to see grass again. Trouble is I know I’ll be having to mow it before too long.

Eyehunter

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Here is another interesting link:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/index.php?wfo=mpx

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That’s a great site! Very informative. Thanks Jon.
I always used the USGS site, but will go to this one instead:
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=mpx&gage=jdnm5&view=1,1,1,1,1,1

Looks like a crest of about 24ft next week. Hopefully not for long

They all are great sites I have those ones in my directory and use them through out the open water season. Each one has its purpose.
Thanks for posting the links Jon and Dtro.
EyeHunter, great safety reminder on the life vests. Your not kidding about cold water and how quick it can overcome someone.

Here at the confluence ice chunks and some trees, sticks, and logs in a pretty steady flow from below Lilydale landing up to the confluence. Pretty Much all of it seems to be on the MN side. The Miss side looks pretty clear of debris.

dd

To be honest eyehunter, I don’t think you will have to worry all that much about more meltoff coming your way. Not exactly sure how much more snow is north of here, but we had 30+” and it is about %75 gone now. the only places you will find snow is in shady areas or the north side of the bluffs, and shopping center parking lot piles really. There isn’t much melting left to go, so I doubt you will see much more of a dramatic increase down there. maybe I’m wrong though.

Here, the river is quite dirty. Yeah, its high, but I’ve seen it worse. The channel is WIDE open, but a lot of garbage and ice coming down stream. The backwaters are ice but only 1 place of the 4 we checked today was safe enough to be on for fishing. We busted a lot of ice on pool 8 to get the backwaters flowing. It was a fun couple hours out messing around. I caught a couple small crappies in the place we did ice fish but nothing exciting..We flipped jigs in the flooded bushes/timber for bass..obviously we knew we weren’t going to catch anything but it was fun pretending It seems like some of the trout streams are finally settling down now. The bigger tributaries however, like the LAX river, Root River, and even pammel creek, are all well over there banks. I haven’t seen the Root River but I hear its pretty high as well. All of the marsh in LAX from the LAX river looks like a lake. Its really high. I say bring on this high, fast water.It is really doing a number on getting rid of that ice so we can get out and use our boats safely!

Good safety tip, eyehunter. And thanks for the info.

well the river in Jordan is officially over flood stage
Be a while before any main channel fishing is done.
I know a few spots to hit while it’s this high though

TTT

she is still going up… Slowing down a bit.
check out the first post for the link on gauge height on the lower section of the MN.

Good. Maybe it will push those stubbern flatheads out of their wintering holes!

I just checked out Black Dog, as the weather service said it was near flood stage. Wow, it is really up. I have never been down there during the spring run off, but it sure looked different than when I fished there last summer. The water is flowing into Black Dog lake from the river at the 35W spillway. There are still sheets of ice coming down, I assume remnants of the flooding from ice jams out west.

The river is basically one consistent current from shore to shore. It got me to thinking a guy might have some luck against a cut-bank, a few feet out, if he could find a calm area protected from the current. I should say, relatively calm. I sure wish the water was 50+ degrees, if you catch my drift.

Here’s the river side of the spillway. That guy had about a 10# carp onshore.

Here you can kind of see the current flowing from the river into the canal between the river and the lake.

If I only had a front-loader!



It’s hard from the picture to gauge how big these trees were. It had to be about 4′ in circumference, if not more. There’s a perfect little hollow on the right one for a flat to take a nap in and a great school district to raise some fry in.

I have a few other pictures, but those will remain in my private stash.

Wow, Blackdog looks fishable!

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I just checked out Black Dog, as the weather service said it was near flood stage. Wow, it is really up. I have never been down there during the spring run off, but it sure looked different than when I fished there last summer. The water is flowing into Black Dog lake from the river at the 35W spillway.

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Pug she is up pretty good.
Not as high as last year. I went down there with my wife when they closed the road down. The water was about 6 inches from the top of the metal wall, and it was ripping good.

How long could one expect this level to be retained, Larry? Have you fished down there with any luck with the water this high? I kind of swore off back dog after last fall, but I did find a spot that I wouldn’t mind trying with this high water. I would think that if you could find the channel cats, they’d be schooled up thick and maybe even hungry from fighting the current.

UPDATE: According the the NWS the river peaked and is now coming down.

You got the right idea pug if your getting out of the main channel to go for Kitties. I did really well last year big catching big channels on live suckers. They are going to get hungrier as it continues to warm. Still need another week or 2.
The river will hold for a couple days and start to drop gradually probably about a foot every 2-3 days. If we get the rain that they are predicting this tues and weds. It will most likely keep it rising.
I wish I could get out. Doing some major boat remodeling. Just got everything prepped. Time to cut marine plywood tonight and replace the entire deck in the next day or two then its carpeting and hopefully get her out for the 07 maiden voyage late this week or early next week.