Hi Guy’s
I would like to know how to find a wing dam. I was fishing today at the mouth of the St Croix and the Mississppi for the first time. On the Mississippi, do the navagation markers (Red or Green Bouys) also mark a wing dam.
Thanks
Jeff C.
P.S I tried a bottom bouncer with a spinner and crawler, also pulled a few raps. (NO FISH) It was just a great time being on the water.
there a lots of ways to “find” a wing dam… the worst is with your boat or motor….. the best is using a combinatin of a mississipi navigation map and your eyes…. there is a series of wing dams just down from where you were fishing today…..
if the wind is blowing upriver it seems to be the easiest way to SEE them…. the waves coming up river and the increased current flowing over the top of the wing dam make a turbulence that is easy to see….. never rely on channel markers to mark wingdams…. on some occassions they are NEAR wing dams… but their purpose it NOT for marking wing dams, only to mark the navigable channel….. once you learn how to spot wing dams its pretty easy to spot them as you run up stream in your boat (another tip is look at your wake as you go upriver.. it will also reveal the location of wing dams)…
the next step is to learn how to fish them…….
Depending on depth, the current brake may be several yards below the rocks. Don’t guess. You could be wrong.
Hay thanks RiverEyes and pbitschura, I’ll really study up on this Wing Dam 101, and get ready to catch some fish.
Jeff C.
If you go to the FTR article library there is an article entitled “Wingdam 101”
Hope that helps.
most of the time if your running down stream with the black marker on your left & your some what near the bank, you’ll find them… it’s easy! {John} 
hi Jcam, thought I’d throw in a comment on red and green bouys, they do not necessarily mark wingdams they only mark the navigation channel like RiverEyes said. When running up and down river there you HAVE to be on the correct side of the bouys or you will find the wingdams with your lower unit. the general rule is RED on the RIGHT RETURNING. Returning means going up river to the source of the water. Most shorelines on the pools are only marked with one color. going down river red would be on the left. If there is only green bouys they would have to be on the left going up river and on the right going down river. One afternoon trolling below Prescott I had just caught an 18 Sauger off the end of a wingdam, and a couple was waving at me. they were anchored near a wingdam, they had sheared off their prop on the big boat. Fish was over and I had to tow them all the way up to Prescott. He had never heard of RED,RIGHT< RETURNING rule. he had made it all the way up from Alma, I'm not sure how. later. Jack.
Is there a decent map that shows the locations? Ideally with GPS coordinates.
The Army Corp of Engineers navigational charts mark most wingdams on the river. But not all. Wingdams are built, re-built and frequently silted under by flooding so the river itself and the precise location, size and state of repair of all wingdams is to a small degree constantly in flux. No map to my knowledge marks any wingdam with GPS coordinates and given the quantity of wingdams in place on some stretches of the river, any attempt to do so on any large scale would be a logistics nightmare. On some pools, there are hundreds of these structures.
The danger of hitting a wingdam is highly over-rated. Stay between the bouys. Never run above an idle speed parallel to any shoreline in less than 15′ of water in ANY area you’re not familiar with. Much like fishing a lake where you’d be looking out for rock reefs. After a reasonable amount of time on the river, you’ll be so adept at spotting wingdams by the ripples they make on the surface of the river that you’ll be able to spot their precise location, size and within some reasonable degree of accuracy, the fish holding capabilities of a wingdam at the current state of water volume/flow.
The Corp of Engineers Naivigational Charts are a very worth-while purchase in my opinion. They won’t show all the wingdams and navigational hazards, but they do a pretty darn good job.
Hey James,
I’ll bet the guy that hit the wingie up by the “Y” on the dam side on Friday wishes he had gotten one of those maps. I think you were there when that happened. He drove away so he didn’t cripple it completely.
Hey Joe!
Which one?! I saw two guys do it. Are you talking about the little red tin boat with the merc motor or are you talking about the 1775 Lund Pro V with the guide service lettering on it? They both just CREAMED that last wingdam. I sure hope that guide guy wasn’t on a guide trip…lol Either way, both had their little run in out of complete carelessness… not to mention their disregard for all the boats drifting in the area that they ran past on full plane. It may sound a bit harsh but I get just a little grin on my face when some joker slaloms through the boats up there at a speed WAY above what is reasonable, respectful.. or even safe… and then they are forced to slow down by a very large rock!
It didn’t look like any major damage was done to either boat and certainly nobody was hurt… thankfully.
Just FYI you can also find the corps of engineer nav charts like James mentioned online here
UMRNavCharts
It was the little red boat with the small motor on it. I saw them coming down the shore line, and I knew they were going to hit it, but what can you do. The poor little thing almost jumped out of the water. I didn’t see the Pro V hit it, what an embarrassing thing to happen when guiding a client. The stupidest thing I ever did when with clients is to forget the bait……… 
Good thing we caught fish on cranks, and plastics……..they ended up happy, and I even got a tip…. 
for those curious about what a wing dam “looks like” here are a couple of pix I took yesterday at redwing….
the one attached here is take straight off the tip of the dam.. you can easily see the slick of water that shows where the dam is……. and the riffle in the water behind it….
in this shot left is downstream and right is upstream…..
and here is a pic from below the dam.. you can still see the slick and riffle.. its just a different look…..
in fact in this pic if you are observant you can see TWO wing dams… and there are actually 3 of them between me and the red wing dam…… (this is on the Mn side of the channel)
the boats you see are fishing ABOVE the FIRST wingdam below the dam on the Mn side
Rivereyes, Those are great pics. Very helpful. I’m curious, I do not see a marker in either pic. Was there one nearby and you just did not include it in the pic?
One more question, can you still spot them on a windy day?
if and when there are markers by a wing dam its purely accidental….. there were NO markers by this one… AND this one is shallow enough to mess you up good if you cross it……..
also.. often times the more wind the better for spotting the dams.. it increases the turbulence in the water surface and seems to make the dam more visible…. the BEST is when the wind is blowing UP river……
The only markers that I know of are for the closing dam on the wisconsin back channel..they used to mark the opening with laundry detergent jugs….. Haven;t seen that done in a while thought….
Super Fluke posted one of the best links I’m aware of for river mapping. The maps show all of the wing dams on the Mississippi. Also shown are all of the public access ramps, and private marinas. Evert’s is even listed!!
I just finished printing out all of the maps from St. Paul to Red Wing. I enlarge the map area to 300% and print them off. I get roughly 2 miles of river on a 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper. The maps are color and look great. (Thanks to DeeZee for the idea)
To view the Red Wing area, click on “Map Index #1” and then choose map number 15. For pool 2, choose map number 10.
This site has spot in my favorites folder.
J.
PCT,
The reason you don’t see a buoy in RiverEyes pictures are because these wingdams are not in the navigation channel. The Army Corp of Engineers doesn’t bother to mark hazards that aren’t in the main navigation channel. The navigation channel (i.e. the locks in this particular case) is on the opposite side of the island. L&D #3 is kind of odd in that there is an island that separates the locks from the gates.
I’d have to disagree with Rivereyes about his comment that if a buoy is by a wingdam that it’s by accident. I’d guess well over half the buoys in most of the upper pools are placed right at the tip of a wingdam. Why… because the wingdams create the navigation channel and and that’s what the buoys mark. If there is a long series of wingdams the Corp will usually at least place one at the first and last wingdam but not every wingdam in between. Or if there is a series of wingdams on an outside bend they’ll often place a buoy on each one. They want to keep the barges from hitting the wingdams and creating some huge ecological nightmare.
The wingdams are most easily seen when there is a light upwind breeze. The ripple line is really pronounced in this case. A 30 mph downstream wind will destroy the ripple line making them very hard to see. Any slight breeze in any direction is better than flat clam however.
Closing dams generally are not marked because they’re not in the navigation channel. Closing dams are like wingdams but they generally extend the entire length of side channels to keep the water in the main channel. Watch out for these!
Did you ever notice how the red buoys have a pointed top but the green ones have a square top? I’m almost certain the fins on top of the buoys are placed there so they give a good radar echo. A simple round barrel doesn’t give a good echo. Does anyone know if the red and green buoys give different echo signals?
This is getting a lot longer than I intended but one more thing…. I set the shallow alarm on my depth finder so it beeps is I get too shallow when fishing the wingdams. Helps save nicks in the prop.
Boone
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