River fishing general questions

I’m relatively new to Minnesota and I’ve only ever fished small lakes. To be honest I’m kinda intimidated to launch the boat in the river until I get a little more comfortable with it. I know the walleye are biting pretty decent on the river right now and I’m looking for a decent spot to shore fish. Not asking for anyone’s secret spot but if someone could point me in the general area it would be much appreciated. Also I’m kind of confused with pool numbers. Does pool 1 start at St. Paul and then go up the further south you go? What about by Monticello? What pool is that? Sorry this is so long. Thanks for any help!

Pool 1 isn’t really defined. It’s basically pool 2 and below after l&d #1. Everything above I just call the Mississippi. There’s no barges above St. Anthony Falls so the river is generally shallow and somewhat dangerous to navigate unless you know it well.

biggill wrote:

Pool 1 isn’t really defined. It’s basically pool 2 and below after l&d #1. Everything above I just call the Mississippi. There’s no barges above St. Anthony Falls so the river is generally shallow and somewhat dangerous to navigate unless you know it well.

From the Ford dam north to Saint Anthony falls is pool 1.

According to the DNR from saint anthony falls to the coon rapids dam is the SAF pool, or saint Anthony falls pool. Just what I have found on lakefinder as shown.

The navigation channel still runs from the falls just past the Camden bridge(big blue), and with no wing dams there is little to worry about if you stick to the channel markers on bridges(just eyeball it). Row of docks south of the Lowry bridge has some big rock piles out from them that you will hit so be careful of those.

Very underfished area of the city…

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_20211031-095402.png
   

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Lot of good info. I appreciate it!