Pool 2 ramps?

So any of the ramps closing down yet? Heard Hidden falls was about a foot from the top yesterday. Looks like the river is still going to come up a few more feet over the weekend.

Lots of debris headed that way. Checked out a couple spots on the Minnesota yesterday and massive trees are cruising down river.

I look a those trees and imagine where they will set up on. Have even thought about tieing off on a few and dragging them over to certain spots.

494 is not closed but unusable. Water is over the top of the fishing pier and climbing up the curb of the “island” that creates the turn around. Many big and little trees going past these last few days.

According to Watergate’s FB page yestreday: They’re open, but the water covers the breakwall by the gas dock at 10 ft. So it will be 3-4 ft underwater by the weekend.

This is usually a sign that the fishing is about to really get going.

http://www.mvp.usace.army.mil/Media/NewsReleases/tabid/9473/Article/15499/corps-closing-minneapolis-locks-to-all-traffic-due-to-high-flows-on-the-mississ.aspx

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I look a those trees and imagine where they will set up on. Have even thought about tieing off on a few and dragging them over to certain spots.

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.. lol sounds like an awesome idea! I’ve thought about if a guy anchored and tied down a big log pile on dry land in low water conditions, and waited for the floods to come.

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lol sounds like an awesome idea! I’ve thought about if a guy anchored and tied down a big log pile on dry land in low water conditions, and waited for the floods to come.

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I am pretty sure that is illegal.

So which ramps are open, and what are the best places to launch in the high water?

What if the log pile is on land you own?

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So which ramps are open, and what are the best places to launch in the high water?

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I would go to willies or mississippi pub. 494 and lions levey are open but both flooded. Both marinas have fantastic high water launches with no current.

494. Lions is looking about the same.

Got a kick out of this.

Thats a great pic. Thanks for the update.

That sealed the deal for me not going today. Took the wife and kids pan fishing this morning and got a limit I’d 8-8.5″ sunfish today instead. Didn’t get anything bigger, but that is ok..we got a nice meal and the 8-8.5″ are the perfect eaters…happy 4th!

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What if the log pile is on land you own?

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I guess I didn’t register the part where you said doing it during low water and waiting for the river to come up and cover it.

In that case I would “guess” it is still illegal, but lets be honest, whose going to enforce it? They would have to prove your intent was to “plant” structure.

This is all pure conjecture on my part. I don’t know the regs, if any, that pertain to this. I am kind of comparing it to say dumping logs on the ice right before ice out.

I tried dumping in there, it was to shallow to float my boat so I went to Mississippi pub. Got 3 nothing big, the water was even to high for my high water spots, I got fish trolling but i hate trolling Clarity was O.K., temps 72 degree’s 15 bucks to launch at the bar.

Is Lions Levee launchable? Anybody been down there lately?

My guess is that it is due-able. Half the turn around was under water last week when I was there. Hidden harbor right down the road was $10 last year to launch with a free drink ticket.

Lions was close on saturday. $10 at willies was no problem. We put in there before they opened up and just payed when we got back.

Fishing wasn’t too bad. Had our 1st couple of walleyes as we got out of the back channel. Think we ended up catching fish ever place we tried but one. Was able to get into some back water areas I had never been to before. Always enjoy that.

All the usually baits were working. Crank baits trolled or casted. Jigs with either leeches or crawlers were going to. Was throwing 3/8th H20 jigs to get them down to the base of the dams. Just can’t beat the metal bait keeper on those jigs for holding bait in place. Like those heavy jigs in higher current so I can pick them up and just thunk them along as they move across the spots. If you are having to guess if its on bottom or not good chance it’s too late for that jig.

Pretty standard areas. Wingdams close to shore, trolling runs along current breaks and backwater areas.

River conditions were fantastic for most of the day. Started out with high water and fairly clear. Then heading up river mid afternoon the crap started coming down river. From the lower end of spring lake all the way back to Lions the main channel was sticks, logs, everywhere. Worse I had ever seen. My guess would be it was from the log jam getting cleared downtown st paul. Sure glad it wasnt a busy holiday weekend they decided to do that. What a mess.

Get out and fish. The bite seemed pretty decent. Would imagine it should stay the same as long as the water stays up.

Glad to hear you are getting into the eyes. The river looks to be forecasted to come down in level at a consistent rate this week, hopefully Lions will open back up. Nice that the river clarity has improved a bit..

Forgot to mention we caught some zebs while fishing on Saturday to. 2 off the same wingdam. All the years fishing down there and these are the 1st I have seen.

I gave you a call yesterday Mike at the number in your signature. We ended up wasting a bunch of time because we were planning on getting bait from Clark off 77 and launch at Lyndale. Clark had no suckers. We had to drive to the Shell near 169 to get “medium” suckers.

I haven’t been paying close attention to the ramp posts. We ended up finding out the Lyndale launch is closed.

So then we were stuck on what to do so I consulted this thread. We ended up going to pool 2. I ruled out 494, since it sounded like it was unusable.

I saw your post on Mississippi Pub and Willies. I was unfamiliar with both, but was able to find the Pub on my phone, but not Willies. That’s why I called, to find out where Willies was.

Bottom line is your info helped us out yesterday. Too bad we wasted about an hour because of our poor planning. We could have hit up Ace on the way for suckers and planned on launching over there all along.

Daytime catfish bite was slow for us. Actually we got skunked hitting this water which is relatively new to us. I warned my nephew with the high water there was a good chance this was going to happen.

I did try casting cranks and a jig a couple times on spots that I thought might hold an walleye or 2, but they weren’t wing dams.

Sorry I missed your call. Dont always answer it the phone on weekends if Im not interested in work or dont recognize the number. Willies is in the same back channel as lion’s levee landing. Mississippi pub has a good landing to. I like their patio for having a cold one on after a day of fishing. Fish should be going in that back channel to. Not a bad spot for trolling during high water.

Prior owner had the name “Willies Hidden Harbor”. Looks like the new owner dropped Willies. It is now just called Hidden Harbor. Nothing will come up on a search for Willies. But Willies Hidden Harbor still pulls in google results. Many of us still call it Willies…

http://thehiddenharbor.com/

-J.

I wanted to hit the launch back channel, but its the nephews boat and I can only suggest, although we end up hitting most of my suggestions.

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Forgot to mention we caught some zebs while fishing on Saturday to. 2 off the same wingdam. All the years fishing down there and these are the 1st I have seen.

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Interesting.

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Forgot to mention we caught some zebs while fishing on Saturday to. 2 off the same wingdam. All the years fishing down there and these are the 1st I have seen.

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I’m going to be an optimist on this one. The zebs filter water and might help clean up pool 2. I know it would make the smallmouth fishing (largemouth too) a lot better if the river wasn’t a mud bowl all the time. Not sure how that would affect the walleyes though.

Isn’t it a mud bowl because of sediment and runoff? I don’t think they would clear that up?

About the only negative effect I see them having is cutting fishing lines. The dam we found them on has always been rough on cranks. Used to think there was some metal down there cutting lines the way some would snap so easy. maybe it was the Zebs.