From the 42nd Ave N/ North mississippi park access going north, is there any safe way to make it to the 694 island? Friday night got about 1/2 way from access to 694 and ran into about a foot of water or less and a huge rock field. Was fortunate to have gotten the motor up in time.

Yup - it's still sketchy at best though. So you launch by the Camden bridge and head up stream. That shallow boulder field is dead a head and there's a small island just past the power plant island on the right. Take that channel on the right and go past the island. Here's where is get's tricky. Slow down and stick to the right at first then slowly make your way angling to the white house on the hill towards the left. Watch your finder and it will begin to drop. You'll be some what safe there going up, but there are rock piles all along the channel kinda on the right side of the channel. So be carefull - I've done this route 50 times, but water level is an obvious key. Even with this knowledge I've still hit.

Lot's a small bass, some ok cats, and eyes. Keep your truck locked and no valuables left inside. My buddies truck was broken into there.

Good luck and I hope this helps. That boulder field is nasty, but some better bass will be hanging in there. Better like 14 and 15"ers. Also the drop off in front of the boulder field is a good place too. Same with all the rock piles. There's a rock pile just past the 694 bridge. There's some good shore to fish on the west side with some culverts and boulders between 694 bridge and boulder field.

Ya, that was rough, our plan was to motor up to the island, beach there awhile, throw out lines and have some bottle bass then float back down, but we hit that boulder field and just said forget it. So hit that channel, angle east towards the white house, then stay to the left or east side of the river to make it to the island?

Yup once past that boulder field stay to the middle left on the main river channel. Watch for the current breaks in the middle of the river. Those are the rock piles, be sure to fish those rock piles. Especially the front face of them. There's a series of them to like 5 or 6. No idea why they are there. Old bridge or maybe millwork.

In that channel on the right next to the island its deep enough to be on plane. It's when you start to enter the main river is where it's shallow again. But you saved 75 or so yards of boulder dodging. You will still need to dodge say 50 yards or so of shallow stretch while working your way to the main river channel angling to the white house on the hill. I wonder if that house is still there?

What kinda boat do you have? I have a 14' jon with 25H. So it's not too bad. I still have to trim the motor.

I have an old 16ft lund mr. pike circa 1981 with a 50HP on it. I have fished north of the 610 bridge before in it and have gone down river from the 42nd N access, but never north of 42nd, or launched off E River Rd/694 so that was a first for me. Once we hit north of the 42nd access I just took it real slow and had the motor trimmed up to be safe. We were going straight up the main channel past that island you mentioned and hit that boulder field fortunate that it was a full moon so could see the current breaks around there, ended up just shutting down the motor and drifting slowly back down, didn't catch a thing though. Can't say that I looked for any landmarks so I can't answer it the white house is there or not.

I saw some pics that the Pool 2 dam has NO water flowing over it. Wondering if you have tried to make it back there. My boat can go pretty shallow putzin' upstream, but you should still be able to make it up. May need to get out and push though, and if that's the case it's really not worth all the hassle. Just lil bass for the most part.

Might make another go of it tomorrow night and will have to let you know

Good luck. Forecast calls for rain tomorrow. Hopefully we get soaked. I'm sick of low river levels.

I'm anixous to hear if my path will get you through. The water could be just too low right now.

I checked the flow and @ Anoka it was 2200 CFPS. Should be over twice that. UGH

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt

ya, I know about the forecast, though I checked this morning and heard rain this afternoon, looking out the window to partly cloudy right now. If not tomorrow, then saturday

I don't understand why they say "Near Anoka", when I check the GPS coordinates it puts the guage near the 610 bridge. or I'm screwing up somehow.

I know - that's Brooklyn Park or would it be Fridley - well that's close to Anoka - er I guess.

Well since the storm of the century was supposed to hit, oh right about now, I grabbed extra hours, now I look outside and just shake my head, at least here in S mpls, some puffy clouds and clearing to the west, should have stayed with my instincts.