st cloud St Cloud Fishing Reports

[Neutroz]

Hey All, I've lived near St. Cloud for 6 years now and never fished the Mississippi River! Can someone point me to a popular boat ramp to use in or near St. Cloud - I see there are a few ramps to choose from and wish to target walleye so I think my best bet is to fish the river in St. Cloud? Anyways just looking for some friendly advice.

[CaptainMusky]

There is a ram North of the papermill on the East Side of the river. This is above the Sartell dam. There are 2 boat landings between sartell dam and the SCSU dam, one in Sauk Rapids at municipal park on the north side of town, the other is at wilson park. This stretch of river is very hazardous and you need a small boat to navigate. The water is super low now.

The landing north of sartell gives you access to the most water and its relatively safe up there. All of the buoys have been taken down though so the hazards are not marked.

If you go from this landing South toward the dam, you wont run into any issues. North of the landing there are some trouble spots, in fact, one is about 200 yards from this access slightly upstream, but there are large deadheads sticking out of the water on it so its easily avoidable.

[Rick G]

There are quite a few to choose from, If you have a canoe or a River Pro the two below the St. Cloud dam would be ok. There are three above the dam, Sauk Rapids, at the Municipal Park, this is pretty shallow too. There are the ones at Wilson park,it's shallow upstream but should be good down river, I got most of the deadheads cleaned out of the middle this early fall. Then there are two above Sartell as well, both are decent but like Captain Musky said all the nav. bouys have been taken out so be carefull.

[Rick G]

Back out to the chain again this afternoon. Water temp was 46-49, western lakes are starting to turn over so the water clarity is all over the board. Fishing was pretty slow today, marked plenty of fish in the 18-24ft range and in the 8-10ft range just not alot of willing biters, not even the cats wanted to play

I think I might make it out to Birch tomorrow, I hear rumors of a decent evening walleye bite starting to take shape out there.

[silverbulletguy]

Good report Rick. I've heard Birch is doing well if you know where to go and also heard a coule guys say nothing's biting there. Guess that's why it's called fishing. Good luck !

[Rick G]

Had every intention of heading to Birch yest. but lets just say that misfortune struck and I ended up fishing the river. Finaly got the boat into the water around 3pm, water temp was 45. Started fishing the holes by the water treatment center and Willson park area but could only manage a couple dinky walleyes and some super lethargic smallies. We next worked the pilings of the train bridge and the Hwy23 bridge, theese areas were holding a few more walleyes but we were loosing about a jig a min. it seemed. We ended the day throwing shad raps to the rip rap shorelines, this was a good choice as we got a few bigger walleyes and even a few more of those fat lazy bass

All in al it wasn't a total loss of a day, we did get to fish and even catch a few, but I would have liked to get out and find a couple eating size walleyes for the pan.

[UglyStick12]

Fished a local lake tonight for some northerns. Set up on a weed line in 12ft to fish suckers under a bobber. Ended up catching 12, kept 2 for some pickling. The chunky one on the top had another northern in it stomach.

[Stick in Mud]

That is a FAT northern...kind of amazing what those things will eat sometimes.

[Rick G]

Nice catch Uglystick12! Those things will eat anything

[Coleman]

Nice report once again, Coleman.

You sure that bass is "only" 15-16''??? On the ruler, it sure looks like it's pushing 20!

Hehe, yeah...I tried my best to make it look as big as possible. I mean, it is my job as an angler to do my best to make the fish appear slightly bigger then what it is.

These are not the Chain.

Speaking of the Chain, has anyone been on it this week? I've been in the south for a tournament, and I'm looking forward to giving it one last week of fishing before I put my boat away for the winter next week.

[Stick in Mud]

Nope, haven't been out there, but I've heard a few reliable reports that say the fish are biting.

[Rick G]

Cool pics Coleman, I like the action shot

Water clarity has improved a bit in the last few days. If you can find 'em they will bite.

[hardwater55319]

Was out on the chain for the first time ever on Thursday with my daughter and caught a mixture of fish. We caught a few of almost everything in the lake consisting of walleye,bass(small and largemouth),crappies and catfish and what a fight they put up. Heading back today to give it another shot to see if we can catch a few walleyes to keep considering the ones we caught were to small. All in all it wasn't a bad day considering it dizzled on us most of the time.

[Rick G]

Finaly was able to make it out to Big Birch this weekend. Water temp was in the upper 40s through out both basins. The main access in the North basin has a huge blow out hole from people power loading, watch out if you launch there, it's only a couple in deep right where the end of the dock used to be.

Fishing was fair/good for walleyes and smallies. Trouble is that most of the walleyes we got were on the smaller side. I did see quite a few people pulling out a few better size fish mixed in with the small ones but they were fishing in 30-40 ft of water, I refuse to fish this deep unless I'm keeping everyhing I'm catching. We did manage to get five that were big enough to fry up for lunch today so it wasn't a total waste, just not what I was expecting oh well thats how it goes sometimes. All our fish came from 12-18ft over rocks, lindy rigs with fatheads worked slow. Prime time was by far the best time of day for the walleyes, and the bass bit all day long on pretty much every spot we checked out.

[RAPALAMAN29]

Hey Rick, my name is Joe. I believe we met a couple weeks ago at 10th street dam. I just read your post about big birch. That is a lake that I love to fish on the fall. I caught my first wall hanger there last year. 10lb 5oz. Problem is I don't really know where to go during daylight hours. You say that you fish on rocks in 12 to 18 feet. Where exactly do you find rocks that deep? Usually I fish near hunters bay and I know of some shallow rocks that I troll after dark but haven't found deeper rocks.

[Rick G]

Welcome to HSO Rapalaman29, we likley did meet at the dam, I'm down there quite a bit Sept-Nov I too love Birch, lots of classis walleye structure to fish. You can find rocks all around Sleiders Island, Grassy Island, the Rock Tavern bar and on the two small humps just north of Sleiders. There are a few more lesser known spots in the North bay and quite a few rocky places in the South basin as well.

If you catch me down at the river again press me a little harder for info on Birch, I don't mind helping a fellow HSO member out

[RAPALAMAN29]

Cool, thanks for the info. Probably be at the dam again this weekend too. I took some time off just for fall fishing.

[Rick G]

Water temps are in the mid/upper40s on Horseshoe and Cedar Island while the river was in the low 40s. I fished Sat mid afternoon till well into the evening, hit a couple of the river sections first, didn't find what we wanted, just northerns and a few runt 'eyes. Hit the edge of the big shallow flat on Cedar with similar results as the river except throw in a crappie now and then :. Off to my favorite first ice location on Horseshoe, I figure there would be fish in this spot, but wanted to check out those other spots to make sure there was nothing there .

We started catching a mix of crappies and smalleyes right off the bat. The size did improve as prime time approched. While my buddie got his fish on a traditional jig/minnow I opted for a more (ice like)tactic, a 1/4oz Buckshot spoon tiped with a minnow head, we both got fish but I think my hook up to miss ratio was a bit better due to the trebble hook. Best depth was right around 22ft and progressivly got shallower as the evening wore on.

After dark we decided to make some passes with crankbaits along the rocky shoreline area were the walleyes usaly stack up late fall. This proved to be a bad choice ,we didn't get even one fish in almost two hours Finnished the evening throwing Huskyjerks to the same shoreline that we had trolled, but for some reason the fish seemed to like this better than trolling. Didn't get any real big girls but did manage two over 20in plenty of smaller ones on the day. I even did something I haven't done since early June, took home enough for a meal

The fish are definatly set up in the areas where we find them in early Dec. Walleyes and crappies are right where they should be and the big schools of catfish are starting to show up too, all I can say is bring on the cold weather!

[pushbutton]

Great report as usual Rick, but did I actually read you kept a fish?

[Rick G]

Great report as usual Rick, but did I actually read you kept a fish?

Yes, you read right. I only keep fish a couple times a year, they were darn good too

[Coleman]

Anyone fishing the dam in Sartell by the old paper mill? I was planning on heading down there to try it out some evening. Maybe throw some shad raps, but I'm sure it's littered with rocks, so I'm sure snags are everywhere. So, maybe throwing a bobber with a minnow and letting it drift down river is a better choice? Any advice would be great. Thanks.

[Rick G]

The shallow rocks will be holding after dark, look a little deeper durring the day. Shadraps wii become property of the river pretty quick down there Stick baits like the Husky jerk, Bomber long A or X Raps will work well at this time of year and get hung up a bit less. A float with a minnow like you mentioned is aloso a pretty safe bet. Ring worms rigged with a 1/8-1/4oz head will also get some action. Just remember that whatever presentation you choose, be sure to work it slow .

[Stick in Mud]

Rick's advice, like always, is spot on. This late in the year, you're better off working slowly whatever lure/presentation you use. The river down by Sartell is low, as it is everywhere, so you're correct to be prepared to lose lures down there, and it can get expensive. Unfortunately, the fish seem to like a lure hitting bottom, too.

Wherever you fish, try to find current instead of "dead" water. Those river fish are looking for moving water, so spots that look good because they've got slow water won't be as good as they might be in higher water when the current is moving through. Look for current, be prepared to lose a few lures, and you'll catch some. And maybe a lot. And maybe some big ones. Or maybe, like many of my trips this year, you'll catch a few rocks, maybe a dink or three, and a case of frustration.

[Rick G]

Made it out to the Chain, had to bust between 1/4-1/2in. of ice for a couple hundred yards in the river to get out to the lake Found water temps to be 36-38 in the couple spots we checked out.

Fishing was pretty fair the walleyes we caught were very shoreline oriented as were the smallies and northerns. We graphed plenty of crappies and large pods of catfish out in deeper water but the wind was way too strong to even try.

Best baits were a 1/8oz green fireball tiped with a fathead or a 1/4oz Buckshot tiped with a minnow head. It didn't realy matter what we put down, if the graph showed fish we were gettin bit

I did happen to notice that it looked like Becker was mostly if not totaly frozen over and I know that East lake had a pretty good layer on it, if it wasn't going to be in the high 40s for the next week we might have had walkable ice on a few lakes by early next week. Oh well, I still have the boat out and likley won't put it away till after Turkey day

[Brad B]

Rick,

don't be breaking that ice now with the boat. we need walkable ice out there on the chain. I need to ice some fish. haven't been out fishing since the time I caught that smallie back in October and now I am having fishing withdawl and need to hit some ice to cure the withdrawl.

[Rick G]

Went back out again today, the ice thats in the river has been busted up into tons of little ice cubes from all the boat traffic. I was kinda surprised by the amount of people who still had the boat out.

The bite was a bit tougher today but still managable. We fished minnows under slip floats for a good part of the afternoon getting a mixed bag of crappies,catfish,walleyes and a few lazy smallies. As primetime started to draw near we switched presentations over to jigs. The wind was pretty strong, just not where we were so we could get by using 1/8oz fireballs tiped with jumbo fatheads. Like I said before the bite was tougher but did improve quite a bit for the last hour or so we fished.

Best depth was 18-22 for pretty much everything, saw some huge schools of cats lurking over deep water, I think they are ready for winter

[Brad B]

now if we would only get some ice. are the cats holding in that area you showed me last year.

[Rick G]

now if we would only get some ice. are the cats holding in that area you showed me last year.

The ones I caught were in that general area, the larger pods of fish were off the flat near the meth hole.

Made it out to one of the smaller lakes for a few hours today. I had pretty decent luck pulling Lindy rigs with small sucker minnows. I haven't fished this lake in the late fall for a few years but it didn't take too long to figure the walleyes out again. We fished the first break off a small flat that seperates the two basins of this lake. There were still a few live weeds in the 14-15 ft range and this was by far the most produtive area we tried. We would pick up a fish or two almost every pass, if we got out too deep nothing bit, same with too shallow. The water temp was 39, air temp was 50 something If it weren't for the wind it would have been down right balmy out there

Might make it out one last time yet this week, if I can find a few free moments that it.

[kingfisherpat]

hows kramer lake in st joe doing how many inchs of ice what fish r biteing on

[Guest]

Just to let everyone know I would stay off the ice till we get a cold front again. Everything is honey combed and very very weak. Ice was spiderwebbing under me the whole way back and as I hit the spud bar one time on the ice it went right threw when 2 hours before it did not. It scared the heck out of me!!