Day Trip Fishing by Canoe between St. Cloud and Monticello

[bbrad24]

Hi,

Me and a buddy are talking about doing a day trip for some canoe fishing between st cloud and monticello on the Mississippi this summer. Can anyone tell me about how long it might take us to get from St Cloud to Monticello, or St Cloud to Clearwater? I really have no idea, since i've mostly only fished lakes before.

Thanks for the help,

Brad

[pushbutton]

Here is a previous informative and fun discussion on the topic. Brad B's post gives a good run down on what your looking at..... St Cloud to ??

[Brad B]

I got the info on the miles from the DNR's Montrose Area office website. go to their site and it will have other information on the river including test netting reports and depth maps. the thing about the depth maps is they are based on a flow rate of 5000 cubic feet per second. as the water rises the flow will be greater and the depths would get deeper but the opposite is true when the flow gets below 5000 cfs. water won't be as deep then. currently the river is up and flowing on the fast side in monticello.

here is the link to the DNR's Montrose Fisheries Office :

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/areas/fisheries/montrose/index.html

click on the river access section.

[tsande00]

It would take all day to get from St. Cloud to Monticello. If my memory serves correctly it's roughly 25 miles. They say to figure an average of 3 mph so if you want to get any fishing done I'd either plan for an overnight trip or plan on getting off the river in Clearwater or Becker.

DNR information including a detailed river map can be found here:

MN DNR State Water Trails (Mississippi)

[tjoutdoors]

Finally made this trip on Friday. River seemed to be fairly low but still flowing pretty fast. 5 of us in 2 canoes spent 8 hours floating and paddling looking for calm water and fish. We ended the day landing 3 walleyes, 3 crappies, 3 pike, 1 largemouth and about 30 smallmouth. Nothing too big on any fronts though one walleye was 19 inches, all 3 crappies were 12 inchers and a couple smallmouth probably went a couple pounds. Had some newbies in the group so many fish were lost on the way in or missed bites. No particular bait seemed to do much better than others. 3 inch mister twisters on a jig, sencos, even shallow running shad raps while paddling caught fish. It was a great day to be on the water, that is for sure!

[Stick in Mud]

Good to hear you got some fish....that's a great stretch!