Mississippi – Little falls/camp Ripley

[dtaijo174]

I have a family function in little falls this weekend and was thinking about hitting the river in the mornings before everyone wakes up, but as I have never fished the Mississippi, my concern is that my boat is too big. I have a Ranger 690. 18′ fiberglass deep V
Is it safe boating? How deep is the river? Is there a recommended landing?

My targeted species would be musky, should I travel up to Fort Ripley or should I stick with the little falls area?

If anyone has any tips and tricks, I’m all ears!

[Jay_07]

Stay above blanchard and you should be fine.

TUFF TEAM

[IronDioPriest]

Jay_07 wrote:
Stay above blanchard and you should be fine.

Yup. From Blanchard Dam Northward you’ve got a lot of good fishable water. In fact, that stretch is also called “Zebulon Pike Lake”. My 20′ glass boat does just fine. I’ve gone far enough North (few miles) to run into some questionably shallow water. It seemed navigable, but hazardous to a newby, so I turned back. But up to that point, it’s wide and deep, and you’ll be just fine if you follow normal river boating wisdom.

I’ve never been in the waters above the Little Falls dam. Defer to someone else’s wisdom for that.

[shefland]

my experience ft ripley and north, Jon Boat country only

[pclark]

Just south of the dam in Little Falls can be tricky to navigate. North of the dam is a lake and you can go quite a ways North before it necks down. Just south of the Camp Ripley entrance on the West side is a ramp that would put you on the furthest North stretch that you would want your boat on. Of course everything depends on the river level and dam flow.

I am not a musky hunter and it has been quite a few years since I have been on this stretch, but as you leave LF on the West side heading south there is a ramp where you launch in a creek and go under a bridge. There were a number of off limits musky spawning grounds or something like that posted around a series of islands. I saw musky in the adjacent backwaters while shooting carp. Maybe the area DNR office can fill in the gaps in my memory.

There are a number of good musky lakes within an hour of LF too.

[dtaijo174]

Thanks for all the replies. Unfortunately, I’m not going to bother now as the family weekend was just chopped from Fri-Sun to just Saturday. I’m not going to complain. Less time with the in-laws!

[JJ]

dtaijo174 wrote:
Less time with the in-laws!

FTW

Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus

[pclark]

Oh great… I got tricked into giving out my best spot on the river that I haven’t been to in years and can’t recall any details about, regarding a species that I know nothing about. That’s why you shouldn’t talk specifics on the Internet.

Well if you ever get back up let me know.

[Author]

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