Mississippi River Minneapolis: Early Spring Walleye Bite Below the Dams

This is Artificial Lure with your Mississippi River Minneapolis report. Up here the river’s running more like late March than mid‑winter. USGS gauges show level and flow near normal, with good clarity for a big river. Being inland, there’s no real tide to worry about, but solunar tables from SolunarForecast put the best fishing windows around a minor morning bite from about 6 to 7 a.m. and a stronger midday push early afternoon. Weather out of the Twin Cities this morning is seasonably cool, mid‑30s at daybreak, climbing into the low‑50s by afternoon on a light south breeze. Cloud cover is mixed, just enough chop to help the bite. Local forecasts from National Weather Service line up with that. Sunrise is right around 6:45 a.m., sunset close to 6:05 p.m., so you’ve got expanding low‑light windows on both ends of the day. Reports from Metro-area anglers on recent Mississippi trips, especially the pools through Minneapolis and down toward Hastings, say the **walleyes and saugers** are starting to wake up below the dams. A recent Local 10 Hastings brief highlighted Pool 4 walleye as a prime early‑spring option, with steady numbers of eater‑size fish and a few bigger females sliding up. Channel **catfish** are showing some life on the softer inside bends, and there’ve been scattered catches of **smallmouth** in deeper wintering holes, mainly accidental while dragging for eyes. Expect numbers: a decent two‑angler boat working methodically is seeing 6–12 walleyes/saugers in a half‑day with a couple keepers, plus rough fish and the odd cat. Bank anglers below the Minneapolis locks and at community spots are picking off a fish or two at dawn and dusk. Best producers right now are classic cold‑water river presentations. Vertical jigging 1/8–1/4 oz jigs tipped with **fatheads or shiners** is still king. Many local sticks are switching to plastics as the water warms: ringworms and paddletails on light jigs in chartreuse, firecracker, and purple. A lot of folks are quietly boating fish on **three‑way rigs** with a floater and minnow or a short leader with a small stickbait. If you’re set on bait, grab river‑caught fatheads, shiners, or a bucket of nightcrawlers for cats. Cut sucker on a simple slip‑sinker rig is turning the bigger channel cats on the slower seams. A couple metro hot spots: - **Below Upper St. Anthony / Lower St. Anthony Falls**: Any accessible current breaks and eddies where legal to fish. Target the first deep holes and soft edges with jigs and minnows. - **Ford Dam / Lock & Dam 1 area** in south Minneapolis and down into the broader pools: current seams off the main chute, especially on inside bends and behind wing dams once you get below the city. Work the edges, not the heaviest current: upstream casts, let the jig glide down, staying just off bottom. Midday, slide a little deeper, then move shallower again for that last hour of light. That’s the bite around Minneapolis on the big river today. Thanks for tuning in, and don’t fo This content was created in partnership and with the help of Artificial Intelligence AI.