Fish On! With Denver's Mississippi River Guide Service!
Mississippi River & St. Croix River Fishing Guide Denver McKinnon. Over 38 years of experience!
Denver has been fishing the Mississippi River system for over 38 years. With a lot of experience on the river, Denver feels that guiding is the best way to pass on the Mississippi River and St. Croix river knowledge he has gained over the years.
Whether interested in bring home fish for dinner or looking for a trophy, Denver will do his best to provide you with a happy and exciting day. You can choose the target species between Walleyes, Sauger, and Crappie. The techniques you learn with Denver will help you when you are out on your own on the Mississippi River and St. Croix River. Denver guides on the Pool 2 (St. Paul), Pool 3 (Hastings), and Pool 4 (Red Wing) of the Mississipi River. He also guides on the St. Croix from Hudson all the down to Hastings. Book a trip today with Denver's guide Service, and let your Mississippi or St. Croix River fishing adventure begin!
Check out Denver's recent Mississippi River fishing reports. He adds a report almost each time he is out, so check back often to see what the fish are up to! Also, take a look at his Mississippi River trip logs to see stories from his client trips and testimonials!
"Thanks again so much for a great day fishing. My dad and I had a great time. Good luck with the softball in Mankato and drive safe." - Matt (Red Wing trip 09/23/11)
Pool 4 walleye bite
The walleye and sauger bite over the last month or so has been pretty good. Now with that being said it seems like this fishery has been extremely busy this year since the third week of January. Is this normal a guy asked me? My response was absolutely not. In late March early April it's always busy. But the weeks leading to this time I have not in my last 20 years seen this fishery take suck a beating from boaters/anglers. IMO this has everything to do with the lack of ice conditions this year. Anglers want to fish and they will do everything possible to go, including some guys unfortunatly wrecking there boats with the low water conditions. Always be aware folks the river is a different animal.
Now to the fishing. We have been doing pretty good when we can dodge the colder temperatures outside. To say the least over the last week guys have been catching some really nice walleye. And I see most females being caught by anglers have been returned to do there thing during the spawning season. We have gotten quite a few ourselves and I do my best this time of the year to return even smaller female saugers to preserve the fishery. We have gotten fishing every way you could imagine lately from vertical minnow and jig to Dubuque rigging, miller rigging, and casting blade baits. You pick your poison and go for it.
Water depths have been all over the board on where we have caught our walleye and saugers. I've fished in 3 foot at times to 26 ft on other days. The walleye and sauger have pretty much let a fishermen know where to fish by the activity level. This can be a great time of the year to catch a fish of a lifetime. Being patient with other anglers is a must. Remember not all the folks you see on the river this time of the year are river rats so at times you can be shallow and some rolls into 2 ft of water with the motor blaring and this will spook those big fish back out to the deeper depths. IMO this big fish bite for pre spawn ears will end soon so everyone will be switching gears and techniques to go after the post spawn walleyes heading to lake pepin. The upcoming temperatures will control this very soon.
I would like to thank all the anglers that have shared the boat with me as of late. It is always a great time seeing everyone enjoy themselves catching fish and nagging on each other. Water temperature in my boat as of Friday was 44 degrees in most places I fished for my walleye. Water level as noted before is low a meat 3.5 ft as of Friday but expected to rise another foot over the next week. He clarity has been amazingly clean for the first week of April let alone all spring so far. It really changes the bite window.
Good luck out there guys and gals!!!!
