Navigating the St. Louis River

I just got back from a trip to Duluth to visit my parents. I managed to get out on the St. Louis River a couple of times. We put in at Boy-Scout Landing and I headed towards St. Louis Bay but I ran into very shallow water. Is it normally like this or is there a way to navigate all the way too the Lake from that access?

You can run the top of the river to the bottom and stay in water deeper than 10 feet. Ships used to run up high on the river so there is a channel that averages 20 feet that goes up past spirit lake.

My guess is you ran thru spirit lake which is HAIRY!!! If u look on a map, theres a dredged channel that goes around the side of the lake.

How was fishing??

I had a map just couldn’t figure it out I guess. I have a Navionics chip and I thought I was following the channel. I will look at it again and try to figure out where I went wrong. As far as the fishing we fished North of the Landing kind of where everyone else was fishing. Caught 2 walleyes Monday after the all day rain Sunday. We went again on Thursday after trying some other local lakes Tuesday and Wednesday and we caught 7 walleyes and 2 Northerns. The biggest walleye was 25 inches. The others were over all over 17 inches. I am not sure if that is good or not I spent a lot of time driving around looking for spots to fish and didn’t see a whole lot that I liked. I wasn’t sure what to expect it was the first time I have ever fished it. The entire river looked like a side channel of the Mississippi.

Zach how old is Navionics chip? Go to the Navionics Web App and compare them http://www.navionics.com/en/webapp

Here is a screen shot of the most current

Hey folks, you all seem experienced in fishing this body of water and I’m looking for some tips. I’m in Duluth quite often (actually right now) for family and I’ve fished the reservoirs quite a bit and haven’t been too thrilled with my walleye success. Just wondering if you could give me some intro info like where to launch, what areas to stay away from, where to start looking for fish. I have a old 16ft lund explorer (like the rebels, not the newer bigger explorers) and a 40hp motor so I think my boat can handle it, right? Thanks for any info.

Your boat is plenty big for the River. I’d launch at Rices Landing(under the high bridge) and troll the main channel break around park point, crawlers or cranks.