Fly Fishing the St. Louis River Minnesota

Enjoy a scenic fly fishing drift boat trip down the St. Louis River catching smallies on one of the top smallmouth bass waters in the Midwest.  We offer guided fly fishing float trips down the Upper St. Louis River in 2 or 3 person pontoon drift boats and a powered boat for the Lower St. Louis River and the Duluth Superior Harbor. The Upper St. Louis River is mostly carry down access, so the fishing is light compared to other high profile smallmouth bass rivers, but has an excellent smallmouth bass population for fly fishing.  The Lower St. Louis River also contains good populations of Muskellunge and Northern Pike as well as large smallmouth bass. The St. Louis River watershed is large, covering 3,650 square miles. Because the river has minimal shallow rapids that there is nearly always enough water for canoeing and other boating. The rapids in the upper part of the river are Class I or less. In the lower part of the river, from the Floodwood to Cloquet, rapids are Class I-III.

St. Louis River Water characteristics - Stream flow usually peaks in late April and falls throughout the summer. The river's flow is affected by the regulation of reservoirs on tributaries, particularly the Whiteface and Cloquet rivers. From U.S. Highway 53 to Cloquet the river falls 136 feet, an average of 1.5 feet per mile. The river varies in width from 75 to 600 feet.

St. Louis River Landscape - Parts of the St. Louis are wild; other are dotted with farms, homes or small towns. Cloquet is the most developed area. Though bluffs and wooded hills are common in the upper reaches, the middle section of river is flanked by low-lying woods and bogs. The watershed is bordered to the north by middle Precambrian ores of the Mesabi Iron Range. Underlying the St. Louis itself are mid-Precambrian argillite and graywacke. In its middle reaches the St. Louis flows across silts and clays that once formed the nearly level bed of glacial Lake Upham.

St. Louis Fish and wildlife - Walleye and northern pike are the principle game fish, though smallmouth bass are common from the mouth of the Whiteface River to Cloquet, and channel catfish from Floodwood to Brookston. Timber wolves, bobcats, lynx, beavers, otters, bald eagles and osprey are occasionally sighted. Big game includes moose, black bears and white-tailed deer.