Thinking about fishing the cloquet/blackhoof this week. Couple questions for those of you who know these rivers--i've never fished either. Is most of the cloquet wadable? What does the water level look like on the blackhoof? Thanks.
Hi tkutscheid and welcome to the site!
I haven't been on the Blackhoof River since spring time and it's the only time I fish it, less brush and decent water flows then. With the drought conditions were are having, I'm sure the river is low and not really moving very good. There are some deep small pools scattered throughout the river, like outside river bends, log jams, etc. So you would probably have alot of unfishable water until you find some decent depth, so alot of wading and walking, but the fish would be stacked in these areas.
The Cloquet River is wadeable, but I wouldn't say most of it is wadeable. The river is full of debris, wood and small-large boulders, with mixed in gravel bars, edges and soft muck type shorelines as well. For the most part you would be confined to edges of the river and rock ledges ahead of pools and gravel areas just below pools. If your not familiar with the river, I would definately not go alone, or take extra caution where you are wading. You might be in 1 foot of water, then step over a small boulder and be in 3 feet water real quick, because the water clarity is not the best. As for water flows, both the Cloquet River and St. Louis Rivers are running very low this year. There are more shallow rocky rapids this year and I think the rivers have gotten a little clearer this year, especially the Cloquet River. As always plenty of fish to be caught, though the bigger ones are being pushed into more confined spots because of the low water conditions, just my observation.
Good luck out there and be safe.
Ouditee have you been on the "lower" Cloquet recently? From the website it looks like Island Lake dam is discharging only 25cfs (and has been for a while now). http://www.shorelandtraditions.com/levels.htm .....I don't know how accurate this website is but it's the only one I can find for downstream of Island Lake.
I haven't driven out to Independence recently but last time I canoed 53 to County Rd 8 it was flowing at something like 135cfs and even then it was a scrapey trip. Wading at 25cfs would not be an issue though you might end up in muck up to your chest in some spots.
John
I haven't been on the Cloquet in the past few weeks, but was at the Damn a few day ago just checking things out and it's running low coming out of the big pool behind the damn. I did take my pontoon from HWY 2 upstream to the mouth of the Cloquet River last week and it was not flowing like it should this time of the year and almost starting to look like a small trout stream. Upstream from the mouth is very shallow rapids and any boat will be bouncing off rocks and most likely portaging or at least getting out and dragging your boats over rocks. The drought conditions is very bad this year up in Northern Minnesota. I took a little scenic drive with the family up the north shore and it looks very bleak. The headwaters of the most of the major streams are just rock and rubble and alot of places you can't even see water. There is water it's just a trickle under the rocks. These are the same watersheds that feed the Cloquet River and St. Louis River, but Minnesota Power get to play god a little bit and decides what gets water (hold more in the res or let more water out in the rivers). Island Lake Reservoir is almost as low as when Minnesota Power draws water down in the fall.
I'll be up at Island Lake Reservoir and launching out the damn launch today and I'll snap a few pics behind the damn and give a report.
Welcome frugaljr to the forums! and thanks for report. Isn't it a great feeling to get a new person introduced to fly fishing and to catch a fish on top of that, good job.
