Every Boat Ramp on Mississippi River (Illinois)

About Mississippi River (Illinois)

The Mighty Mississippi forms the entire 581-mile western border of Illinois, providing an extraordinary diversity of fishing opportunities from the bluff country of Jo Daviess County to the southern confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo. The lock-and-dam system creates a series of navigable pools, each with its own character, offering tailwater fishing for walleye and sauger below the dams and backwater fishing for bass, crappie, and panfish in the floodplain lakes and sloughs.

The upper Mississippi pools near the Quad Cities and Galena are nationally recognized for smallmouth bass and walleye fishing, with rocky wing dams and current breaks holding impressive numbers of fish. Further south, the river broadens and the backwater complexes near Grafton and the Illinois River confluence create world-class habitat for largemouth bass, crappie, and monster flathead catfish. The river's catfish population is legendary, with channel catfish, flathead catfish, and blue catfish all available to anglers willing to anchor in the current.

Public boat ramps are maintained along the entire Illinois bank by the Army Corps of Engineers, state agencies, and local municipalities. River fishing requires awareness of commercial barge traffic, fluctuating water levels, and current conditions, but anglers who learn to read the river are rewarded with some of the most productive and diverse fishing in the Midwest.

Nearest towns: Grafton, Alton, Quincy, Rock Island, Galena, Cairo