The dam at Lockport
Twenty-eight kilometres north of Winnipeg, the St. Andrews Lock and Dam crosses the Red at Lockport. It was finished in 1910 to drown the St. Andrews Rapids and open the river to Lake Winnipeg for boats, and it is an odd structure: 270 metres long, the only Camere curtain dam built in North America, with movable curtains rolled up before freeze-up so ice and spring floods pass through, and the only canal lock on the Canadian prairies. The Red River Floodway rejoins the river just below it, and Lockport Provincial Park sits on the east bank.
Fish stack below the dam, and so do the people who chase them. Travel Manitoba sums up the calendar in one line: in summer it is catfish, in winter it is walleye. Downstream, Selkirk calls itself the Channel Catfish Capital of the World and greets drivers with Chuck the Channel Cat, a giant roadside catfish.
Summer cats and the pelican closure
Much of the catfish fishing is done from boats below the dam, and the river's pelicans work the same water. Travel Manitoba's writers describe boats clustered off the locks with the pelicans, and anglers pulling up catfish big enough to make your jaw drop. Local guides such as Catdaddy Fishing Guide Service run trips for channel catfish and greenback walleye on the Red, the south basin of Lake Winnipeg and Traverse Bay, with full wheelchair access.
The dam face itself is off limits for most of the season. The 2026 Anglers' Guide sets a Special Conservation Area for pelicans at the St. Andrews Lock and Dam, closed to all fishing and to having fishing gear from April 1 to November 15, bounded by the chain-link fences on shore, the dam face and the first freestanding bridge pier. From the Lockport Dam to 1 km downstream, you may dip net or seine only for bait fish, not suckers, and bow fishing is banned. Manitoba's general limits allow four channel catfish with none over 60 cm, so the big fish go back; a catfish of 89 cm (35 inches) qualifies for a Master Angler award.
Walleye before and after the spring closure
The spring walleye fishing on the Red happens around a closure, not through it. In the Southern Division, walleye and sauger season is closed from April 6 to May 8 in 2026 and reopens May 9. On the Red below the Lockport Dam, including its tributaries up to Highways 9 and 59, the closure is to all fishing, not just walleye, for the same April 6 to May 8 window. That leaves the late-ice bite in March, which Travel Manitoba calls March Madness at Lockport, a short window of open water in early April if the ice leaves early, and the post-spawn fish after May 9.
From the US border to Lake Winnipeg, and on tributaries between the Lockport Dam and the lake, every walleye and sauger under 35 cm must be released. The general limit is four walleye and sauger combined, none over 55 cm. The lake sturgeon possession limit is zero, and sturgeon season is closed May 1 to June 15. Ice shelters on the Red have to be off by March 14, 2027.
Fall greenbacks and hard water
Local guides such as Catdaddy advertise greenback walleye alongside the catfish. No agency source publishes their timing, so treat the fall row in the table below as a guide rather than a calendar. In winter the Lockport Ice Fishing Village, run by Red River Cats, gives access to the ice with rental shacks, including a heated 22-foot house with its own live well, and Lockport Grocery sells worms and frozen Lake Winnipeg minnows. Live bait fish may be used in parts of the Southern Division, but only listed species and only with a dealer's receipt.
St. Norbert is upstream, so read it that way
The flow gauge used here is near St. Norbert on the south side of Winnipeg, above the Assiniboine and the city; the stations at Selkirk and Breezy Point below Lockport report water levels but not discharge. So the number shows what the Red is bringing north, not the added Assiniboine water. ECCC's record gives monthly means of about 596 cubic metres per second in April, 705 in May, 438 in June, 340 in July, 140 in August, 125 in September and 160 in October. No guide publishes a range, so the Ideal Flow of 3,550 to 12,350 cfs (about 100 to 350 cms) covers the summer and fall means; far above it, in a spring flood, the floodway gates and the dam curtains run the show. On September 24, 2026 St. Norbert read 144 cms, about 5,100 cfs.