East or West of Brule Narrows

We are starting to plan our 2021 trip to Rainy Lake and looking for some advice. We will be going the 3rd week of June and in the past 3 years we always stayed East of Brule Narrows (Kempton, Anderson Bay, & 3 Sisters sites). We had our best fishing luck further East. If the border opens we would like to fish Canadian water too. We are considering camping closer to the launch on the West side of Brule Narrows. Looking at Navics map there appears to be a lot to fish just on the US side and a tremendous amount of water on the Canadian side. Alder Creek and Jack Pine sites look like they are around good fishing. Has anyone stayed in this area, how is the fishing? We really like the solitude on the East end but not the ride there so much.
Thanks for the help!
Scott

I have only stayed East of the narrows. Early June and after Labor day. Tons of places to fish the US side.

I’m running an Alumacraft Classic 165 with a 50 Yamaha tiller, so I mostly stay in the area between Dryweed Island and Fox Island and south of that. Not fond of big water and high winds. There’s a lot of fishable water in that area, I try to work spots away from the crowds. Fishing for me is mostly walleyes, and success is spotty. Sometimes I think I have it nailed and the next time can’t buy a fish. I do think the 3rd week of June should be pretty good. There sure are a lot of go-fast boats screaming by on their way to the east side, but I haven’t done that enough to compare results.

Your timing is when usually the Walleye are transitioning from shallow edges to reefs that top off about 20 ft. Fishing can be spotty but good if you find the right reef. I think west can be a little better that time of year especially if Canada is still closed. If Canada is open east would definitely be better.

Good luck
Wayne

Thank you all for your input! Still not sure what to do. It sure would be nice to have a 5-8 mile ride instead of 20-25 miles!

West side it is! Actually decided with our group to do the far east end and stay at Virgin Island and coming in through Namakan portaging across Kettle falls. I was online at 9:00 am Sunday morning to reserve the site and someone beat me to it for the week we wanted. Being we need a large site and prefer a dock our other options are around Kempton channel (and we have camped around here before) or West of the narrows so we chose Krantz Point site. We were a bit disappointed but I’m sure this will be a great trip. Plus we will save 20 miles in a fully loaded boat!

Nice location. Easy run to the Brule Narrows and plenty of places to hide on windy days. How many guys / boats in the group? Now that the easy part is done (selecting a site) the hard part of waiting for the trip starts.

Hey Scott,
I was online sunday at 9 also, was able to get the Logging camp site down on the East end for July 6-11. Decided to portage over Kettle this year. I’ll run down farther west on the nice days if I feel like it. (My backup for that site was Virgin island, but it also was gone by the time i was out of the system)
Also got the full last week of July for one of the Wolf Pack sites on Namakan for a family trip, and a buddy got 5 more nights mid-August on Namakan for our annual guys trip.

Dutchboy we have a group of 8 and 3 boats. Yea the wait will be tough. I’ve been on navionics app looking for “fishy” spots already!

xplorer it sounds like you have some great trips planned for next year!

Hey Scott sounds like a fun time. I can’t help with locations or tactics but I’ve recently moved to International Falls. If there is anything I can help with let me know. You can send me a PM anytime.

Dutchboy wrote:

Hey Scott sounds like a fun time. I can’t help with locations or tactics but I’ve recently moved to International Falls. If there is anything I can help with let me know. You can send me a PM anytime.

Thanks for the offer Dutchboy. I’ll probably send you a note next spring to see how conditions are.

Happy holidays!