First Time Fishing Rainy — Advice

Does anyone have any advice for me, I am not fishing for your spots, just general advice or strategy. I’m taking the approach of I’ll fish for whatever the best bite is my target species (lean toward smallies/pike). Going up June 20-27, staying by Jackfish Bay on the western U.S. side. I wish I could get to the Canada side, but that looks like a no go.

Specific questions I do have in mind. East side better than west? Smallmouth bass fishing on U.S. sounds like its a tough go? Pike in deeper water by late June?

Thanks in advance.

I’d spend some time going thru the old forums on here, we make an annual trip (year 10 this year) and I still go back and learn things from them. We will be going in the day you are going home, and usually go around the 4th of July. In my experience you will always find some fish shallow, large #’s of pike and walleye may have moved out deeper or be in the process of moving out deeper to mid-lake reefs, generally fish them w/ bottom bouncers/lindy’s. We are on a houseboat on the East side, and can’t really say too much about anywhere west of RLHB. But plenty of island bays and points to throw top water, plastics and spinners at around Jackfish bay. Finding good weeds can help a ton!

Cptndeez we are headed to Rainy tomorrow for our 3rd year. We camp in VNP always East of Brule Narrows. We have had our best luck for walleyes on the East end but have found them all over East of Brule.
We have found numbers of pike shallow in weedy bays on spinners and topwater but these are smaller fish. We find some bigger pike when fishing walleye on points and bars but really don’t target them there.
For bass we have found them tight to the shoreline on all types of lures, spinners, senkos, topwater, and jigs.
BigWerms comment about weeds is great and also focus on wind swept shorelines especially if the wind has been hitting it for a couple days. We’ve had some great success with slip bobbers on wind swept shorelines.
Leaches are my go to bait for walleyes with jigs or pulling spinners.
I’ll put a good report on here when we pull out on the 20th.

Best advice I can give is get the Lakemaster chip for the lake (if you have a Humminbird), lots of sneaky rocks that can jump out of nowhere. I cant give much advise for bass/pike as we usually target walleye (in October)

Follow the wind for walleyes. It sounds simple but it’s especially true on Rainy. Windblown shorelines will hold fish very shallow as will windblown shallow reefs and humps even in the middle of the day.

Jackfish Bay is good for Pike also hit American Narrows.

I hope you do great. Were coming up the 27th. You will be in atimr that it is hard to say. They will be in the shallows. But they will also be on the humps. Trust your graphs. If you markem on the humps less than 28ft get em! If not check those rocky shorelines. This is usually a transition period. Play it out because they dont all go to the same hump or leave at the same time.great luck to all.

x2 on old reports. I have a number from around the solstice period but I’m on the Canadian side.

Transition wise it’s often the week we see walleyes starting to switch to the summer pattern. Weeds are starting to actually have some growth which means pike.

The east side is a long boat ride that can be rough if the wind picks up. You may be a bit early for the reef bite, but worth checking out. Cranberry can be good. Troll spinners , gold. Cast to shorelines where that wind has been blowing at least a day. Check out the evening bite, less crowded and can produce. If fishing is slow try slip bobbers.

Wayne

Thanks for all of the advice everyone. I’m heading up tomorrow and I can’t wait to get out there and put your input into action. I’ll leave a report here once I get back.

Any updates? Any Mayflies hatching? Asking anyone besides Cptndeez who’s probably lacing into them as we type…

Was up Wednesday-Sunday. Bugs were hatching. Most of our fish were off of deeper shoreline rock and mid-lake reefs. Very few fish casting plastics at shorelines. Got a few bobber fishing and pitching jigs in evening. Crawlers and leeches. Did not bring minnows.

Red Eye wrote:

Was up Wednesday-Sunday. Bugs were hatching. Most of our fish were off of deeper shoreline rock and mid-lake reefs. Very few fish casting plastics at shorelines. Got a few bobber fishing and pitching jigs in evening. Crawlers and leeches. Did not bring minnows.

Nice, Friday afternoon can’t come soon enough. Were you pulling rigs/spinners on the deep stuff?

BigWerm wrote:

Any updates? Any Mayflies hatching? Asking anyone besides Cptndeez who’s probably lacing into them as we type…

As of last Saturday no mayflies east of Brule narrows but there were lots floating at the rainy lake visitors center boat landing when we pulled out.

We kept a couple bass to eat and they were full of larvae of mayflies so it can’t be far off.

weedis wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Red Eye wrote:</div>
Was up Wednesday-Sunday. Bugs were hatching. Most of our fish were off of deeper shoreline rock and mid-lake reefs. Very few fish casting plastics at shorelines. Got a few bobber fishing and pitching jigs in evening. Crawlers and leeches. Did not bring minnows.

Nice, Friday afternoon can’t come soon enough. Were you pulling rigs/spinners on the deep stuff?

Mostly plain lindy rig and some slow death. We were seeing bugs coming up on graphs both east and west of narrows and a few on surface. But didn’t see a lot above water till we got back to visitor center on Sunday. Fish were very finicky. Lots of bites feed em line and they’d drop it.

Thanks for the report. Will let you know how we do when we get back

Hey everyone, here is my report from last week. Fishing was hard work. Many hours and not a lot of fish. Walleyes were clearly in the transition, they were scattered, you could pick off one here and there, but not one spot, approach, bait or lure was overly successful. Pike were not in the weeds, most of them were caught of main channel islands or rock humps that had the wind crashing waves onto them. They wanted big stick and jerk baits. NOTHING ELSE. Smallies wanted it slow, most were caught on shady side of islands and around docks. Tubes, Dark Sleepers, and creature baits. Did catch a couple on small jerkbaits. Mayflies were clearly hatching. Doubt it was is full swing.