5/29-6/1 Report

After my first outing on Rainy Lake ever, all I can say is “WOW”! Thursday was beautiful, with most of the time spent figuring out how to navigate this scenic body of water and not rip the boat open on the unbelievable number of rocks. I have to admit I hit my fair share, though. Luckily, the damage was minimal. Finding fish was like taking candy from a baby, with the exception of smallies, which proved to be a bit of a chore. Pike fishing is fabulous on Rainy, with lots of extremely large fish haunting these waters. As for the walleye, I’ve never witnessed a more aggressive bite. A few times when fish were brought to the boat, the rest of the group acted similar to smallies in that they went on a frenzy surrounding the hooked fish. The ‘eyes are in very good shape up there, with all sizes being caught. Slot fish are very easy to come by. I found the best bite to be really shallow, less than five feet of water. Friday was nasty with the winds blowing hard and the rain coming down in sheets. Needless to say, the bite that day was non-existent. The weekend was just like Thursday, really pleasant. The only difference was the smallies showed up in force. Most of them were caught on large spinnerbaits, with a jig and minnow being a close second. The lake is down about 6 feet right now, so that had to be accounted for when perusing maps that had marked depths on them. Overall, my impression of Rainy Lake is that it is an absolutely incredible fishery. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better lake to boat a limit of most any kind of the more popular gamefish.

Mark

hey chief, i’m going up to the voyagers national park, will be fishing sand point and namakan, pretty much the same water as rainy, the eyes were shallow you say, what were they hitting? in the past, we have had success using husky jerks in the shallow bays for them, also, your assessment on the bass, were they tight on the rocks or more scattered any help i would appreciate

bigdog, I never had to fish any deeper than 6 feet. Nearly all of them were caught on a chartreuse jig/minnow cast right on shore and walked backed to the boat. As for the smallies, they were about an inch away from the rocks. A large spinnerbait was the key there. Try firetiger with gold blades. Have another rod rigged with a fat rap handy. If you get a couple of hits from the same fish on the spinner, cast the fat rap there and they’ll inhale it. Let us know how you do.

Mark

thanks much chief, it makes me happy to know that the eyes are still utilizing the shallow areas, makes for better fishing and more fun, i bet they just pounded that jig, hey, one more question, do you know what the water temp was when you were up there recently, and yes, i will give a report. We are camping for a week.

During the mid-day, the shallow bays warmed up to 66.7 degrees and the deeper water got up to the mid-50’s. Quite a range. In the morning, the shallow bays were all the way down to the mid-50’s. The walleye bite really got going once the temp got up to the lower 60’s. Good luck!

Mark

thanks chief, that helps, in the years i have fished the area, it seems the best fishing occurred on an upward water temp trend, with the best range between 62 and 68, again thanks for the info