Rainy North Arm 9/7-9/16

For Rainy this was a great pike trip. 27 over 10 pounds with two in the 16-17 class. Last year was our best big fish trip and this one definitely beat it

Weather:
first 7 days, 50 degrees plus or minus a few. Cloudy, cloudy, did I mention cloudy? Winds were some variation of east for this period. Got some decent rain a couple different days too.

Saturday, Sunday, Monday was the warm front. Sunny, warm, and got warmer each day.

Water temp: 63 to start, dropped to 59, and back up to 62 when we drove out.

Fishing: East winds usually mean terrible fishing and this was an exception. We found the big pike right away and they were feeding. Slowed down a little after the first two days but steady with big fish caught. Sun came out and fishing went to crap. The nicer it got the more neutral they were. Still catching and seeing a few. Mostly there were uninterested follows. That said, after multiple days of cold, windy, and wet it was great to be out in the boat.

Walleye – Yeah, not much there. One more we decided to try for walleye. Went to one of our earlier season spots just hoping for a lunch fish. About 20 mninutes in with no activity my buddy switched to a bucktail. 3 casts and two 12 pound pike later the walleyes were an afterthought again.

I’ll try to get some pics posted later tonight.

I was on the North Arm the weekend after Labor Day. There were huge piles of baitfish in 70 FOW rising up to 40. I would like to know what kind of baitfish they were, ciscos, smelt? The walleye action was slow on the North Arm so we switched to Swell and Seine and did well. Blaming the bad bite on the North Arm on all the baitfish, but who knows.

Sounds like you had a great trip. I’m 2 weeks out from my walleye trip there (staying at the Thunderbird and fishing only on the MN side as usual). Did you guys try for any crappies up there?

bigstorm wrote:

Did you guys try for any crappies up there?

We talk about it from time to time but never make an effort. Not sure where to start at this time of year. Tough for us to leave a good pike bite too.

Dennis Williams wrote:

There were huge piles of baitfish in 70 FOW rising up to 40. I would like to know what kind of baitfish they were, ciscos, smelt?

Ran across this up in Manitou Sound. Was so much on the screen we almost convinced ourselves the sonar was broken. could see bigger, solid returns under the clouds too. did one pass with deep tail dancers but we’re like you, still curious.

Sorry, been lazy. If there weren’t pics it didn’t happen right.

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Couple more. Had to look pretty hard to find one where we weren’t in rain gear, bundled up, or both Fishing did go downhill but was so nice to be comfortable. Still had a little success though

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Looked through past years. Seems I get this same shot in pretty much the same place, same time, and about the same sunset every trip. Looking forward to taking it again next year.

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