AK Guy wrote:

It’s been awhile since I fished the Rainy, but we use to bring dead bait (frozen or preserved minnows) to the Canadian side. Is this still legal? I also remember a year we launched on the Canadian side, bought minnows in Canada, and never crossed in to Minnesota to fish. A few boats thought we transported live bait across the border.

Unfortunately that isnt legal anymore. No bait or bait products. When we were checked by Canadian COs we did ask about crossing the border, staying in Canada, buying bait in canada, and fishing the canadian side with bait. They said perfectly legal as long as you keep the bait receipt with you in the boat and never step foot on the US shore. If multiple boats in your group, have multiple receipts.

Fished Rainy for the first time last weekend. Fished the Canadian side with plastics, but I was also surprised by the number of risky people fishing minnows awfully far from the US shore and close to the Canada shore.

First day we had a great pitching bite with fluke tail plastics. Avg size was smaller than we expected, mostly males, but it was a good numbers bite. The next day the water dirtied up quite a bit, flow increased a touch, and had a much harder time pitching. We bounced around a bit, but ended up going back to where we fished the day prior and tried dragging paddle tails up stream, real slow, at 0.2 mph. This was the ticket. Numbers weren’t quite the same but we got into some real good fish. Several 24-26, handful of 28.5, and I was able to pull my first 30″!!
Fun to see as many boats as there were but seemed like most were able to get on a pretty good bite. Appreciate all the reports and tips I read from everyone in this thread!

I absolutely love my Elliotts. Their 7’3 ML Fast action is by far my favorite rod I’ve ever used, I have a few. Great action to help with big head shakes, plenty of power to drive a hookset home, and after a bit of use I learned to love the syncork handles. Pull cranks and immediately feel the smallest of weed specs, pitch 1/8 oz jigs, drag Dubuques w/ 1/2 oz and heavier.. all around great rod.

A few years ago I was looking for a specific model/color of a new Alumacraft tiller. I spent hours upon hours researching, figured I had called every dealer within 500 miles looking for exactly what I wanted. Nothing. Went to the boat show, asked one of the Alumacraft reps, and he was able to find it available, and exactly what I wanted in minutes. Called the dealer and put money down later that afternoon. If you’re in the market at all its a no brainer.