I’ve had best luck with a twin Colorado blade spinnerbait in bluegill colors in early spring focusing on the shallow dark bays/areas that warm first. Fished relatively slow in/around existing weeds or openings in the weedy areas. Chatterbait works well but not as effective as the spinner bait. Certainly depends on the lake but I focus on shallow lakes, 15′ or less, that will warm faster. We have has some amazing days withing a week or so of ice out and it only gets better as it warms and the fish start spawning.

We fished the East of Brule narrows on the Canadian side almost exclusively last year. The bass fishing is soooo much better, non stop action all day. Pike fishing we caught a lot bigger fish. Walleye was about the same but we used plastics instead of live bait. The conservation license is like $30 plus the outdoors card, if that needs to be renewed. We will definitely plan on spending a considerable amount of time on that side of the lake this June as well. We want to get into Hale Bay on the extreme East end of the lake. I do miss enjoying a beer while fishing on that side but we usually make up for that fishing walleyes on humps with slip bobbers in the evenings on the US side.

There is a ton of great advice given in the posts above! This year will be our 9th year in voyageurs with the majority of them on rainy and we love it. Clam Screen tent was a great addition a couple years back (burning ban and feared the bugs). We use a 2kw generator to recharge the boat batteries plus coffee maker and phone chargers. We use a battery sawzall for firewood that saves a lot of work. We bring our boat has a 24 gallon tank and we bring another 20 gallons along but we do a lot of exploring on the Canadian side and I will say it is worth the price of admission, we have found some exceptional fishing on the N side of the border! We did Krantz Point in Lost bay a few years back and found plenty of walleye around Fox Island on mid lake structure. We usually go the 3rd week of June and find most walleye activity on mid lake structure, especially good for bobber fishing after supper.

We didn’t find any walleyes shallow, the few we got were 20-25′ on main lake structure adjacent to weed lines. Only thing that was very active were the rock bass, got them everywhere!

Tucker02 wrote:

I would check deeper water during the day but walleyes this time of year are putting on the feed bags. I would fish late afternoons into the night and use shallow diving stick baits in shallow water. Look for weedlines and shallow flats. They will be there.

Thanks Tucker, I will give that a try!

Kyle if you can get a Canadian license, it’s about $30 for 8 day license, fish the Canadian side. We were up there in late June, fished the Canadian side from the Brule Narrows east to Stokes Bay, we’ve never caught more smallmouth than we did that week! We did best on anything topwater but spinners, rapalas, tubes worked too. I don’t think we had a day with less than 100 bass in the boat. Plus we got into some very nice pike and walleyes too. We just fished shorelines, seems that we found most fish that had both rocks and weeds on them.

isu22andy wrote:

I have this exact same issue other than sometime it connects and still doesn’t have the jog feature . Won’t reconnect for the life of it .

For what it’s worth I even took it off the boat and hooked it to a 12v battery way off the boat and away from any magnetic field . Still didn’t work . I called minn kota Thursday and sounds like I need a new heading sensor .

I talked to the service team at Frankies Marine who is a Minn Kota service center, he said it was a failed sensor and no way to test other than replace it. Just ordered a new one on Amazon, $130, really…….

Xplorer – have you fished the Canadian side of Namakin? We are curious if it is as good as the Canadian side of Rainy. I wouldn’t think the Canadian side of Namakin would get near the pressure that Rainy does, but I’ve never ventured into those waters, yet…..

Netguy – pretty much vertical jigging due to the rocky structure we were fishing. trying to cast out over 10-20′ and slowly working back to the boat works very well but get a lot of snags and loose a lot of sinkers. Having Live Scope allowed us to “hunt” and target fish. If we could initially find them with our 2D sonar then try to drop right on them. Still amazing how many fish are down there and how many do not bite!
We didn’t use any live bait on the Canadian side but had good success using plastics on the drop shot in the same manner. Imitation leeches and shiner type minnow bodies worked well. I don’t think the walleyes on the Canadian see nearly the pressure the American side fish do.

Dutchboy – the portage was easy, took a little longer than normal (at least that’s what the guy there told us) due to having to decontaminate the trailer between portages. Even with the delay I figure we saved time on the additional driving time and distance across open lake. We did have our boat decontaminated on the way back out, the outside at least and it took 10 minutes to complete. Overall a great trip!

We camped on Virgin Island South June 15-22, fishing was good all week! We spent most days on the Canadian side fishing from Brule narrows to the East in Stokes bay trying different water each day. Evenings we spent fishing walleye on the US side. Fishing was amazing on both sides! Smallmouth fishing was amazing on the Canadian side with them hitting anything topwater. Between my son and I we had 100 fish caught in 5-6 hours and decent size, biggest being 20.5″! This happened every day we fished up there. We got into some nice pike in a couple spots and more 16-22″ fish than I can count. Got to the point my son quit fishing cause his arms were sore. Walleye fishing on all the usual humps was good, especially when I figured out they were hanging out in a little deeper water off the sides of the humps. Following the contours around the humps with LiveScope made for some solid fishing. We used leaches with drop shot or slip bobbers and had steady action all week.
We put in in Ash River and portaged over Kettle Falls, it was a new way for us so we were a bit cautious but it was so much nicer than running 25 miles across the big lake! Overall great trip!

Dutchboy wrote:

Go slow and stay between the buoy’s after you portage over.

For sure, we’ve been through the American channel several times and always get confused by the buoys so we putt through it. Just need to remember RED on the left going into Rainy.

Check out Gazelle tents. They are hub tents, set up in under 2 minutes. Very well made with a storage bag that the tent actually fits into. I have the T4, it’s 8′ x 8′ and over 6′ tall. Can easily put 2 cots in it with room to move.
I’ve used it a couple years during our trips to Voyageurs and last year in Montana. Only downfall is it’s big, probably 5′ long in the bag and 40#.

I found mine on ebay for under $200. I like it so much I picked up a Gazelle screen tent too. Same hub design I can set up in under a couple minutes by myself.

mazak500 wrote:

Not sure on your location but I have a Golden Hawk canoe I would part with cheap. I believe it is 10′ in length. SW Michigan

I just came across the Golden Hawk canoes, they look very nice and would fit all my needs and wants. I’m in NW Wisconsin, a little too far from you. Plus I’m leaning toward the 12’9″ square back model. Put a trolling motor on it and away I go chasing fish, ducks and who knows what else.

NW Wi, Danbury – Webster area.

Slow rolling a double colorado blade spinnerbait with a paddle tail plastic threaded onto the hook. I’ve incredable days the past couple springs in WI fishing shallow with this setup. Best color for me has been bluegill colors on the skirt and paddle tail.

G – raff seems to me I tried this a couple years back as a suggestion from Springfield, it didn’t work and i submitted a warranty claim, they sent new pedestals. Pretty sure they have a 5 year warranty on these items.

I will try adjusting the pedestals and see what it does. Hope it works but I do have a message out to Springfield too.

Thanks!

Slough – yes those are pedestals I have. I did a warranty claim about 2-3 years ago because of the same problem. Springfield did replace these quickly but I’m in the situation again.

Where did you find these? I’m always looking for different rigs that are more productive.

dbright wrote:

There has been a large increase in pressure over the last 4-5 years and fishing has definitely declined. It is still a fun stretch to be on regardless. Pansy, Thayes, norway point, nelsons, fox, and soderbeck are all on the Wisconsin side. I have spent alot of time up there other then the fox landing. I would add sturgeon to your list along with channel cats.

I would not have thought there’d be channel cats up there but now I’m more excited to fish it!

Erik Swenson wrote:

You’ll be fine if you’re familiar with navigation cans. Otherwise, once on the Rainy side you could to go up the Canadian channel. It’s a bit further around, but less tricky than the American. Just don’t stop or anything until you cross back over into the States of course.

We’ve done the American channel several time and yes my buddy put his brand new boat onto a rock because he went on the wrong side of the red can. I might look into the Canadian channel if there are less hazards. Only thing with having the boats packed with camping gear, food and booze I’m not sure we want to venture too deep into Canada.

St. Croix makes some great rods at affordable prices. I really like the Premier line of rods which are American/Wisconsin made, great warranty and very durable. https://stcroixrods.com/

In the past couple years I’ve upgraded all my rods to St. Croix and have been very happy with them.

Our best shore line action was rocks with reeds/weedlines, it seemed the shorelines with just rocks didn’t hold nearly as many fish as those with weeds adjacent to them. The back bays South of the Brule Narrows held a lot of fish for us, again find the weeds and rocks and there were fish there. There were a lot of small bass and pike but some nice ones mixed in too and the occasional walleye too.

Fishing was amazing for us last week. The rock piles outside Lost bay held a lot of fish.

We had a great week on Rainy! Fishing was the best we’ve had in the 6 years we’ve been going there. Mid lake humps held lots of hungry walleyes, both eaters and bigger fish on slip bobbers and dropshots. Shorelines held lots of bass and pike, a lot of smaller fish but fantastic action. Original Rapala floaters twitched and jerked, gold/org and perch colors worked best. Topwater bite was good too in shallow bays for pike and bass, that was a lot of fun.

We did a day on the Canadian side somewhere in the Rat River bay, wow! Probably one of the best days fishing I can remember. Multiple smallmouth 17-9″, pike 30″, several nice walleyes and more small bass and pike than we could count! Primarily on jerk baits again with the occasional spinnerbait or topwater. Amazing the difference a couple miles across an imaginary line makes but in 6 hours fishing that area we never saw another boat either.

Bugs were very bad, luckily we brought a screen tent that saved the trip.

We usually do the 3rd week of June somewhere on Rainy camping at a VNP site. Bigwerm’s suggestion is dead on, finding current and wind blown points/shorelines are usually good starting points. We have also found walleyes stacked on offshore structure, good electronics helps locate these fish.

Lindy rigging is too slow for the young lads in our group. Slip bobbers and a few beers is more their speed, at least for walleyes.
The stick baits with a tokyo rig, kind of a mini bottom bouncer? How long of leader and what speed to you pull them at?

Using count-down type jerk baits with Livescope to fish on structure. Trying to get those baits directly in the fishes strike zone and trying to learn the fish behavior depending on how they respond.

Wayne Daul wrote:

All those bays can be very good ,post spawn. Problem now is no bait is legal ,not live or dead . Makes for tougher bite.

We ran into that last year on Sandpoint Lake. I experimented with Berkly Gulp or Powerbait crawlers, minnows and leeches and did pretty well. Not as good as live bait but an acceptable alternative when the fish are active.

I used livescope last year for the first time and it was very clear that when the fish are neutral they would take a slow, finesse leech (drop shot) but wouldn’t take the artificial baits.

Perfect, now I have to find a deal on a 106.