Rainy Lake 6-24 Report

[yamo]

Ok, Everyone has been awesome on this site so I am returning the favor with last weeks details. Fished Rainy for the second week from 6-16 to 6-22. Stayed at Island View. What a week of weather, wind, rain, lightning. Very hard to develop much of a pattern. Fished center basin for walleye, bass. Did not mark many fish on the reefs, walleyes seem to be in transition. Smallies were still on beds in both center and eastern basins. I just can't convince myself to fish finesse with these fish in such a vulnerable stage. Most of the really big females were probably done and staging slightly off, getting ready for post-spawn, lots of mid size fish were visible in 3 ft down to nothing, small males were active near gravel and boulders especially on wind blown banks that had all three elements. We caught 100 or so on white spinerbaits, usually silver blades or brass. Most fish were 10-16". We went over to the scott island region on tuesday in 25 mph wind, that was a fun ride back. Caught a nice mix of northern, walleye, and smallmouth. Gold and Black #12 Husky Jerk was the ticket. Had to have long pause in a stop and go. They DEFINATELY wanted a solid stop! We also went east to the end of seine to the large bowl before the river. Pike were active everywhere we found cabbage. Black and orange or white/chartruese with silver blades rocked. Thursday and Friday were beautiful. Fished the eastern basin near cormorant and moose bay. Totally different lake. I would definately recomend getting a RABC, I-68 pass. I know minnesota fishing is great but the Canada side was not even comparible. Lots more structure. Almost all of the islands, points had boulders and gravel and patches of cabbage. Brown tubes with copper fleck near the boulders, spinnerbaits or BLACK/ORANGE buzzer near the cabbage, Zara puppy or pop-R in overcast or evening. Thurs. I must of had 200 hits on a zara puppy(white belly) my wife and kids had a blast watching pike and smallies smack the surface. Between our three boats thur and fri we landed near 500 smallies and pike. Lot's of fun, these two days were exactly what we were hoping out of the week. I am sure a few more days of warm and the big bass will start going crazy....Pike lovers should definately check out friendly passage all the way towards the rat....Huge cabbages beds in 6-9'. Pike destroyed every black/orange buzzer in my box, quality nothern were still active, probably a blessing from the lake being a little behing schedule. We ended up with 15-20 quality fish. Meaning 33-37" No real big girls but everything over 25" was HEALTHY.....Did manage 7 19" smallmouth but again did not want to sit over a bed. Saw a handful of bass boats sitting super shallow fanning the beds, just not my deal....Anyway we really enjoyed the people and the lake, I met your brother fishmeister, doing a survey at the dock really nice fellow. Hope this helps I don't usually give this much detail but the site is really great, have fun.

Yamo