Rainy River Fishing Report

[Jakesbuds]

Any word on recent fishing? Heading up there next Tues - Sat and wondering what the river has been doing as of late.

Thanks!

[DrStizo]

From what i am hearing there is starting to be a strong presence in the river of shiners and the walleyes are beginning to show up in large numbers. I will be up there wknd of the 24th and hopefully either the 2nd or 3rd wknd in Nov.

[JimBuck]

Any word on the Sturgeon? Are they still biting in the holes?

[JumpStart73]

got back yesterday. places in baudette have live and frozen

emeralds. the wife and i brought back our limit. caught alot of little ones 12" and under(about 30 a day). only 2 fish over 19.5 (23"-26") it was slow but it was good to get out.....

R.D.2........... "long live biscuit lips"

[local laker]

River fishing was slowwww for us.we did better in the gap out in 25'.alot of doink saugers to keep you buisy.It seemed like all the eye's in the river were resident eyes,they were a little different color.we also managed to get 6 nice perch & 1 big crappie!no sturgies or pout.threw back only 2, a 22" & 25".

As always,still great to get up there!

[Mallard1]

what area of the river did you fish local and jump start ? heading up to fish friday and sat...

[Mallard1]

what area of the river did you fish local and jump start ? heading up to fish friday and sat...

[local laker]

we got our perch down by sportsmans&ships wheel resorts,got a few eyes every spot all the way to birchdale.None of them seemed to shine tho.

[JumpStart73]

frontier landing

[CANOPY SAM]

Fished the mouth of the river out to the Gap. Same results as above. Couple river fish - pale and not healthy looking. Tons of shakers out in 16 feet of water in front of the Gap. The run does not appear to be started yet, although I was periodically marking clouds of shiners moving thru on the flasher.

On a side note, the grouse hunting more than made up for the absence of a solid river walleye bite. Absolutely phenomenol! It's so great to see so many birds around again. Looking forward to November on, and around the Rainy. With the water moving so slow ya' gotta wonder if we're going to see much of a push into the river this fall.

[CANOPY SAM]

Fished the river in front of Border View again this last Sunday. Small number of lake fish in now, but I believe a very small number. A few boats filled, but spent all day getting there.

Tried out at the lighthouse gap again, but east wind and cold got to be too much. Water in the lake appeared pretty stirred up by all the wind last week. Would have fished Monday, but the temps were just too low along with a stiff NW wind.

Local resort owner told me that the run depends almost entirely on current coming out of the river, and this year it's moving really slow. Water clarity in the river is great, and still marking small clouds of shiners moving thru, but according to locals it's only the "pinheads" and the lake walleyes don't spend much time on the little shiners.

Beginning to wonder if we're going to see much of any fall walleye run up the river this year??? It's eerily quiet up at Morris, with very few boats to be found anywhere.

Perhaps the warm-up that's forecast for the next few weeks will give us another chance yet this fall?

[SJU70]

Hey, Went up there for the first time in my life on Friday night. Saturday Morning we first launched out of Pioneer and made our way as far as the rapids by birchdale with a few small walleyes and saugers. Around 10 or 11 we moved and launched at Bayview where we experienced better results. We had to fish all day to earn the limit of keeper walleyes and a few saugers thrown in for good measure, but you had to sort through the dink saugers. According to the more experienced member of our group, they were a mix of lake and river fish. Everyone in the group caught a CPR slot limit fish, the biggest being 27 and the smallest 21.5 inches. The best colors seemed to be silver and gold, but orange produced as well. Most fish were caught in 21-25 fow, with the biggest shiners seeming to work best.

[Mark Gangl]

using just jigs? lead core line?

[heartattack22]

Slow day today. Fished from Frontier to past Pinewood. 4 Walleye total. 2 came while we were fishing sturgeon. 6 or 7 sturgeon total. Two tagged fish. Biggest was 49 inches. Sure beats working though!!

[shamrock7]

And the sturgeon seemed to want chubs rather than crawlers. I know, I know, that's not how it is done but it worked.

[WallEYES]

One word...............Sloooooooooooooooooooooow

[brmuskie]

Sturgeon fishing yesterday - caught 3, biggest was 62. Saw 2 others caught - one looked to be about 45" and the other smaller. Talked to a few walleye guys and they all said that they caught one or two small ones and that is it. Debris isn't too bad - but fishing isn 't that great.

[Matt Breuer]

And the sturgeon seemed to want chubs rather than crawlers. I know, I know, that's not how it is done but it worked.

Worked in our boat as well, a rainbow with the clump of crawlers...

[matt_shermoen]

Just checked the weather looks like its going to be a fairly nice weekend with temps in the 40s this should help the water temps and get the walleyes moving.

[Dano_the_jigasaurus]

Hey all,

Just got a phone call from Tim Anderson, who has been up fishing all week, he doesn't have internet access, so he asked me to through up a quick report for all.

So far the bite has been slow. Tim called it "not happening, yet" the lake run hasn't begun. The water temp is hovering just below 37, but Tim said that he had seen a few spots at 37 or above. "90% of my normal spots aren't producing, been catching a few at a few spots, working hard for fish, guys that know the river well seem to be doing ok, a few hawgs have been caught, lots of reports from others getting skunked or 10 fish of less per day" He had mentioned catching a few sturgies, but no specifics.

River conditions:

Water temp = +/- 36

Clarity increasing = 2'

Forks Holding

Current .75 - 1.5 mph in the main channel

River Level looks to be dropping 6" - 1' over the last few days

Best luck using 3/8-1/2oz jigs, bright colors, vertical or dragging, not much going on pitching.

That was all i got before the phone got fuzzy. When I get the rest of the details I will through them up. Good luck to everyone who is heading up or up there catch some hawgs...

Dan (proxy for Tim Anderson)

[Walleyehunter82]

Thanx for that report, I was waiting to hear something from Tim. I hope those Forks keep holding.

[Dano_the_jigasaurus]

Just got another phone call from Tim. He said to tell everyone that this cold snap the last two days has SLOWED the bite way down. Sturgeon fishing has been about 1 for every 45min-one hour of fishing.

good fishing

hope the bite begins to pick up. warm temps next week hopefully will help.

[ponzie]

water temp needs to get to 39 then game on

[ANYFISH2]

Just got back form the river, fished Friday, Saturday, and half of today. I would call our trip a success! Considering the reports we were hearing, our expectations where low.

Friday we started the morning fishing outside the gap on the main lake, water was 33.8 degrees and air temp was 17 degrees it was cold! Managed one 17 incher and left at 11 am. We then proceeded to Vidas, not much going until about 5 pm then the water hit 35.5 degrees and the walleyes started! By the time we left at 7pm we managed 14 walleyes with the largest being a 27.25". We also had multiple sturgeon hook ups but didn't bring any to the boat.

Saturday started off beautifully fishing was o.k we caught and released 14 by noon. Also that morning our rookie fisherman Eli (age 11) caught his first sturgeon a sleak 46". The afternoon was slower but still caught fish through 6pm, then my buddie Ray hooked into a large sturgeon, which ended our walleye fishing for the day as it proceded to hang out in 10 ft of water for the next 1hr 30mins, what a battle! It ended up being a 63"x29 1/2" fish, it was a beast. Day two grand total was 29 walleye (largest 28 1/4") and 2 sturgeon. A pretty O.K. day.

Sunday morning was prefect!! Light winds, prefect flow, and aggressive fish! We managed 34 walleye and 2 sturgeon by 12:15pm, then our trip was over:(. The largest walleyes sunday were, 27 1/2", 25 1/2"(caught by Eli:)). with our largest sturgeon once again being caught by Eli, after a short battle after the hook set the sturgeon made a hard dive braking Eli's rod just above the first eye from the reel. What a champ he managed to fight out the fish and we pull up his second sturgeon this one 53"!

In all it turned out to be a great trip, with many new memories and the fishing was rather good and getting better. Water temps where climbing just over 37 degree and the bit was agressive most of the time, although we missed a huge number of bites (like always). The fish where very spot specific had to work short streches hard once you got bit but the fish were there.

[Walleyehunter82]

Finally a decent report! I hope the forks hold on. I'm coming up this week!

[walros]

We were up thursday, friday, saturday and sunday last week and fishing was slow. But saturday & sunday the fishing started really picking up. Must have had 8-9 over 27". Fished out by wheelers point and I think those of you that held out till this week are gonna have sore faces from smiling because the run is on. Keep a tight line and hook near the bottom and have fun.

Don't think you have to worry about the forks letting go, very little water moving from them ice is still looking very solid.

[Mike Stark]

looks like i might be heading up next week. thanks for the reports.

[Royal Dutchman]

Water temp. 38.5. Clarity 2 1/2'. Dropped in at noon and 30+ fish by 7 PM.

Bigs were 23, 24, 25, & 27. Best day for us so far but only better to come!

[Mike Stark]

RD,

can you please email me. i have a few questions for ya.

[email protected]

thanks,

mike

[YiGGiN4SLoBS]

what depths are most of the eyez coming out of? And does anyone know if the forks are in danger of letting loose in the next couple of days? We are heading up wed. through sat. morning and i hope we dont have to worry about that!