GO or NO GO ????

[CEDES]

FM'ers,

I have been like the rest of you, watch, wait, hope, dream, be heart broken and be giddy all at the same time.

I have fished this river all my life and have a couple stories to share that may help you decide on wether to "risk it", "chance it", "wing it", or flat out wait for the next year. I have seen just about ALL the Rainy can dish out. From timing the ice out perfect to timing the "MOTHER LOAD" running the river, I have withstood IFalls opening the gates, I have been on the water when the "forks" let loose. Unfortunetly, I have guessed wrong more times than not, I have made the drive from the cities in the middle of the night, with my wife being mad as heck, (she doesn't understand, when the bite is on, I can with stand a season of grumpyness for one day on that river)JUST to turn around and drive home (hoping she lets me back in) a couple years ago, I had to rebuild my lower unit as I got pinched in the river and couldn't get out without busting ice and my motor for ZERO FISH. I have been on that river in the early morning and could NOT get my jig to the bottom before catching a fish, putting over 50 fish in and out of the landing net in the first 2 hours of catching, before seeing (actually witnessing) the water getting dirty (If you have ever had a Gueniss beer you know what I mean when you pour it in a glass) and it SHUT DOWN THE BITE THAT FAST. I spent the rest of that day and the next, hoping to salvage the bite I encountered the morning before, not believing that can happen. IT DID and IT DOES.

When the gates open in IFAlls the fishing is fishing. By that I mean you can get fish, the river isn't all that muddy, the current is unbelieveable, another 2 gates WILL open today (if not already done) it will be VERY dificult if not borderline impossible to reach bottom with an ounce jig head and fishing will be only fishing. Slow.

From my vantage point (at work) it kills me, I thought with the cold weather it was going to be a gradual thaw and the rivers would hold, the 104 inches of snow would slowly melt and we would see 200 fish days out there. The water is high in Rainy lake, those gates have to open, the run off may be more than the Forks can with stand, and I am not sure if there will be much of a spring season. Would I normally chance it ? Heck, I like to think I am older and wiser,But normaly I would be there right now, I would of left last night. Being older and wiser, maybe just not as willing to deal with an aggitated wife (a happy life is a happy wife) I am shifting gears. I think there is a chance the river could blow with the additional gates opening and by the end of next week, for sure the end of the spring season, I will hear (hopefully witness) the days of old and 200 fish days. Yep, it can clear as fast as that !!

Not to steer you one way or the other, I hand it to the folks up there that are our eyes and ears, YOU ARE ALL TOP SHELF !!! They need this to happen for economy reasons and they genuinely are AWESOME people that want to share and have people witness the phenomenon that is spring fishing on the Rainy river. I do too !! If you have been there before, you know what it is to sit on that river, amoungst the 100's of boats and whack fish like your Al Linder or like the world is coming to an end, my only advise to you IMO...Don't fish memories, it costs alot of gas and can damage equipment ...lol. For you newbies wanting to try this, don't force something that isn't going to happen, put the odds in your favor and you will remember this forever. Be willing to go at the drop of a hat, sometimes it works out, when it does, it is nothing short of amazing and you will try to plan it, till the day you die......She will keep you guessing until you are anchored up in a hole or slip drifting along the break, reaching for an adult beverage with a fish on the line, pinch yourself !! Your stealing a memory that will last the test of time and make you throw caution to the wind and drive you nuts EVERY spring !!! Please report back if you go

GOOD LUCK !!

[Tim_Anderson]

Like you said, I would normally already be either up there or on my way by now, but for some strange reason I am feeling very cautious this year. AND, I have no wife to agitate, so what does that tell you?

Like you, I have seen much that the Rainy has to offer. Incredible fishing that lasted the whole season. Incredible fishing that ended overnight. I've thrown everything I had at them through mud, debris and current, until I finally gave up. Having learned that lesson, I have driven all the way up there, only to see those same conditions...then turn around and come home.

I am hoping that this is not the first year that I never even got to go up and fish, but it is looking like that might be a possibility. I know for a fact that in 10 years, it has never been bad from the get-to. I have always been able to fish for at least a couple of days.

I have alot invested in the annual trek to the Rainy, but I do have better things to do than haul up all my gear only to meet futility and have to come right back. The best thing that I have going for me is that I am able to leave home at the drop of a hat. So I guess I will just wait and watch.

For those of you up there fishing, please report at the end of the day with information as specific as you can to help those of us who are "waiting in the wings" to make our decision. Primarily what we need to know is about the river conditions...things like:

1. How much debris? I have heard "some debris" but that needs to be defined. Did you catch a leaf, a twig, and a pine needle today, or did you catch one every third cast? That would not be a good sign of things to come.

2. Water levels and current. How much jig weight did it take for you to maintain contact with the bottom? Anchored? Pulling upstream? Slip-drifting? How about drifting freely with the current? It should take different amounts of weight for some of those presentations.

3. What's going on with the ice flows? And, what's going on with the Big and Little Fork Rivers? Have they completely let loose, or are they still ice-covered?

4. If you've been up there for more than a day, does the river seem to be getting better or worse? If worse, in what way?

5. Hows the bite? How many fish caught in how many hours? Bite better in the morning, or in the evening? Catching them on meat, or on plastic? Any hogs?

These are the kind of questions that I would ask if I was BSing with someone at the access. I'd like to do that from home if at all possible!

Thanks for your help and good luck. I hope that things will stabilize, and that many will have good things to share.

[CEDES]

Tim,

I was right behind you a couple years back when we got pinched (by the ice) and actually fished "open water" in 10 degree weather You know your stuff Tim !! I often see your rig and business in Baxter on my way to the cabin, I have often thought to swing in, to say hi and meet you in person.

I will do that this year !! Maybe we can even fish together Good luck to you if you go north, I do NOT mean to discourage others from trying, I have been snake bit too many times and maybe to stubbourn to admitt I am getting older and wiser...(just maybe)

I just want to do whatever I can to pay back ALL the people and reports you provide !! The previous was just some trival knowledge, learned the hard way....take it for what it is worth.

See ya !!!

[FishnUMD]

it's like you guys wrote this just for me... i've heard about the magic river the past two yrs from a friend and planned to finally skip a day of school and try it-but from the sounds of it, maybe i'll hafta put it off another year...

[fishuhalik]

Great to hear. I just got back from Gander after having spent $200 on tackle for this trip.

[computerboy]

I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet. The forks haven't broken yet, and there is still fishable water. I would just set your expectations appropriately. Heavy jigs will definitely be in order, and you may have to switch tactics to stay in the strike zone.

You never know what you're going to get with Rainy River, but when it's on...it's ON!

[Fredd]

We are being extremely cautious after a decade plus of experience up there as well. We are deciding tonight but leaning towards a no go. The river can always clean up in time to get some fishing on the tail end. Last year it was looking like an early season and then we thought we weren't going to make it up only to run up for the last three days (and it was definitely worth it!!) Pray to the walleye gods and hold your breath. I don't like hearing the news of the large jigs that are being used.

[Wensel]

Well its 6:38 pm and this Vet is making the run....or maybe I'm not a vet just been runnin the rainy for 10 years or so.

Kinda feel like I owe it to the locals, so here we come.....

I just love the feeling when my bud pushes the boat off the trailor and I float for the first time in months.........

Heavy current...............oh well

Mud.......I'll have a pizza and a beer at the local...

No big deal

Hey if we hit a fish or two great...

Sometimes I wonder why people fish....

I'll report to ya on Monday

till then...............................

I'm on the Rainy

[fishingchef]

Great points to all of you guys, I've been there good and bad and should've learned from all the years of fihing the river that it is time to wait. I know better than to head up there now, but is stil so very hard to do. Thanks to all of you other fellas who are sitting at home waiting and wanting as much as I, but we all know we don't go to the rainy to "fish" I don't want to work my butt off for 6-12 fish a day, it just isn't worth it, I acn do that on the Miss. So here's to others sitting on the fence with me, remember you can't will it into something it is not, lets just hope we'll be able to sneak a day or two in at the end. I guess I'll be fishing down on pool 4 for yet another week, wishing it was the rainy river. Thanks for everybody's posts, it is like a darn support group or something.

[Fredd]

I just talked with a group up there. They said clarity down to well less than a foot. They haven't caught a walleye but found some northerns to the east. It sounds like a lot of guys that made the trip sat at the access w/o getting the boat wet and were heading back from where they came. Sounds like there was also a nice ice jam near Birchdale that hindered spots that were accessible yesterday. I'm staying put for now.

[3in1]

Couldn't have said it any better myself. I haven't missed a year since I started fishing the rainy in 95. There have been a lot of years though I would have been better off staying home, like I am now. Still holding on to some hope for the end of the season, otherwise see ya next year.

[Tim_Anderson]

I just had the opportunity to talk to Carl at the Royal Dutchman. Picked his brain for a few minutes, so thought I would share with you the latest.

There has been some controversy about the status of Birchdale for big boats. One angler that I talked to swore that he was there yesterday, and that it was not open. But Carl assures me that it is. He was there fishing yesterday. They have guests at the Dutchman who used the access to launch a Ranger yesterday.

Current seems to have come up a bit more. Sounds like clarity is still at a foot or a little less. They caught very little debris...only a few leaves throughout the day. Unfortunately, the bite was slow. They saw a few fish netted as there were about 40 boats around.

The only real good report any of us have heard was yesterday. Someone claims to have caught 40 some fish using a clicker, while his partner caught 30. Average was "between 18 and 31 inches". It's a pretty isolated report in the midst of a whole bunch of mediocre to bad reports. Most of the boats were socked in because of the ice dam at the island down below Birchdale. If someone was really whacking the fish like that, you'd think more would be doing better by duplicating, or at least would have seen it happen. It would be cool if these guys could get on here and elaborate!

Sounds like the ice dam at the island started breaking up yesterday, so it is now possible to get down farther toward Frontier.

As to the state of "the Forks", they drove by yesterday and saw that they were still locked up. In fact, the recent cold snap (it was zero there yesterday morning, and minus 2 this morning) seems to be freezing up the shorelines again. This is great news. The rise in the current from the opening of the gates up at I-Falls will cause a little harm, but I think we can deal with that. It's the forks that I'm worried about. When they cut loose, it's usually all over with. As long as it stays cool like this, we should be ok. for the time being.

Carl was able to use a 3/8 ounce jig yesterday and maintain bottom contact while drifting, which makes me very happy. I have been hearing reports of it being necessary to use 1/2 to 1 oz. jigs. If that's really true, I ain't goin!

I'm going to hang out for another day or two and see what happens.

Thanks Carl, for the time this morning.

And anyone out fishing, please post your experience if you can!

Thank you,

[Royal Dutchman]

Tim,Just going to post our experience yesterday and see you pretty well covered it. Thanks!I was quite suprised to be able to maintain bottom contact with a 3/8 oz. jig and quite suprised that there wasn't more debris. Since we weren't catching fish, we would have our jig down for long periods and still not be trashed-up.Yes, it seemed there was more color than before but fish were still being caught. Our guys in the Ranger couldn't have fished much more than an hour & 1/2 and had 6.As posted earlier, I'm hoping the color is the 1st flush from the 2 gates and it will calm down. The forks look solid and the forecast doesn't make me think they will go soon.The fat lady ain't even warmed up yet.

[BEEGONE]

Was up there today, fishing was super slow. Only saw one fish caught, and it didnt come from out boat! Water was pretty fast, clarity around 1ft. Quite a few folks fishing. Open water down to the blue silo, where the ice jam was.

[dabaer]

i just got a report from a buddy who up there today. he said the water was real high, and moving way too fast. in addition to that the water was so muddy that you could only see your hook for 6 inchs. he also said they didnt see or even hear of fish being caught:( was planin on goin up monday, but hearin this im cancelin and am goin to start prayin that it calms down. good luck to all goin up!

[Wensel]

Hey guys Im fished today

We got on at 1030 off at 4

Not a bite

Lots of ice flow

High Current

6" max vis

Pretty bad bite

Never saw a Eye get caught...

The sun was nice though............

[maxpower17]

Just got back. I was going to stay until sunday or monday. What does that tell you? Not a bite in 2 days.

My personal opinion: The river is too fast right now, and the walleyes are not up there yet. Talked to locals and they ALL said the walleyes aren't in yet. Some locals said the walleyes are slamming at the mouth right now.

Just my thoughts...

[Traxxx]

Did any of you guys try a driftsock or two along with a trolling motor to slow down at all? Thanks for the reports!

[a_cad1]

Just as maxpower, I just got back from up there with my bodies. Like him was suppose to stay till monday morning but decided to leave based on our experience the last few days. Our fishing report is just as bad as some others.

Thursday afternoon we fished out of Birchdale and didnt get a single bite.

Friday started at Birchdale in the morning and with the visibility, the ice on the surface, and no bites we decided to try International Falls. Water Clarity is great up there I could see my jig down about 6'. Jig size was 3/8 - 1/2 depending on exactly where u were in the river. A few boaters reported catching some northerns but no walleye.

Saturday / today. Again no bites tried International Falls in the morning and Birchdale in the afternoon for abit. At International Falls there were maybe 4 boats total. No reports from there. Birchdale we were hearing mixed reports. Some people are catching about 40, while others didnt get anything. Didnt catch much debri at Birchdale but the water was moving fast. 1oz jig worked. Ice was way down from the other day but still could cause some jigging issues occasionally.

So we just decided to leave and try again maybe when we hear people are having more luck up there. Thats my experience anyways.

[maxpower17]

Now I don't feel so bad. The one report of a group catching 40 fish on friday was [PoorWordUsage]. I was up and down the river several times watching every boat and saw only 1 fish caught.

[a_cad1]

We tried a driftsock for about and hour. It did slow us down so we could use a smaller jig (3/8 oz to about 1/2 oz) but the issue we then had was with the ice on the surface usually taking your line all over the place. Saturday the ice was a lot less so jigging was actually pretty easy to do compared to the previous day. The issue is it seems the fish just havent left yet to go up river.

As for the people saying they caught 40 fish, its their story so I cant confirm or deny it but I would have liked to just have caught 1.

Here is an update on what we tried for bait and stuff. We tried every color fireball jig and others tried some other solid color ones. We tried rainbows, shiners, and chubs. We also tried some gulp plastic baits. Nothing seemed to work for us.

If the fishing picks up in the next few weeks I will try again and update you one my success or lack of, but for right now I would need to hear some better reports then mine.

[icollectfrogs]

Fished fri. & Sat. 10 people only 1- 23" walleye was caught, that was caught on Fri. The CO checked us Sat. and said they checked 50 boats and said that no one had caught a keeper

[Jim Panfish Uran]

oh man what a drag. Hope for all that want to make it up there it clears up and starts putting some fish in the boat.

[SM1]

Did anyone try to bother the sturgeon?

[maxpower17]

I tried on Friday and Saturday for a couple hours near Birchdale. Not a bite... Ice was a problem.

[Jake M]

The ice push was about 3 miles west of birchdale, and also about the little fork and bigfork I personally drove right by the motuh of both of those rivers and they still look solid after this cold weather. My guess is next weekend is gonna be the weekend. River was up alot and needed 3/4oz or bigger to anchor fish with. 1/2 worked when drift fishing. And again we seen not 1 walleye boated saturday. Good luck.

[Note from admin: Edited. Please read forum policy before posting agai8n. Thank you.]

[jeepguy]

Jake M. I am supposed to be heading up to fish sunday mon and tuesday of next week. You say you think that next weekend will be the weekend. I am not questioning you, I hope you are right. What makes you think that it will be a good weekend. I would think that the current would tone down now that the gates supposidly have been opened for a 4 or 5 days now. I am hoping that the the debris was flushed out from this and this week the river will naturally clear itself up. But I was curious what your take was.

[2121 WARRIOR]

the info ive got here has been very good...and very informative and typically on the money. this is fishing and unfortunatly somtimes people tend to overrate results and accuracy.

[White-tips]

I just looked at a picture that showed the water up to the bench at Frontier landing. After fishing the Rainy religiously since '89 I can say one thing for sure; if it's up to the bench at Frontier...I'm leaving and waiting until Nov. 1 to go back, or heading to Pelland and praying.

Good luck to all those that try.

The guys that caught 40 must have been ice fishing over by Arnesen's!

[Royal Dutchman]

Haven't seen the river this high in 7 springs. Don't really know what that means for spring fishing but sure don't see anything that tells us it's over.We deal with the "Resort Report" syndrome continuously. We don't see a long term negative to being honest. Those who don't know us may question us but I would beg any of our regular customers to answer if we haven't been completely honest as to conditions. I hate to loose business but my business is as much about next year as this year. True, I will lean positive while others lean negative but I'm a half-full kinda guy. No appologies .The most current report is still what happened yesterday! The most accurate forecast is a SWAG (Scientific Wild-***ed Guess)!The bite is a whole other deal as I have been ramping after a 100 fish day and seen guys throwing fits that there were no "@#$%^&* fish in this @#$%^&* river"! Yes, some guys, even on the "Hellen Keller" days, don't catch.  Why do most fishermen think, "if they don't catch, nobody did"? If you ask for "guaranteed fish" I will say NO, because if you ask, you obviously don't get it (even on the Rainy)!We have not been catching fish. We have seen fish caught. There are fish being caught. Can't confirm a 40 fish catch but have heard from fishermen I trust who have slayed fish when I sucked. I'm good but not infallable.We have not seen much trash. If you're seeing trash you might be fishing with a 1oz. jig, anchoring or some other method that does not fit the conditions. "The good ones adapt".We are able to keep our 3/8 oz jig in the strike range and feel the bottom while slip-drifting and  vertical jigging a bit slower than the current without much trash at all. If you're not, you're doing something different. Boat control is HUGE. Don't expect this to be exactly like other river systems.Frontier landing was open over shore ice today. Hope to fish there Wed.?Heard that Falls were closing gates a bit today so hope conditions will improve.We will keep posting what we see because our people keep asking. Might be different than what you see but don't say it ain't so. I would be quite supprised if we don't have a significant season on the Rainy yet this season. Don't think it was today but maybe tomorrow?