2020 Rainy Lake Fishing Reports & Conditions

[SledNeck]

crawler bite was on fire for us yesterday

[aberg22]

Any Updates 12 More Days Till I Will Be In Gods Country.

[aberg22]

Has The Fishing Been That Good Nobody Has Time To Post Updates? 9 More days

[SledNeck]

To be honest the fishing is always good. This time of year especially

[CaptJohnWis]

Last two days have been the slowest I have had all year. On Wednesday last week I caught 15 walleyes on the reefs. All but one were 25" or bigger. Yesterday not one over 20". Day before that only a couple around 25". I did hear that the early morning bite was good yesterday from one angler. But I have not been out till after 9:00 a.m.

You can always catch eaters on live bait but I am not looking for those.

Mayflies have been hatching every day for a month or more. Some of those days were great fishing so that doesn't matter much. Marked lots of fish yesterday but they were not biting. Last spot I tried was loaded with bait and bigger fish. Thought I would hammer them - notta. Did get one big pike on ultra-lite tackle in yesterday and that was fun.

No sense worrying about anything till you get here. Things can change overnight. You can always catch pike trolling cranks and sometime big walleyes as well. If walleyes are not hitting on the reefs, try trolling or casting the banks. I don't fish deeper than 30 FOW - it is too hard on the fish and many die (days later), even if released immediately. My guess is the fish have moved very deep but there are always some along shore and in the weeds.

[aberg22]

Thanks John Keep On Postin Love Reading Updates Even The Not So Good Ones. Maybe They Are Just Taking A Break And Waiting For Me To Catch And Release Them.

[MAdDuckiceroads]

So if your not using live bait when looking for big fish what are you using.

[CaptJohnWis]

Look at my Capt. John Rainy Lake Report photos on this site. They show all of the soft plastics, crank baits, and spoons that I use.

Quit live bait decades ago. If I were to use live bait it would be hard to find up here. I prefered large red-tail chubs and small suckers. 5-7 inch size was my fav. And big nite crawlers on a split shot rig. Course with the crawlers you will get lots of dinks chewing off the tail. But my very first trip to Rainy over 40 years ago, crawlers were all I used and I went through 1500 in a week. Got tons of nice bass and walleyes.

But now I don't worry about finding live bait and keeping it healthy. Also no problem crossing the border.

[fishing_fire]

wow, sounds like the bite is still going strong. new to the forum here.

heading up to Rainy in about a week and a half. looking forward to it.

any good tips you all would care to share?

[Scott99]

Tough bite today. Hard to find many fish anywhere. Yesterday was decent in brûlé area. Anyone finding the eyes out there?

[ezekiel]

The fish are scattered in depths, but on structure. We caught them every which way, every which presentation. Lots of fish show up, but a lot of them were lock-jawed. really fun though.

[Barry45]

Well, I am heading to Lake of The Woods tomorrow. Probably will not be back to Rainy ever. Was there in June, and while staying at Woody's the last night I had forgotten to remove my Rainy/LOW 3D vision chip from the Garmin. That was an expensive mistake. Sure enough it was not there when I got back home. Someone up there just can't keep their hands off other peoples property.

Pretty sad.

[fishhound]

Sorry to hear someone ripped you off.

My dad always told me that if I didn't put my stuff away someone would put it away for me. Even putting gear in the truck isn't enough anymore. It takes 5 trips hauling gear to the room. Nothing is safe anywhere. Lake of the Woods included. Good luck on your trip.

[Mike Walerak]

Fished the east end of Rainy Lake the 12th-16th and found the fishing to be spotty but good overall. Jig and minnow or crawler seemed to get the fish in the early morning and they showed a preference to lindy's with leeches in the late morning and afternoon. Fish were mainly in 27-33 fow on the reefs and didn't do much on the shoreline breaks. Had plenty of slot fish on each outing and enough for The key was to keep moving and pick off the biters and move on. Did get a few on jig and flukes but not many.

mw

[hitthebricks]

Sorry to hear that! 12+ years at Thunderbird Lodge with 3-6 couples all with nice booats with nice electronics and equipment and have never had a problem

Thats one of the draws for us. I would hate to see it change.

HTB

[Scott99]

Any reports from brule to kettle falls? Was there 2 weeks ago and bottom bouncers with leeches was definitely the best for quantity and all sizes.

Headed back up to kab/nam/east rainy in 2 days.

[xPSExBrute]

Hey fellas I'm making a trip up to voyager at the end of January and was wondering if it would worth going and spending a day traveling up to rainy and trying for some eyes. It would be my first time fishing rainy. I have GPS with lake master chip so I will be able to find structure pretty easy. Can anyone give me some tips on what depths I could find some walleyes? Any info is greatly appreciated. Good luck fishing!

[David VanDeWater]

Is anyone going to keep track of water temperatures? Just wondering...I will be up there the week after memorial day and would like as much data as possible to plan my fishing trip! Thanks to anyone with information.

[agkimm]

Rained like crazy last week and again on Monday of this week. When we got there for walleye opener on Saturday it was 41 degrees in the river and when we left it was at 45 degrees water temp. That warmup might have changed some things. River was also up a couple of feet from the prior week.

[iceman16]

I'll also be up the week after the holiday weekend. Staying on an island outside of Rainer. Shoot me an email we exchange reports if ya want.

Iceman

[NoviceFisherman]

Stayed at the Kettle Falls Hotel Friday night (5/16) thru Tuesday morning (5/20). Ice appeared to leave Rainy on Monday. Main lake was ~40-41F. On Sunday we got as far west as Hole in the Wall on the west end of Friendly Passage before the floating ice sheet stopped us. Fished Stokes Bay, Pipestone river inlet, Pound Net Bay, Friendly Passaage, Hale Bay and the Bear River with zero luck. Caught a few fish (say two a day) below the Kettle Falls Dam and by bouy 6 in the channel. Probably 10-12 boats competing with you when in the channel. Switched to the Namakan side on Monday and made a trip to Crane Lake. That was clear of ice. Finally caught fish in the mouth of the Namakan river. Few boats in Namakan. Put zero action on the jig - just drag it. That worked much better than putting any action on the jig what so ever.

[northernfishin]

Tooled around yesterday. 60 degrees in black bay, 49 in lost bay, 45 in cranberry bay, 41 out in the middle of the lake by community reef. No fish. Don't know where to go for them as it was first solo on lake without people who knew where to go.

[northernfishin]

Slow day today. Marked fish sparatically deep in 30+fow. No takers for eyes but managed a few snakes.

[OnAFly]

Just got back from the NW Arm. Found walleyes to be very scattered. Only males were caught, all were milting. On Friday, fish were more grouped outside of spawning areas on points. By Sunday, they were very hard to find. A few fish here, a few there, but nothing was consistent. Biggest caught was only 20.5"

Pike were in the bays and on rock shelves off points. Biggest caught was only 30" (on my fly rod ) but several of them were caught.

Perch were in all of our walleye spots. We caught more big 10-12.5" perch this trip than the rest of our trips combined. That was a nice bonus.

By Sunday, bass were up shallow. We caught a few nicer ones, with 18" being the biggest.

There was some complaining up there from some people who drove a very long ways about the new pike rule. No keeping above 29.5". IMO, it's a good thing. I'd like to see a few more big pike around. I did keep two 24" from the trip.

[terickson]

Had a little time to drop a line after getting the cabin all squared away for the season during this quick trip to Redgut. Lots of boats during Memorial weekend, lots of them moving around which tells me fish were elusive. Fish weren't yet in the shallows up there.

Found the largest stock of eyes along ridges at 22-23 FOW or suspended at that same in depths of 30. Vertical jigging in a slow troll and/or drift worked best for us - faster speeds with spinning baits were weak.

I expect things to change quickly up there - water temps gained about 6-8 degrees from Sat to Monday during the July warmth.

[zanzibarro]

Fished Canadian side 3 full days (May 29-31). A blast. Best weather we have ever had up there in the 80's light breeze. Little rain Saturday but some cloud cover was needed by then to help sun burn!

Water temps were 67-70 degrees near Turkey Island and NW Bay. Rebecca Island was much colder at about 62 degrees I assume due to later ice out. The Big Three were all caught in 10 FOW or less. They were fighting for space along those rocky shorelines as they all appeared to invade the shallows at same time.

Northern (hang on!) - Never seen such ferocious Pike in my 30 years of fishing. Was fun at first, but as Walleye guys we eventually got sick of them. Literally every 7 minutes they were on. Devouring stick baits, light jigs tipped with minnows or plastics, slip bobber, anything. Biggest for us was a fat 39 on a 3 inch white gulp/twister (1/8 oz silver jig). So if headed there for pike this week you're in luck - the Pike guys we spoke to were averaging DOZENS of pike over thirty inches each day.

Walleye (dad you're down!) - Tough to get sick of the old thill bobber disappearing below the surface. Lot of Walleye this trip. First 24 hours (wed night to Thursday late afternoon) we wasted time fishing deeper spots. Sometimes hard not to try the confirmed honey holes. Zero over 17 inches during this time. Fished only 10 fow or less rest of trip and were able to land probably 20-25 over 20 inches with my Dad PB 28.5 coming on a slip bobber Friday night in 6 feet. 15-17 inchers were plentiful the whole time; could easily catch 10-15 in an hour when bite was on. I firmly believe we could have caught more 20 plus if not for the psycho pike! Noteworthy is we did not land many 25-27 inchers. Maybe one. A lot of 19-24. In terms of location the larger ones were scattered in the shallows. We would hit a rock pile, wind blown point, basic stuff really, and work it for 20-25 minutes w slip bobber or light jigs. Or just pick a shore line and pitch jigs non stop. Again we put away husky jerks, max rap, etc. to save $ from psycho pike snapping line.

Smallmouth are also hungry. Although we spent maybe 4 hours dedicated to SM, we caught a ton just in the walleye pattern. They are all over the rocky shorelines and we noticed they were hottest near huge boulders (awash). I suppose that is no news flash. But the best spot we hit was a narrow channel (about 1 mile long) connecting to two main basin areas. Wind was sweeping through there and it was full of boulders. This is no lie we caught them there every 2-3 casts. All between 14 - 18 inches I would say. They ignored my brother DT 4 but were fanatical about green moxie and Dad and I could not believe how shallow they seemed to pick up the jig. Seemed like 18 inches or less.

If you're heading up there for a trip and have any other questions feel free to PM I will do best to help because I know how excited I get prior a trip to rainy.

[OnAFly]

Sounds like I was there a weekend too early

[Berng]

Z,

Thanks so much for the great report!

Berng

[northernfishin]

So far this weekend on the merca side. The water is coming down! Hurray! I had the privilege of staying at a friends cabin on grindstone and I would say the water went down a noticeable amount from Friday to Saturday. Voyagers landing should be fully exposed by the end of this weekend. All other landings are open including Bowman's!

Fishing was hit or miss. Friday evening we got into a spot on a small reef where we couldn't catch them fast enough on jig and chubs in 23FOW. Marked many schools in 18-25ft. Saturday we went out early and it was slow. We used everything from jig on bottom to lindy with worm and leech. Lindy rig caught the biggest eyes. Minnows caught eaters. Fish where anywhere between 35-23fow. We even caught some eaters in 8fow. Got some nice pike too using bass plastics.

Color choices didn't seem to make a difference. But with the water as turbid still from the flooding I prefer pink orange and yellow or green.

Heading out today to go out past the brule and fish. I will report back.

[CaptJohnWis]

including Bowman's!

that is great news. No more long boat rides to get to North Arm.