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Rainy River Fishing Report


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Awesome pics Jonny! We're leaving this Wednesday night to be on the water by 8 Thursday morning. Those pics really get me excited to get up there!

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fished the 9th and 10th only caught 7 walleye one 28" fish the biggest my dad has ever caught so that was exciting but the rest were under 17". every one we talked to said the bite was slow and all small fish and just a big one here and there. nice two days on the water though. Or trip was not as good as last year but it was still better than work.

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Fished east of Vidas on Sunday afternoon. Could only pull one sturgeon between three guys in four hours. Heavy current compared to earlier in the week, lots of debris in the water and water clarity had gone from close to two feet to about 8 inches. Talked to some others who said they had luck with spinners and 2 to 3 ounce sinkers to hold in the current. Tried shallow and the junk on your line made it impossible. Waiting now for sturgeon season or until the bays open and going for big pike. Best of luck the last two days.

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Made the run up there hoping to fish today and tomorrow. But we called it a day after a couple of hours. The current is much faster than before the weekend. It took a 1/2oz jig to get down and the water is much more dirty. We found 6-8 inches of visibility. We caught one sucker and that was it in the same areas we caught a few last week. The river has changed greatly in a couple of days. Lots of run off from all of the little creeks and drainage ditches. Not many boats out there today but most were running around and searching. Time to start thinking about next season's spring run.

Jason Erlandson

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Yep, friends of mine fished it till 3 today, plan was to come in and pick me up, but river too fast and dirty. We wnet ice fishing instead. Caught more in an hour than they did all day.

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Camped at Frontier from Thursday afternoon till I got home an hour ago. Fishing was decent Friday and Saturday with our biggest one being 28" on Sunday. Sunday showed a little slower bite for us and today was almost non existant. Water today was pretty dirty with visability around 8" or so. Lots of grass, leaves and other good stuff in the water too. Fished from two miles up from Frontier down to Clementson and then some. Tried 4 mile this afternoon with little luck. Clairity was down there too. Dissapointing to come home a day early but maybe try for some Crappies on Birch in the morning to make up for it.

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I am heading up this weekend and was wondering if there were any predictions for the sturgeon bite?

I see there is rain and warm temps in the forecast...

I called yesterday and the fella I spoke with said people were averaging 10 sturgeon/boat/day. We are only targeting sturgeon.

Any input is appreciated.

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I saw more sturgeon boated this past weekend than in the past couple years during the spring. Maybe I was just paying more attention to others being my jig wasn't drawing a lot of action. I might go Sat....hopefully the water/current goes down some. The white church seemed to produce pretty well for a lot of folks. We tied into several there but tried to play them too quickly as we wanted to move onto Walleyes instead.

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Has anyone been out the past day or two? Hows the current, water vis and fishing? Heading up with a group on friday. Thanks for any info.

Duck

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Guys have been fishing sturgeons in the Bay and thru town and catching quite a few lately, we were ice fishing in front of the lighthouse gap yesterday 21ft. and I got one 46" and my helper caught one 40" and a freind of mine got one 48" also 9 of us got our limits of eyes and saugers on frozen shiners. biggest was 28 1/2" Monday afternoon and evening 5 of us got did great also, I did a double TWO 32" half hour apart one weighed 11.6 the other one weighed 11.2 if I knew how to put pics on here I have alot. stop in anytime to see some awsome pictures. Yes the sturgeons are biting one group just stopped in as I wrote this and they caught 27 today biggest 61" good luck guys, Steve @logcabinbait oh yeah there was 15 boats in the gap as we were fishing they were about 1/2 mile from us. we were in pickups lol 42 in. of ice

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Not to be the guy to say it but the water today was super muddy with lots of debri and wicked current. I had to step up to 5oz sinkers to hold down.

Seen a few stumps go by and lots of weeds before I found myself on the wrong side of the ice jam leaving the Rapid River so I went up to Vidas to find the water just as muddy with lots of debri floating around. Guessing the forks broke open last night? Anybody drive past them today?

It is going to be a few days before this stuff clears up.

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Steve, you can email the pixs to me and I will get them up for you. Or next time I am up, I will stop in and do a little on site educating for you.

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Walleye fishing was really good for us on Friday and Saturday. We managed over 50 each day, with the biggest being 31 x 17.5.

Sunday was tougher as there was higher water, more current, and dirtier water. Sturgies were hard to come by, but we caught some nice eyes up to 28". Monday the river was higher and faster yet, with visibility at 10-12 inches. We scratched out 23 walleyes, but it got progressively more difficult throughout the day. By the end, we were looking at about 6 inches of visibility. Tuesday morning, we walked down and took a look at the river, and decided to go home. River was cranking more than ever. Visibility down even more yet, and lots and lots of debris. Icebergs, trees, branches, grass, leaves, etc. Looked to me like the Little Fork had busted loose. Saw lots of water flowing north on the way home. Time to call the Rainy Season for me. All in all it was a good time. I learned some valuable things that I can use in future high water years.

Will post more report and some pictures as soon as I get some more time!

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Just got back from 2 days on the River.. Far different river then last friday.. we never caught a walleye yesterday and started our sturgeon fishing early..my partner lost a sturgeon in the 70+ inch class in the first 1 minute of fishing on his walleye rod 4lb test (targeting walleyes still).. saw the fish finally after about 45 minutes and lost it 10 minutes later.. hook came out.. I wouldn't doubt that fish would have weighed 100 pounds. A true giant.. at least we now know the one we're after! Truly Unbelievable thats all I can say.

Only hooked one more in the evening a 48".. A couple guys we know landed a 66" on walleye gear.. we varified the picture.. two guys holding it.. nice fish. It reassured us we had seen a once in a lifetime fish.. well, we're both hoping TWICE in a lifetime crywinkgrin

the little fork is wide open.. it was not open on the way up tuesday morning.. tons of ice at around 8PM from the little fork downstream for about 7-8 miles.. the bigfork is going to follow suit very soon. We fished mostly in the bay and managed 4 sturgeon today and lost one all in the low 40's.. everyone we talked to hammered them in the morning before we got out on the water.. just our luck. we weren't out there until 930-10AM. could be interesting when that ice makes it downstream!

I hope the river clears up.. I wan't to make one more trip!

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Will the river be mostly free of debris (trees, logs, and such) by this weekend? Just wondering how many days it will take to clear out.

Thanks

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I to would like to know. Heading up tomarrow morning but if its not worth my time I dont want to waste the money.

Duck

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Guys have been fishing sturgeons in the Bay and thru town and catching quite a few lately, we were ice fishing in front of the lighthouse gap yesterday 21ft. and I got one 46" and my helper caught one 40" and a freind of mine got one 48" also 9 of us got our limits of eyes and saugers on frozen shiners. biggest was 28 1/2" Monday afternoon and evening 5 of us got did great also, I did a double TWO 32" half hour apart one weighed 11.6 the other one weighed 11.2 if I knew how to put pics on here I have alot. stop in anytime to see some awsome pictures. Yes the sturgeons are biting one group just stopped in as I wrote this and they caught 27 today biggest 61" good luck guys, Steve @logcabinbait oh yeah there was 15 boats in the gap as we were fishing they were about 1/2 mile from us. we were in pickups lol 42 in. of ice

Here ya go Steve.

trophys004.jpg

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Sweet 'eye! smile I was the fellow fishing with Casey who lost that scud... frown Almost an hour fighting that thing...unreal is all I can say! Casey did a great job chasing it down with the electric and positioning the boat so I could fight it.

The only fish I've seen that compared was a 100 pound sail I caught off Mazatlan. It was to be my first time sturgeon fishing, and we'd just started jigging 'eyes...I'm hooked!

Paul.

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Guys have been fishing sturgeons in the Bay and thru town and catching quite a few lately, we were ice fishing in front of the lighthouse gap yesterday 21ft. and I got one 46" and my helper caught one 40" and a freind of mine got one 48" also 9 of us got our limits of eyes and saugers on frozen shiners. biggest was 28 1/2" Monday afternoon and evening 5 of us got did great also, I did a double TWO 32" half hour apart one weighed 11.6 the other one weighed 11.2 if I knew how to put pics on here I have alot. stop in anytime to see some awsome pictures. Yes the sturgeons are biting one group just stopped in as I wrote this and they caught 27 today biggest 61" good luck guys, Steve @logcabinbait oh yeah there was 15 boats in the gap as we were fishing they were about 1/2 mile from us. we were in pickups lol 42 in. of ice

Here are some more pictures

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WHAT A WAY TO END THE SEASON

trophys016.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's is a sturgeon report from this last weekend. We are about a week off of the main sturgeon run on the upper tributaries. From what I have heard they are doing alot better from Birchdale downstream to Baudette.

There were alot of suckers caught, but not alot of sturgeon from what I saw. Redhorses spawn at 50-55 degrees so they are starting to run now, it will be another 5 degrees before we see numbers of Dinosaurs running. The size of the run is also dependent on the year classes available, and whether or not they spawned last year. Female Sturgeon spawn every 4-9 years, Males spawn every 2 years. Some females have an internal body clock that requires them to spawn at higher temps, so stragglers will be running up the tribs for awhile.

We fished the mouth of the Black, Bigfork, and Littlefork rivers. As I mentioned I saw very few sturgeon caught. My boat boated two all weekend(38" and 47") and my buddies boat boated two on Saturday(20" and 49"). Spent all day Sunday at the mouth of the Littlefork and out of the 20 boats we could see, none of them boated any Sturg that I saw.

Here's a couple of the pics. My buddy Paul kept his 49" for the smoker and Ashley kept the 47" for the smoker.

Here's Parker's 38"

DSCF0318.jpg

Ashley fighting her fish

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Ashley's 47"

DSCF0331.jpg

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We fished the same area saturday and sunday morning. Mostly fished the Black as we stayed in Loman. We boated 12 between 3 of us, 10 on saturday and 2 on sunday. We left around 11:00 sunday morning. We had three aronud 20", eight between 40"&49" and the biggest 55". Other than the wind we had a good time. Looks like we fished next to each other. I see my brothers Suburban in one of your pics at the landing. We each kept one in the slot for the smokers as well.

DSCN0073.jpg

One of my two 49" sunday morning

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Yeah the Black was definately the best. We were there Saturday morning and watched you guys catch a few. In fact, we started there Sunday morning too, I believe we were just upstream of you on Sunday. We only fished about 1.5 hours there on Sunday cuz we ran out of crawlers...we were the groups whose anchor rope broke when we were leaving. Good to see you got into 'em.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I was fishing by the airport Friday and caught some keepers. I was using a green and white glow jig w/frozen shiners. windy here today but I will go out and try it again today. South wind so the river will be ok.

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  • 3 months later...

The current is slow on the river right now. Easy to fish. Sturgeon are really biting. A few bigger walleyes are starting to show up too. Not much of a shiner run yet but I guess some are starting to move.

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