Rainy River Fishing Report

[Ed Carlson]

Despite challenging cool and very wet weather we had a good trip overall.

Caught 2 in the 55" plus range, and a couple in the 53" range, couple 42", and a dozen or so lesser cutie-pie Shoveler"s mixed in the group. Pesky walleye were hard to avoid, and we also caught a few world class ><,sUMo,> Bullheads..Big Burly Beasts..many in fact on one location.

Good trip overall, first Sturgeon for my fishing partner Big Shanon, and he was really pumped to catch a tiny Shoveler and his first Surgeon over 53".

Twilight was the best for larger fish, and the farther up river we fished, Clement Falls and up, the larger the fish appeared to get. Large wads of crawlers with a shot of Gulp Crawler spray or Trigger X was the best producers rigged on 5 O/T Kahle style Gami Shiner hooks. 1.5 oz of lead was plenty to hold and they appeared to us want to pick up the bait better the lighter we rigged.

Lots of fun, we will be back up soon, even farther up river I think.

[topcat3820]

Good stuff, Ed ... is that almost a smile I see on your face ??? Did you fish down by the bay or Wheeler's at all?

[Ed Carlson]

TopCat it was slow there for us around Wheeler's Point.

Seen some huge marks lurking off the first channel lighted bowie, and out near #10 in the bay....but they were not willing to play. The biggest fish were WAY up and busting on the surface at dusk, and we were fishing on the bottom...so...that might be a factor.

So we headed up river and progressively did better each day.

[marine_man]

I don't have any pictures yet from our trip... but the bite was definitely challenging this past weekend.

We seemed to have mixed results no matter where we fished, which included Clementson's, Frontier & 4 Mile Bay.

We had one 50" or so near the Rapid River Downstream of Vida's landing Friday, one 50" or so near the Frontier Landing on Saturday and one 62" Long 16" Girth Sturgeon in 4 Mile Bay on Sunday morning.

It was definitely hit and miss no matter where we seemed to go, and a couple weeks late in my opinion to be targeting bigger numbers of Sturgeon.

Sorry we never got a chance to meet up Ed!

marine_man

[topcat3820]

Quote:

one 62" Long 16" Girth Sauger in 4 Mile Bay on Sunday morning.

That's one heckuva' sauger, m_m... those are almost Lockport kitty proportions .

[Ed Carlson]

Marine_Man I appreciated greatly the sharing of info, it helped in developing a strategy. The cold weather and the crazy barometric pressure ride sure didn't help much.

Had fun, be back soon...ya can count on that.

[marine_man]

Quote:

one 62" Long 16" Girth Sauger in 4 Mile Bay on Sunday morning.

That's one heckuva' sauger, m_m... those are almost Lockport kitty proportions .

Thanks for the catch... that would have been mountable.. that's for sure!

marine_man

[CaptJohnWis]

Went fishing by the dam last night. Water is finally up and decent current so I thought I would give it a shot. Only a few dink walleyes.

[rooz]

hey guys, we were planning on comin up from southern mn on november 5th or so to tangle with the walleye. i think we plan on fishing right by sportsmans most of the time. i just would like some insight since i live so far away. it is starting to look like fall may be here earlier this year and was thinking of coming up a week or 2 sooner. we have come up on halloween in years past and we only did really good once. any ideas or forecasts for best time to go? we plan on bringing a youngster with us and want him to have a good time. thanks boys.

[fiskyknut]

When? Anytime between sep 21 and freeze up they can go nuts!!

Flows and weather make a BIG difference in just how 'good' the river/gap area fishing is at any given timeframe or daily basis during the fall season.

Mid October thru deer season usually reliable iffin conditions have been nice and stable.

[CANOPY SAM]

Fisky, is the river runnin' any better than it was last fall? She was nearly standin' still last year.

[fiskyknut]

Could'nt tell you Sam as I have'nt fished east of LJ's all season this year!!

Sturgeon trip in early May was the last trip east.

That'll soon change though!!

[JimBuck]

Fisky, is the river runnin' any better than it was last fall? She was nearly standin' still last year.

USGS Hydrologic Prediction Service This is helpful.....

[CANOPY SAM]

Great link, JimBuck! Love the Avatar. Thanks.

Hope that level stays up for a while. Hopefully, it'll spur a better shiner run this year!

Thanks again. Can't wait for the eye's to start runnin'!

[Jim Panfish Uran]

Last year it was up in September from what I remember, well at I falls it was. I hope it's a little lower, I think the fishing is better up that way when the water is down.

[KCWalleye]

Any recent reports anyone? Not looking for specifics, but any info will be greatly appreciated. I will be on my way up from KC in a week. Cant wait. Thanks in advnce for any info.

KC

[CANOPY SAM]

Huh. When I was up last October and November the river was barely moving at Morris Point. I imagine the current is always moving quicker at the dam, or at the falls.

Just my experience, but the best years I've seen have been high water years. Current so heavy it was pretty tough to keep contact with bottom. Sounds like we may be in for one of those years. Now we just need the water temp to drop back down!!!

Wish I could give you something KC. I've heard there's been a few decent runs of shiners into the river, but water temps have creeped back up with our warm weather. Sounds like fishing will be realy good just outta the Gap though.

[hnd]

was up last week. fishing started off hot and then really slowed down for at least what we are used to.

water was high flow was high and the normal spots were 4-5ft deeper than normal.

bring your 1/2 oz - 3/4 oz jigs. the normal colors catch fish.

we shallowed up and caught our fish in 10-15ft of water. lots of small fish and lots of small saugeyes.

clementson bay ledge was barely giving up a fish. we had our best success anchoring near the willow tree 30 ft up river from the bay and fishing the washboard dunes just downriver from the ut390 boat ramp.

most fish even big fish nibbled it more than i can ever remember...you have to be patient....not alot of slot fish either....about 10-15 slots including a 27" for the whole week. tons of 12" or less and tons of 14-17" ers. a few 18-19's...enough for the 4 of us to take home big fillets.

[local laker]

Great report thanks!I will be up for 3 days starting saturday.

[Bearfan1963]

Just got back from closing up the cabin. Fished 3 days in Rainy at the mouth of Littlefork and my wife and picked 2-3 14-15" both Thursday and Friday and limited out on Saturday. 3/4 oz jig and minnow. Be prepared for alot of company. Good Luck.

[pullinplugs]

Fished the lake Thursday caught limits in 18 to 21 feet lots of little one with a keeper mixed. Friday fished the river just past Sportsmans before the gap and did awesome. We were using pink 1/2 ounce jigs and some 3/4 pink as well. We cleaned limits again and ate our fill in walleyes. One of the best trips ever great weather and fishing was incredible. Thursday night we caught 4 fish 23 to 25 inches in 2 hours. Friday night another great bite. Fish are in the river and the lake again one of the best trips tshirts and shorts in October.

[hnd]

another tip. being that there aren't many shiners at the bait shops, you get a nice mix of shiners and fatheads....about 50% of the fatheads are small and about 90% of the shiners are small.

big minnows seemed to get found and bit on the best. buy twice what you normally buy and sort and use the big ones first. both fatheads and shiners caught equal amounts of fish.

big was key with the high water....however looking at the flow and height up there, its gone down some....

[CRAZYEYES]

We were up last friday near birchdale and frontier and did well. The bigger ones were not that far up yet but we had plenty of action and had no problems getting limits of nice eating walleyes and saugers. LOts of fat 16 inchers and lots of 12 to 15 inch saugers and the 3 of us got close to 50 fish and had lots of bite offs. We had frozen shiners but did much better on fatheads. Water was a high but not bad and its still pretty warm about 56 -58 degrees. It seemed like the brighter the jig the better and and oarnge fireball was about as good as it got. Watch out because the road construction is bad through there, its down to rutted gravel on the highway and theres some areas that you have to stop for flag guys.

[Rick Reisewitz]

That was a fun day up on the river crazyeyes. Thanks for having me up we will have to try getting up there again. That was a fun drive out of there with no flag guys and a one lane road.

[CRAZYEYES]

I see I was up drunken typeing last last night. It was jeffs birthday. I did get your email pics.

[jwmiller33]

water temp was between 53-56 for the past 3 days when we were up there, so its still a tad too warm for the big push to come from the lake to the river... it was windy as all heck each day, which made getting out on the lake an adventure and made fishing out there tough. a lot of fish to be caught out in the lake still, as the big push of fish hasnt made its way up the river yet. still fish being caught in the river, but not many big ones [yet] or the numbers.

we stayed at borderview, and had a boat slip, and last night after dinner i decided to take the boat out and go drop a line down for sturgeon at 11pm. as soon as i got my line down in the water, it was non stop action for as long as i was out there.... when i was reeling in the first fish, i was looking around in the boat for the net, then i realized we left it up at the cabin from when we brought the fish up there to clean. so i landed all my sturgeon by hand, which was an experience all in itself... it was awesome because i was the only boat out there and there was no wind. the sturgeon were huuuuuuungry too... makes me think why mess with the crowds during the day if you can hit them just as good at night? that way a guy can spend all his time during the day chasing eyes. when i was sturgeon fishing last night (in about 28 fow), i shined my headlamp down into the water, and ALL i saw was shiners... hundreds and hundreds of them... it was insane... i started just reaching down with our minnow net and scooping and catching the shiners up and throwing them in the minnow bucket. never seen so many minnows moving up a river at one time before... last night was a pretty cool experience in many, many ways

[KCWalleye]

Great post JW. Thanks for the info. I was wanting to ask you a couple of questions about the sturgeon fishing. Would you email me at [email protected].

Any other recent reports fellas? I leave KC this week for some days on the river and my own thoughts were that it is going to be great timing for the river run. Hope to see some of you there.

[hnd]

we too set out at night to see if the walleye would cooperate, but only the sturgeon did. caught my pb 51" the first night and had a 55" another night. they are a blast to see swimming down below the boat but once hooked on medium action gear, i'll just put it in the rod holder for 10-15 minutes and let them wear themselves out, jump a few time and then bring them in. lol.

[LivingTheDream]

Where were you fishing at? And what were you using for bait? We are going to be up there this weekend and would love to hook into one of those beast.

[Tyler Holm]

I'm heading up this coming weekend too. Sturgeon fishing expedition. What was the hot bait for sturg? Was there a certain time of evening that was better? How heavy of sinker? Thanks guys. Really looking forward to this fall sturgeon safari!