Rainy River Fishing Report

[KCWalleye]

Fish are coming through in waves. We are mainly fishing 22-25 fow or deeper sometimes in the main.channel..pink is our best producer by far still. Caught multiple sturgeon also. 48 being biggest sturg.... Best action for us has been toward Canadian side near the church. Good luck all. Happy fishing.

KC

[rooz]

Annual fall rainy trip was ok. Usually we catch multiple big eyes this time of year but only one 26 was all we got. You can easily catch 50 fish in the lake but not much for size. River was slow so we mainly fished the lake. On the plus side, the Halloween party at sportsmans was as good as always.

[Northdrifter]

Annual trip was great... as far as not catching in the river...you need to fish the river.... I could see a total of 5 boats with in eyesight and we had no problems catching walleyes... We took home our limits of 18+" walleyes and ended up catching (4) that we thru back on Saturday (up to 27"... saw a 29" caught next to us also..)... I'm probably going to go back since I know this is just the start and we may have stumbled onto a wave that had come thru but how can people say there's nothing in the river when there's nobody fishing the river....

Oh yeah.... we were by Frontier.... way up the river...

[JimBuck]

My group fished Rainy 3 weeks ago and did very well in the river. We caught plenty of eyes on the lake but had to resort to river fishing due to strong North winds for 3 days. Ended up having a few 75+ fish days on the river and quality seemed better as well. We were also WAY upstream and only saw a few boats around. It sure beat the circus out by Wheelers and into the lake.

[Mike Stark]

Annual trip was great... as far as not catching in the river...you need to fish the river.... I could see a total of 5 boats with in eyesight and we had no problems catching walleyes... We took home our limits of 18+" walleyes and ended up catching (4) that we thru back on Saturday (up to 27"... saw a 29" caught next to us also..)... I'm probably going to go back since I know this is just the start and we may have stumbled onto a wave that had come thru but how can people say there's nothing in the river when there's nobody fishing the river....

Oh yeah.... we were by Frontier.... way up the river...

Northdrifter,

I'm heading up with my Dad on Friday. We are planning on fishing the river and the lake. Could you share a little more info about how you were fishing? Colors, depth...all that good stuff. Email if you like. [email protected]

Thanks,

Mike

[tacklejunkie]

Heading up tomorrow in the AM.

Thanks to all the deer hunters whio will be hunting and leaving the walleyes to me

[jwmiller33]

TJ, where are you staying? I'm headed up to Baudette in a couple hours and fishing all weekend and staying at Wigwam. It looks like there is going to a a strong SSE wind (15 mph) for most of the day on Saturday. Hopefully that works out well to fish just out from the gap or maybe by the big pine. Hopefully we won't be limited to just fishing the river as it sounds like the bite on the lake is as hot as ever right now. Either way, should be a great weekend and I always look forward to this weekend because all those deer hunters going out in the woods drastically decreases fishing pressure.... which means more fish for us!

[Northlander]

Good luck guys and Starks I hope you got all my replies. Im just getting into the smart phone ages and Im hoping all my replies made it.

[BartmanMN]

29 inch from the River on Wednesday. Way up the river

Fished the lake too, but couldn't find many big ones out there.

[jwmiller33]

Well, the wind sure made this past weekend tough in all aspects, but we battled the wind and waves and caught a good number of fish. Saturday the wind was 15-20 SSE and we first tried the wind sock in the river before we went out into the lake. First fish was a fat 19 inch walleye and we thought we were onto something. That fish was somewhat of a fluke as we only boated a handfull of smaller throwbacks before we decided to head out to the lake. We went out to the gap and fished along the border in various depths from 20-28 FOW. We put 5 fish in the boat and 2 in the box at this spot before we moved on to try and find better action. We headed southeast to the big pine and tried 25 FOW and then moved shallower to 21 FOW with pretty much the same action as out from the gap. We then headed another couple miles southeast and tried similar depth ranges with similar action (good, but not great). At about noon we decided to give the river another shot and tried some of our spots around the Wheelers Point area with not a whole lot of action. Went in for lunch and came back out and decided to make a run up river about 8 miles to the airport. We fished the airport and only managed to boat about 8 fish at this spot, but one was a dandy 24 incher which happened to be the biggest fish of the trip. At the end of the day, we ended up 57 fish total on the clicker and a limit of eaters for each of the 3 of us on board. Our fish went from the livewell to the cleaning house at Wigwam, to the kitchen and eventually to my stomach within 30 minutes (I don't think I have ever had walleye more fresh than that).

Sunday, the wind was even worse and we went out to the lake anyway. We tried out from the gap first at 24-27 FOW while only boating a handful of fish before we decided to make the run to Zippel Bay. When we got to Zippel, we first started out deep (28') and moved shallower. To our surprise, the best action was out deep at 27-28'. Biggest fish was a 22" and we only managed to put about 30 fish on the clicker that day with 10 keepers. The wind pushed us off the lake by 2pm and we decided to go warm up at Wheelers Point resort and grab a bite to eat. Overall, it was a great weekend on the water and it was really nice not to have ot deal with the normal traffic you see out there (only saw 2 other boats on the water on Sunday).

Mike Stark, I think I saw you at Wigwam on saturday morning. You were asking us about the buoys and getting out to the gap. Hope you guys nailed em.

On a side note, on the way out of town we stopped at a track vehicle that was for sale and were asking some questions about it to a lady who worked at the building in front of the track vehicle. Her and her husband live up by Clementson and have been fishing the river a lot the past week and said it has been on FIRE for fish of all sizes. I wish I would have got that bit of info earlier in the weekend but now it gives me another reason to go up there one more time this fall.

[tacklejunkie]

No kidding on the wind..wow.

We stayed in the river and did ok. Shiners and gold jigs. Now I store the boat and wait for spring. I'll also wait for the orange army to leave the woods and do some more grouse hunting

[Mike Stark]

me and my dad just got back from our trip yesterday afternoon. we mainly fished the river due to wind. we did catch some fish around wheelers point the first afternoon but most of them were smaller. we did get one 23in fish there. we fished frontier for 2 days. we did pretty good up there. we boated a 24, 3(23s), and the fattest 22 iv ever seen. we also dropped a couple heavy fish. 13-15fow on the river. we fished the lake when the wind allowed us. we caught more fish on the lake but not as many slot fish. 24-28fow. gold jigs and a shinner.

had a blast fishin with the old man.

[Northdrifter08]

Northdrifter,

I'm heading up with my Dad on Friday. We are planning on fishing the river and the lake. Could you share a little more info about how you were fishing? Colors, depth...all that good stuff. Email if you like. [email protected]

Thanks,

Mike... Your previous request...

Mike,

Sorry I didn't get back to you been kind of busy since I last posted and this is the first time I saw you request... By the looks of it you did quite well... The one area you fished is close to where we fish... I recognized the house in the background...

Glad you did good and I'm hoping I get another chance on getting back up there soon...

[CANOPY SAM]

Saturday found myself and my two sons on the Rainy just off the public landing at Wheelers. We had a little motor trouble so thanks again to the friendly and helpful guys out there who assisted us.

As the weather was cooperative, light wind and mild temps, it may have been our last hurrah on the river, and I'm really happy we chose to go.

Anyone who says there aren't fish in the river yet may be a bit misinformed. We scraped out a beautiful limit of fish for the three of us with nothing under 17 inches. Had to do a little sorting (releasing the smaller 12's and 14's - not culling), but not bad all things considered. One scoop of nice healthy river-caught shiners paid us back with huge dividends. Only two slot fish, and nothing huge, but still a great day of fishing!

I was really surprised to see so many boats on the river so late in the year, but I suppose the weatherman can take credit for that. It was a great day to be out with my sons, and the fish were fat and hungry.

Wish we could squeeze in one more trip as I know there are more fish moving in, and the bite will only intensify, but the forecast doesn't look good. Perhaps for the adventurous and very hardy!

Now we wait for early ice. I think we're going to have a great bite when we can start "walking" out! If I'm not mistaken, I believe the river temp is currently at about 38 degrees.

[tearin' lips]

Start your spring fishing reports here everyone. That way we don't have 30 different threads on one subject.

[drewbop]

Fished river sunday and monday out of frontier. sunday morning we had to push off of about 15' of shelf ice, but when we loaded the boat that night it was all pretty much gone. sunday we caught around 60-70 eyes between 3 guys in a full day of fishing with only 2 biggerish fish at 26". also had a handful of sturgeon which we broke off (we do that on purpose). we were only able to fish a couple miles downstream of frontier until we hit the ice flow.

monday, caught around 70-80 eyes with 4-28"s. it was real slow all morning but in the afternoon we found a pod of fish on a mid river hump and the catchin got good. again, had a handful of sturgeon as well. we were able to fish about 4-5 miles downstream of frontier (that's as far as we wanted to go at the time). we never did see the ice flow, but when we talked with the DNR on our way out of frontier, he said it was open all the way to crawfords, with a little bit of shelf ice.

typical baits were working- jigs with rainbows, no specific color. sunday afternoon it seemed no matter what you put on you would catch something. any plastic, any jig.

we were suppose to be in sioux narrows catching lake trout but decided not to risk it- i think we still had a successful trip, non the less.

[goose89]

Nice write-up. Got pix?

[drewbop]

I tried to post pics, but they obviously didn't work. I hate to say it, but how does one post pics?

[bassbuster1]

Just had some customers check in.They were down at Birchdale and they pounded the walleye's,they said the landing wasn't bad and there were about 15 boats total all day.

BB1

[Mike Stark]

I tried to post pics, but they obviously didn't work. I hate to say it, but how does one post pics?

How to post pics.

[tearin' lips]

Not first hand information, but I heard from a buddy and a few other guys that the fishing is good. More fish are going to enter the river soon, and it will get better. No area is better than another. The reports that I got were from Birchdale, downstream to 4 miles east of Baudette. 30-50 fish days, with a few 24-26" fish spattered in.

[tengauge]

Fished the river sat evening till monday after noon. Other that it being a little windy it was one of the best times ive ever had on the rainy. I saw maybe 10-15 boats all weekend. We mainly fished sturgeon and ended up boating 61 in 2 days, no super giants but the biggest was about 60 inches. Did catch a bunch of eyes also, no big ones biggest about 5lbs. At any given time you could throw a jig and minnow out and catch one which is what we did when we needed a break from the sturgeon. fished between birchdale and frontier for the most part and also a couple spots downstream from frontier a few miles. cant wait to get back up there in a couple weeks!!

[TMF89]

Any hot colors right now? Thanks for the reports guys!

[tengauge]

It didn't seem to matter we used chartruse and pink with a fathead saw guys poundin em on pink heads with white twisters also.

[TMF89]

Sounds good! As for the sturgeon, just the old standby of sinkers, hooks, and crawlers? Were you guys anchored for the sturgeon or still drifting?

[Mike Stark]

Heard from some guys on the river today that the bite slowed compared to a couple days ago. He called it the muddy dead sea.

[gixxer01]

Am I gonna miss the run for the second year in a row! Coming up Friday for the weekend. How heavy of a jig does a guy need?

[BartmanMN]

They haven't ran yet that I've heard, so you haven't missed anything.

[shamrock7]

Was able to stay on the bottom with a 1/4 but a 3/8 was better.

[fishuhalik]

you should be fine gixxer. this year it should clear up pretty quick.