Rainy Trip 9/2/16 - 9/4/16

[BigPikeGuy]

So I just got back from an amazing trip to Rainy with my girlfriend and a couple of friends.  We camped and fished on the East end of the lake and caught around 60 walleyes, 10 smallmouths, and 5 pike.  Our biggest walleyes were 22", but over half were 19" to 21".  We had pretty strong South winds the entire trip and had to find some new spots because I'm used to West winds or calm winds while I'm up there.  The walleyes were deep and I think every one of our fish came from 25' or deeper.  I'll lay out what didn't work, what I wished we would have tried, and what did work! 

Casting and trolling big cranks, spoons, and spinners DID NOT catch any pike on shallow reefs (10' or so).  We should have tried some weed beds, but I don't think there are a whole lot of them on the East end.  Maybe we should have cruised back to the Brule Narrows area to try for big pike.

I purchased $30 worth of big redtail chubs and creek chubs with plans to try them on big lindy rigs, but I forgot to leave my aerator on in the boat the first night and they all died!!!    We had leeches, nightcrawlers, and small fatheads.  Leeches caught quite a few fish, minnows caught just a few, and nightcrawlers sucked.  We caught 20 walleyes and 10 smallies in 8 hours of live bait rigging.  Because it was so windy, we had to fish some reefs near islands.  I tried current areas near islands, but nothing seemed to be stacking up there.

Finally in the middle of the day on Saturday, I convinced everyone to try some leadcore trolling after catching just a few fish and marking a bunch on some mid lake reefs.  Fishing deep reef structure (45' to 35') we caught 40 walleyes and 5 pike in 4 hours of fishing.  Our biggest pike was only 28".  We had 3 lines out and had numerous doubles and even a legitimate triple!  I was happy too because none of the fish were getting gut hooked and they came to the surface slower than when we were live bait rigging so their body's weren't as stressed.  It was kind of funny, because the guys fishing the reefs with live bait were not having much luck and our net was flying nonstop! 

Oh, and the hiking and scenery were beautiful was well!

[lzika]

I enjoyed reading your report.  Nice pics.  It's tough to beat camping on Rainy and it's much easier now to get a great site with the new reservation system in place.  Did anybody jump off the cliff in Anderson Bay?  I'm curious as how you fished the lead core?  I've never tried it, but would like to...what's the set-up?

Thanks!

Luke Z.

[BigPikeGuy]

Izika,

           Ha, ha, no jumping off of that cliff for us!  It's only like 10 feet deep next to the cliff!

           Leadcore is too complicated to explain on this site, but here is a decent article:  http://doctorsonar.com/blogs/educational-articles/12382669-lead-core-trolling-tutorial.  Also, I use a double Willis Knot with fluorocarbon instead of braid like this guy suggested.

[lzika]

BigPike,

Thanks for posting the link to that article.  I hope to give it a try next summer.  I believe trolling lead core is common on Lake of the Woods, but I don't know too many fishermen who do it here on Rainy.  I could be wrong, though.  Thanks for the insight!

Luke Z.