Rainy River Highlights

[BIGFISH.JZ]

Now that the river is accessible, we're all thinking about it, or getting the boat ready to fish it. I'd like to understand why is it so popular. Lets share our most memorable day or trip fishing the Canadian border water. If you have a horror story instead, share it please.

 

I personally have never hit the spring walleye spawning run when the hogs are chomping all day. But I have some unbelievable (literally) sturgeon stories that I'll have to sort through and decide what one to share that's not only epic, but also believable.

Lets get those fish tales flowing.... What memory makes the Rainy the place to be?

That's me, almost there, a few years ago.

[ANYFISH2]

After 21 years of fishing the spring run, stories are endless!  That is the main reason I continue to go, it is always an experience.

 

Our best seasons fishing wise, were probably 2010 and 2012.  Numbers those seasons were incredible 70 to 80 fish per person in the boat.  2010 high numbers and 50 fish over 25" over 2 days.

My best experience was 2 years ago taking my then 10 yr old for the first time.  Ok numbers and size, but to see my boy battle through being cold and bored at times to fish 10+ hours each day, gave me a new respect for him.  I could not have done that when I was his age.

He also taught his old man a lesson.  The whole first day I was preaching to him to stay vertical to avoid snags and sturgeon.  Day 2 begins, and here he starts casting out and dragging his jig back to the boat as we slip drift.  I scold him, next second he casts again!  I give him a sarcastic look, then he sets the hook, rod stresses and drag peels! I ask if its a snag or a sturgeon? He just says its a big fish.  Sure enough, he catches a 29.5" 10 lb 1 oz walleye!  Dont listen to dad i guess!

 

Horror stories!

The worst was, being in line at the Vidas access on a 20° morning and watching a truck back up to unload and start to slide down the ramp, dropping the trailer off the end of the concrete.  Boat still attached to the trailer but floating and hung up on the bow "roller".  Site manager, one of their group, and our group try as we might to free the boat from the trailer.  Site manager and thier fellow are at the bow trying lift the boat when it frees while in reverse.  This slams the bow down on the roller with both guys hand smashed between!  So much blood!  Good thing we had a quality 1st aid kit to wrap hand and stop the bleeding.  Both got a ride to the hospital.

 

Weirdest experience was I believe in 2010.  We were fishing down river from Frontier.  Alot of boats around and a ton of fish being caught.

All of a sudden we hear someone hollar from across the river on the Canadian side. This continues for a while, the area(lots of boats) is silent, no one else is talking, others shut down thier motors to listen.  For i dont know how long we get to hear, what seems to be an intoxicated angler verbally demolish his fishing partner "Brad".  All I know is the phase "f*@^ you Brad" will forever be burned into our memory! They speed off back towards Frontier, almost losing a passenger on hole shot.  The river remains silent for sometime.  Until a random spectator lets out one more "F##& you Brad", the whole river breaks out in a  collective laughter!

 

And then there are the Forks, They have "ruined" a number of years the day we arrived.  Little devils.

[BIGFISH.JZ]

That is a hog!! I've seen unorthodox tactics produce so many times, I don't correct 'wrong' presentations anymore. Fish don't read the articles or watch the informative videos like we do. I have scored many times by 'thinking outside the box'. One day the sturgeon were mostly 5' off bottom, we caught several using bobbers, my GF lost the biggest one I've ever seen, that day. It was about 2X as big as the 100#+ fish I got the year before. I would have thought she was snagged if we weren't fishing suspended.

[leech~~]

4 hours ago, ANYFISH2 said:

Dont listen to dad i guess!

 

 

 

May be you were hearing "F##& you Dad" 

[BIGFISH.JZ]

I think I have decided on my best Rainy River memory.... It wasn't even the day I caught 15 sturgeon myself.

It was day 3 of a 3 day trip, fishing (sturgeon) had been good. We got up early and the temperature was 20°, windchills in the single digits. We had to decide to fish the miserable conditions or just turn the heat on in the truck and put Baudette in the rear view. I argued that we are warm now and have a warm 3 hr drive so we might as well go fishing till we're cold, as long as we're here. We went to a spot close to the landing and right away we were catching fish.... BIG FISH!! You couldn't have gotten us off that river for ANYTHING!! We caught about 20 sturgeon between the 3 of us, including 6 over 60". The biggest was a HUGE 67" fatty. The boat floor was nothing but a sheet of ice! Not a single word was said about being cold. It was the most amazing feeling that we had made a great choice that frigid morning!! Here's a pic of the 67" my 250+ lb. friend got that morning

 

The funniest thing I've seen on the river was another one of those cold mornings. The temp was in the low 20s and we anchored right in front of the landing. For over an hour we watched as people with those sparkly expensive boats were trying everything they could to get their boats off the trailer. The cheaper boats with roller trailers would launch just fine. Everybody with a bunk trailer that had fished the day before, had wet bunks that froze their $50,000 boats to the trailer. They'd try opening the throttle in gear, backing farther down and pushing by hand for a few minutes and pull out to look for transom straps. Being that there was a very long line, they would let others try and get back in line. We had a front row seat to the circus. To rub salt in the wounds, we were doing pretty good and making it obvious, in my OLD beat up 14' jon boat.