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Rainy Lake Fishing Reports by Capt John


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they all were shallow until this cold weather arrived. Bass still on banks but I got a few walleyes in about 18 FOW. Hot today so I am hopeful for a much better bite tomorrow. Too windy today for me to go out but that should help warm the water faster.

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These yo-yo weather/water temps sure must be messing with the fishing. Looked like there would still be ice the end of June, then thought the water would be 80 degrees by the end of June, now heading back to ice! ? Have you noticed how the weed growth has been going with all the temperature changes or are you out in deeper water more and haven't noticed?   

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Thanks for the information. Always enjoy your posts and videos! I will post a report when we get to fishing!

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Deep cabbage is only about a foot or two high. Shallower junk weeds about half way up.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Nice report and very nice video John. I hope everyone reading appreciates it with a like and a sharing of their own fishing adventures. ?

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Thanks John!

 

Heading up on Friday night.  My dad has been up fishing the North Arm all week.  Sounds like it has been a tough bite with the weather all over the board.......Hoping we get some stability and can dial in a pattern for next week.

 

Edited by hydrashack
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Heading up on Friday for a week.  Can't wait!  We usually fish smallmouth, walleyes and northern.  May give the crappies a try this year.  We never fish them and could use some tips and tactics if anyone is willing.

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators
48 minutes ago, Mugsterdad said:

Heading up on Friday for a week.  Can't wait!  We usually fish smallmouth, walleyes and northern.  May give the crappies a try this year.  We never fish them and could use some tips and tactics if anyone is willing.

Keep us updated on the fishing when you are up there please. We really like the pics and video too if you get them.

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18 hours ago, CaptJohnWis said:

Deep cabbage is only about a foot or two high. Shallower junk weeds about half way up.

Thanks for the update. Come on sun!

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Good luck to all! Have not fished crappies up there but have seen people come in from Black Bay this time of year with beautiful catches of slab crappie. Twister tails and spinners is the word that I have heard. Might try it a little next week.

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Heading up to Monday to camp in Lost Bay for the week. Usually go all the way to Sag Bay later in year but decided on closer and earlier this year.  Thanks John, for the Video's and info on conditions.   Bringing up 9 yr old and 11 yr old boys to turn them onto the outdoors and get them away from home.  The kids will force me to not take the fishing so serious.......    Hot bite or not, Looking sooooo forward to the camping, cooking, exploring and the excuse to just be a be a kid again.

Will return to share our exploits!

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Fishing very slow again today. Only 17 fish and I put in a loooong day. Burned 12 gallons of gas which is about 60 miles with my motor. Tried everything and got bites on all but just one here and one there. Shallow, deep,humps, points, rocks, weeds,  jigs, cranks, surface lures all produced at least one fish but just could not find any numbers. My shallow walleye spot that has produced some great catches in June yielded nothing. Water was 61 when I started and 68 when I quit. Many of the fish were decent size.

Weeds were just starting to come up in a shallow bay way up in North Arm. 

 

Upload did not work again (after 20 minutes of uploading) so you will have to watch on You Tube.

Rainy Lake 2018-6-7 videp

 

 

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Bassquatch sighted in western Ontario and she was angry. Unfortunately none of her relatives showed up. Yesterday was epic topwater bite (not Rainy - bluegills should give that away) with lots of big ones from 6-8 p.m. Subscribe my You Tube to see yesterdays action. My camera ran out of juice yesterday before i landed the biggest one of day 20.5 inch large mouth.

Mayflies have started to hatch. Fished a small lake with BIG smallmouths today hoping for an afternoon surface lure bite. No such luck, except fer this one. Got a few crappie shallow and a few deeper off a sunken tree. Only 20 fish in six hours. Water was 72. Bite was sloooow. Marked lots of fish that would not bite.

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I am heading to Rainy Lake on Saturday, June 16 for a week. I have a guide for the 1st day and he said the fishing in Canada waters is a lot better than Minnesota waters and that I should get Ontario fishing licenses for the four of us. The guide said it might be 20 fish caught in Ontario for every one fish caught in Minnesota.

Is the Ontario bite that much better than the Minnesota bite and is it worth it to get the Ontario fishing licenses?

Thanks

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The guide knows the MN and Ontario waters and he's happy to show us around Rainy on the MN side. He's just saying we're likely to catch more fish on the Ontario side right now.

I'm simply asking if other agree with that or not.

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Hi Capt.  We are staying at the Fisheries next for our annual long weekend trip.  We hit Red Gut and the other side of the bridge.  We are casters for bass mainly and jig for walleyes and crappies in the evening.   We usually catch quite a few smaller wallets jigging.  The bigger ones come while casting for bass with crankbaits and  larger plastics.  Crappies by Sawbill Falls are decent, too.  Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.  Thanks, I looks forward to your posts. Thanks.  I forgot my password so this is my wife’s computer which explains the photo.

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On 6/17/2018 at 10:34 PM, Janet Morey Hennies said:

Hi Capt.  We are staying at the Fisheries next for our annual long weekend trip.  We hit Red Gut and the other side of the bridge.  We are casters for bass mainly and jig for walleyes and crappies in the evening.   We usually catch quite a few smaller wallets jigging.  The bigger ones come while casting for bass with crankbaits and  larger plastics.  Crappies by Sawbill Falls are decent, too.  Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.  Thanks, I looks forward to your posts. Thanks.  I forgot my password so this is my wife’s computer which explains the photo.

I haven't fished Red Gut in ages. But last time I was there, I marked lots of walleyes everytime I got into 22 feet of water. Trouble is they were all dinks. Porters is now open and I have had good bass fishing up there.

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On 6/14/2018 at 12:22 PM, rbiebighauser said:

I am heading to Rainy Lake on Saturday, June 16 for a week. I have a guide for the 1st day and he said the fishing in Canada waters is a lot better than Minnesota waters and that I should get Ontario fishing licenses for the four of us. The guide said it might be 20 fish caught in Ontario for every one fish caught in Minnesota.

Is the Ontario bite that much better than the Minnesota bite and is it worth it to get the Ontario fishing licenses?

Thanks

Depends what your are after. Walleye fishing is good on both sides of the lake. But I think bass fishing is better in Canada. If you check the results of the two big bass tournaments, you will see average catches in Canada have been better. I heard the I. Falls tournament is now going to allow anglers to fish on Canada side of border but don't know if that is true. And fer sure there are way more boats in Minnesota.

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Fished the lake yesterday and it was very tough. Tried Stangi since it is now open. Gobs of dead mayflies everywhere. Managed to catch a few fish later in the day. Today we fished the river in the morning and it was slow. About 15 fish in six hours.

Video link:
https://youtu.be/nOS_odouuE4

 

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Got tired of not catching much on Rainy so headed to Pelican today. It was very slow in morning but we ended up with about 25 bass, 10 crappie and some other critters. Nothing big. The top water bite I was hoping for in the evening never happened. Most all fish on soft plastics. NO MAYFLIES on Pelican.

 

today's video:

https://youtu.be/Qo4FClic2bM

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Headed to the North Arm this afternoon in Mike's big boat. Ended up with about 10 nice bass, and six walleyes. !0 dinks as well. Fishing shorelines. Well  the TRD TRD TRD, the TRD is the word. Always trying new stuff but I think we could have caught some on Lunker CIty favs as well.

Click link for today's video:

https://youtu.be/1Ucz5l0rijc

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  • 'we have more fun' FishingMN Creators

Turd.  Lol...

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Fishing was a hoot on Tuesday with nice smallmouth hitting surface lures, also some nice walleyes. About 25 fish total.

Wednesday with Mike was poor, no surface lure action and only about ten fish before storm chased us off lake. Today Mike and I got about 40, only a few on surface lures. Mostly bass on TRDs and tubes. Couple nice pike, No real big bass. All fish caught shallow.

Billions of dead mayflies on the surface of protected bays.

I was planning on launching at O-Dark:30 tomorrow. Then I looked at weather report. T-Storms till at least noon so I am staying on shore tomorrow.

 

 

 

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I gave my buddy Tim in Texas a hard time about his lack of production with his TRD lure. His video is a hoot so watch it and subscribe to Skunked Again on You Tube. Here is his video:

https://youtu.be/hIrlCR4buPQ

He threatened to sic the Freestyle King on my Snoopy Rod so I had to launch a preemptive strike.

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Hey John, what are your favorite colors of TRDs to use on Rainy? I see the one in the video is dark.

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1 hour ago, Hookmaster said:

Hey John, what are your favorite colors of TRDs to use on Rainy? I see the one in the video is dark.

Green Pumpkin. But I only tried one other color - California Craw _ and caught fish on it as well.

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Fished a few hours this morning. Only three fish. Pretty sunrise but fish not hitting. Threw topwaters most of time as conditions were (I thought!) ideal. Still a few dead mayflies on surface but looks like they are just about done. Water 72 degrees at 5:15

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Captain, can't thank you enough for the videos.  I get up to Rainy once a year and live through your reports the rest of the time.  Even just looking at the blue skies and sunrises you post take me to that magical place every time.  Keep up the great work!

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Made it to Rainy June 29th to July 2nd.   It rained every day for a few hours.  Top water smallies were decent one day.  Fished Red Gut bay for the most part.   If we fished deep jigging for walleyes, they were all 12 in dinks.  If we casted 10 ft weedy bays with cranks we caught pike and a few keeper walleyes each trip.  The highlight was catching big crappies on jigging/ snap raps.  It seems like bigger walleyes are few and far between for us over the last few trips.   Thinking about trying the North Arm next year.  Any words of wisdom would be appreciated.  Again, this is my wife’s avatar.  Thanks

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