rainy lake Rainy Lake Fishing Reports by Capt John

[CaptJohnWis]

Back in God's country. Looking forward to me first smallmouth.

 

[CaptJohnWis]

Fished Rainy for the first time this year. We used Mike's big boat and had great weather. 

Things started out very slow. We finally found some bass on shoreline of protected bay. Main lake temps were 47 with some areas as high as 60. We found the bass in 53 degree water. Best lures were small flukes and X-Raps. After seven hours we ended up with two dozen bass and a few pike. Had motor trouble so quit around 4:00 p.m. and limped in.

[hydrashack]

Thanks for the report John.  Coming up June 4-10.  Staying in NW Arm.  Love your reports and they always help us to make a game plan for what the fish are doing.

-Shack

[CaptJohnWis]

Fishing was good today. 37 bass in eight hours. Water about one degree warmer. After I loaded the boat and started back home I got TWO flat tires. Happened right after I left the landing so watch out for something at the ramp or in the road headed west. Mike came and got me and my boat. Left my truck at Rainy Lake One Stop till I can get both tires fixed.

 

Click link to see video.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF-4vUibTOQ 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2016 by Rick
Video is set for private viewing only. Please change to public viewing.

[CaptJohnWis]

Weather has been rough last several days but we have managed to average over 30 fish per trip. I got this 40-incher on 4-lb line today and it was a long battle. Tried underwater video with Go-Pro but don't know if it turned out yet. Biggest walleye 25". Water 47-48 no matter where we went. Banging the shorelines mostly with jig and plastic tails.

 

Link to video of 40-incher on ultra light

[clKiekhafer]

I like that color and distinct pattern!

[CaptJohnWis]

Link to Mike's big pike

 

Fishing tough again today. We ended up with 37 about half pike, half bass. Mike got the lunker of the day with a 39" pike. Sun finally came out a couple hours before we quit and water jumped up to 50 degrees. It had been 48 all day. Nearly all on jigs.

 

[CaptJohnWis]

"Mike, do you think we should try here?"

Bass fishing slowed down a lot just when we thought it would get better.  Had to fish for other critters.

 

[CaptJohnWis]

We have been doing fair on bass the last few trips. Probably around 20-25 but no monsters. Small pike are a pest and expect lots of bite-offs if no leader. No walleyes last few trips which is odd. Tuesday was our best bite with 52 fish by 1:00 p.m. Storm came up and we were thinking of seeking shelter but my big motor would not start. Then it started to rain and lightning. Kicker motor was fussy too and took awhile to get going. Ended up at the nearest dock where we replaced the dead battery with one of the trolling motor batteries. By then the storm had ended but we headed in.

Yesterday we fished a little closer to home and boat worked fine. Got 38 fish in eight hours. Got windy so quit early. DNR fish survey guy was at the landing but we had nothing for him to measure and gave our best estimate of the count (25 bass, 13 pike).

Pretty much been getting them all on soft plastics and small crank baits. Fishing shorelines. Water temps around 60 most places.

Staying home during the holiday weekend and holding my fishing tackle yard sale. About 1000 lures for sale and many other things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hydrashack]

Thanks John.

Please keep the reports coming.  

[CaptJohnWis]

Went yesterday by myself. Very slow and ended up with 33 fish all from shorelines. About half were walleyes. Nothing big but I did keep one for supper. Got a few nice bass but again no lunkers, several small pike. Most on jig and Ribster. Next week headed to Devils Lake where we hope to pound the big pike but sadly no bass (except white bass!) there.

[lexdog]

I think Devils Lake has carp, not much different than a small mouth.

[CaptJohnWis]

 

2 hours ago, lexdog said:

I think Devils Lake has carp, not much different than a small mouth.

True, both are great fighters unlike the walleyes we will no doubt have to wade through to catch pike. But at least the walleyes taste good.

[RainyMan]

What is the biggest smallie have you caught on Rainy? This will be my 14th or 15th year on Rainy and my biggest was 5.5 lbs. I hear of a lot of people catching 5 plus pounders, but they rarely weight fish with a digital scale.  Just curious if anyone has hit the 6 pound mark on Rainy.         

[CaptJohnWis]

It is amazing when "five-pounders" are weighed how they turn out to be threes! NOBODY catches lots of 5 plus pounders on Rainy. I have caught maybe thirty in my life. My largest was 5lb 15 oz.

Twice I have caught a pair the same day over five.

Just check the history of the Fort Frances bass tourney and you will see how rare five-pounders are on Rainy. And now that the smelt are all but gone, fours are getting hard to catch.

[hydrashack]

Scott Martin and Gussy put together a 20 pound sack on the Scott Martin Challenge show, I think that was filmed in July.

Post spawn catching a 6+ is going to be very hard.  Prespawn would give you a better chance.  My dad caught a 6-8,weighed on a digital scale, a few years ago and that trip was magical for the amount of fish we caught over four.  Went the same week the next year and caught mainly 3 pounders all post spawn.  I could post a pic if I was smart enough.  But that is the biggest smallie I have seen on Rainy.  

[beanman]

21.47 is the bag they put together .  Not a bad avg. for 5 fish.

[CaptJohnWis]

5 hours ago, beanman said:

21.47 is the bag they put together .  Not a bad avg. for 5 fish.

If you could average a 20 lb bag every day, you would have won every Fort Frances tourney. I don't think any team has ever broke 60 lb for a three day catch. So 21.47 is an awesome catch. My personal best fishing alone is 22lb 14 oz. That was in October a few years back on the same day they were holding the small tourney out of LaBelles. I don't enter tourneys but maybe I should have that day!

I did fish with one of the Fort Frances Tourney contestants the week after the that tourney was over. Joe finished sixth and was in second place going into final day but his 4-pounders had disappeared on last day so he ended up sixth. Took me to his honey hole where we caught nothing on his favorite spinner baits. Conditions were perfect for surface lures so I tied on a Zara Spook. Boo-YAH! We proceeded to land 25 bass in short order and all were over four pounds (he made me weigh them all) - two were over five. Nearly every one was spitting up smelt. This was my most exciting trip ever on Rainy - thanks Joe for sharing that spot (which has never come close to producing like that again)

He had to borrow a surface lure from me since he had NONE. Joe had never fished top waters before and had won some small tourneys using just spinner baits.Told me that later that year he won the award for biggest bass of the day at the Kenora tourney on a Zara. You tourney guys are a hoot. Joe would keep hollering at me "keep your rod tip in the water don't let her jump!". I had to explain that my favorite part of bass fishing is seeing them jump.

I found the web site with all the Fort Frances tourney results. Nobody has EVER brought in a 6-pounder. and the best total weight in all those years was 58.62 lbs. Here is link:

Fort Frances tourney results link

[hydrashack]

I bet if they had that event prespawn it would produce some six pounders.  But that is just my theory.

 

[wookie24]

Hi John, 

First off, thanks for all the info over the years, really good place for information.  

Have a quick question, and I know you don't fish the US side much, but we are getting a houseboat next week, and curious if you think it'd be worth it to travel all the way to/past the Brule, or shouldn't it matter much?  I'm pretty confident we can find fish, but just trying to get a bit of a game plan for when we get there.

And I know its always hit or miss, but any info on the elusive crappie bite would be great.  I've always heard there's a 1-2 week window for them up there, and hoping we get lucky with that.  

Thanks, and keep the great info coming,

Tight lines 

[CaptJohnWis]

Sorry, but I cannot help much on the crappie. Very few areas on North Arm have them. We did catch a few big ones in June last year off a hump with pencil reeds. Anywhere on the US side with crappie will no doubt have a bunch of boats. Bait stores have been sending guys to Black Bay for crappie - I hate crowds so I leave those crappie to others.

You should be able to catch walleyes on the US side east of the Brule. Try fishing weed edges in 6-12 FOW. Jig and half crawler will get you bites, but expect lots of dinks. If you want big ones I would stick with crankbaits. I was getting them a few days ago on soft plastics in same type areas (North Arm) but nothing big, mostly 16-20 inches. No big pike lately either but they should still be in shallow bays.

Sunday, I am headed to Devils Lake for a week of walleye and pike fishing. Hopefully the wind will not be too bad. I am expecting 100 fish days. But you never know until you starting fishing. If they only had smallmouth bass over there I might be forced to relocate! I think the water must have too much of salt or some other chemical in it to support the sunfish family. But the perch and white bass love it. And with all those "shrimp" (skuds) in the water, the sunfish would grow big in a hurry. Those skuds get big in Devils Lake and since they swim so slowly they are easy pickins for whatever wants to eat em.

[wookie24]

Sounds good, thanks for the info.  We figured Black Bay, or Cranberry would be the spot for them.  Not too worried about finding them, mainly focused on walleyes and smallies, but would be a fun little bonus. Good luck out on devils.

[fisher972002]

I agree w/ captn' Jon.  5 lbers are hard to come by on Rainy.  I've fished for smallies there for 20 years, and only caught 1 19 1/4 inch 5 pounder.  Caught lots of 19 plus inchers, a few 20 inch plus, that always seem to weigh in about 4.24... 3.84... 4.68... The solid 5 lbers are elusive in my experience.  Rainy Lake is a good smallmouth fishery, but not as good as Great Lakes, but then again, you're comparing apples to oranges.

What's nice about Rainy, is the multi species.  You can catch "Good" smallies, you can catch "Good" eyes, you can catch Excellent large Pike.   hard to find a good multi-species lake these days.

[CaptJohnWis]

Fished about ten hours today. Only 26 fish. Majority walleye - biggest 25". A few pike - biggest 33". And seven bass with bigest almost 18". Some bass on surface lures so that made me happy. Walleyes in about 20 FOW. Pike on windy points and humps. Bass on shoreline.

 

Short video link:

today's video link

[hydrashack]

Thanks for the post John.

I was up last week(4-10), fished Alexandria, Woodchuck, Sears, Ash and around Ed's(for those that know that area).  Stayed at Labelle's, so we were covering some serious water everyday when we went out.

Water temp was 65 when we headed out on Saturday afternoon after we got to camp.  Two cold nights knocked the water temp down to about 52 on Tuesday morning.  We were catching bass here and there, but no real pattern.  Fish were in all stages, prespawn, on beds and post spawn.  Which is why I think we were having a little trouble developing a single pattern and the fact that the water temp had dropped so much.

Had some decent 40-50 fish days, but we were grinding and fishing long days.  By Wednesday afternoon the weather finally broke and the water temps started to rebound and we starting dialing in on a pattern.  Staging points/reefs on the outside of the spawning cuts.  We would work those areas with a topwater and if we got any blowups we would slow down and work them slow with senkos or soft plastics.  Had some better days on Wed, Thur and Friday, but overall pretty tough fishing last week, but WAY better than being at work.

 

-Shack

[CaptJohnWis]

Fishing slow again today but the ones I caught were nice. All from shallow water on many different lures. Water was 67 in big shallow bay. Mayflies are starting to hatch.

Short video link

U-tube video link

[CaptJohnWis]

Well as usual the weatherman was way off base. He predicted winds up to 10 MPH today. Just checked the NOAA hourly history and it got up to 35 MPH. If he had said that I would have stayed on shore. Made for a rough ride north. Luckily it calmed down when it was time to come home. Water temps were only 62 around 11:00 a.m.

Day started great with a walleye just under 27" on a Ribster off a windy point. But then they shut down. I finally found some fish behind an island and out of the wind. Banged a big pike and a bunch of walleyes on 5" swim bait and Fin-S-Fish.  If it had been windy there, I doubt I would have caught any - the hits were very light. Marked almost no fish all day. Best depths was 10-15 FOW.

 

June 21, 2016 fishing

[CaptJohnWis]

Great fishing today. 41 fish mostly eyes - lots of big ones. 26", 28" & 29" biggest. Had two other porkers break me off at the boat. A few nice bass on surface lures.

Most on ultra light 4lb line, 3/16 oz jig, 4" Fin-s-Fish. Best bite was in morning with NO wind and full sun. 10-20 FOW

 

Mess up the video but here is what I got:

June 23 video

 

 

 

[CaptJohnWis]

Fishing fair today. Mike and I ended up with 53 fish but about half were dink pike. Rest mostly eater walleyes with a couple over 24". Only two bass. No pattern seemed to work. Deep/shallow, humps/points/coves ....Just one here and one there.  All on jigs with plastic trailers. I did try a new lure that worked well. Lunker City 5" Swim Fish on 1/2 oz jig head using 15 lb braid. Pretty easy to fish even in wind. Just reel in steady and try to keep near bottom. You can feel every little peck with that braid. Amazing how small of a fish would go after such a large lure. Best NOT to set the hook as soon as you feel a peck. They often miss it the first time but will hit again if you keep steady retrieve.

Probably going to fish every day this week if weather cooperates. Might try sturgeon when season re-opens.

[bfisherman11]

Capt John. Do you fish the CA side or US mostly?

Just curious,  we are up here now and fishing US side.I tried deeper and nothing, caught my walleye shallow in some of the shallow bays on wind swept islands or rock piles. Weather no so great with the wind and rain. I don't mind a little but this is hard to fish with my Dad being older.

Bill