2016 Rainy River Conditions

Hello everyone! I know it is earlier than normal to start checking the river but since my father-in-law was headed that way he offered to keep an eye out for open water. Since this is over a 40 minute drive one way we will not be checking the river daily for awhile until it gets closer to Birchdale. We will share news when we have it! Let’s hope for an early Spring and a great fishing season!

February 26th, 2016:
Grant’s dad, Jim went to International Falls today and checked the river at Pelland Landing and where the open water was. He said he could see open water 2.5 miles west of Loman, MN. Here is a picture of Pelland Landing from today:

Thanks for the update. Nice to hear from your resort. It’s always a blast to chase that ice. Spring is the greatest up on the rainy.

I’ve been waiting for this thread to start I will be glued to it. My buddy is also a conservation officer up in international falls giving me some good info. I saw that clementson resort is closed and up for sale.

Royal Dutchmen I apologize for the ignorance but what resort do you run and where’s it located?

https://royaldutchman.com/#2723
Great place. Nice people. have stayed a couple times books up quickly. Close to vidas landing.

I have stayed at RD. Top Notch place to lay your head. Highly recommended from my group…..

I’ve been waiting for the first river conditions report too! Please keep us updated. Anxious to get the boat wet!

Timmy wrote:

I have stayed at RD. Top Notch place to lay your head. Highly recommended from my group…..

Just booked a couple of nights there for the end of April. Will be first time staying there and can’t wait to chase some sturgeon.

Thank you so much everyone!

March 2nd, 2016:
Grant and I headed over to International Falls this afternoon to check on the river. We hate to say we don’t feel the river has moved at all because of the cold days and nights we have had. It looks like a lot of the spots have refroze as you will be able to see in the Kuttes Landing picture. We could see quite a bit of open water at the Big Fork which is 25 miles east of Birchdale. There is a point west of Loman where you can’t see the river for quite a while and we feel the river is open around 18.2 miles east of Birchdale and in spots it looks to have refroze. The open water is 41.3 miles east of our place. Since the river hasn’t moved much we most likely will not check it until mid week next week. Unless we get word from some friends that it has moved quite a bit then we will make the trip again. Here are the picture we were able to get today.

It is hard to describe the pictures but hopefully with the tags you can see them and then this will make sense

Picture is of Kuttes Landing in Pelland
Picture is 14 miles east of Birchdale Landing, it was very spotty for another 3 miles towards Birchdale with big spots that were open but it is not open the entire way there are sections where it is completely froze still
Picture is open water at Manitou Rapids
Picture is open water at Franz Jevne

Thanks for the update. Looking forward to the next one.

I’m very optimistic it will open quickly with the upcoming forecast for up there looks promising it may be a kid March opening well past birch dale with the weather ahead. Here is the weather for the baudette area next week looks very warm.

March 7th, 2016:
We had a friend check on the river for us today and she sent us a message saying it was 10 miles east of Birchdale. Grant decided since it was so nice and we had some free time that we would go check it also. The river is open 10 miles east of Birchdale Landing and Franz Jevne looked the same as last time we checked. We did check at the Manitou Rapids and it is still frozen coming into the rapids. We will probably check the river in a couple of days. It was in the high 40s today and tomorrow is suppose to be nice and rain most of the day so that will help the snow disappear some more.

The pictures are looking straight ahead at 10 miles east of Birchdale Landing and the other is looking to the east to show more of the open river

Hi Mike,

Drew has new pole. We are all set. Can’t wait to get at it again. Hoping the big girls think my offering is worth it this year and that my 56 from last year gets bumped up an inch or two.

March 9th, 2016:
I went and checked the river around noon today and the temperature was anywhere between 29 degrees and 31 degrees and has been cloudy so far today. We did get some rain yesterday but the ground has soaked up all the water puddles in the yard. As of this afternoon the river is open about 7 miles east of Birchdale Landing. The pictures I took are at 7.4 miles and you could see open water close to the plant on the Canadian side. There are a few miles where you can’t see the river or really get down to it so I am guessing it is around 7 miles. For those wondering about pushing their boats off the ice at Franz Jevne the river is open to the east less than a mile as I found the river frozen exactly a mile east of Franz Jevne. The river is open about 5 miles east of Franz Jevne. Today’s forecast is cloudy with a high of 34 degrees and a low of 18 degrees tonight. Tomorrow (March 10th) looks to be nice as it is going to be partly cloudy with a high of 46 degrees and a low of 32 degrees tomorrow night. This weekend they are predicting we are suppose to get in the 50s so that will help open up the river.

Thanks for the update it’s coming along quickly now. I’m sure by Monday there will be a lot more soft water!

I’m thinking about heading up for the river run for the first time this year. The problem is the only time I can make it is the 22nd through the 26th. Any thoughts on my timing….To early?

Walleyeriz wrote:

I’m thinking about heading up for the river run for the first time this year. The problem is the only time I can make it is the 22nd through the 26th. Any thoughts on my timing….To early?

If things stay how they have been going, you should be fine.

I agree I think you should be fine the 22nd thru the 26th. The ground is soaking up a lot of water and we don’t have a lot of snow this year so we are thinking there won’t be too much run off either.

Here is the new update on the river!

March 10th, 2016:
We checked the river later this afternoon and found open water about 3 miles east of Birchdale Landing. We believe it might be closer to 2 miles from Birchdale as it looks like it could be open all the way to Franz Jevne now but it was hard to tell for sure. It was cloudy for most of the morning but we ended up seeing some sun later in the day and the temperature was 40 degrees when we went to check the river. When we went to Birchdale Landing you could not see any open water to the east so it wasn’t quite there yet but after these next few warm days we are hoping it will be open to Birchdale or even past there.

March 12th, 2016:
Grant and a friend went and checked the river around 3:00 pm today there was some open water but not a lot in front of the landing at Birchdale. There were boats that had pushed over the shore ice at Franz Jevne and Grant figures there is probably about 10 yards of shore ice. The boats were not able to get all the way to the landing as there was some ice in the way yet. We were in the high 50s today and now tomorrow they are calling for a high of 47 degrees and rain.

March 13th, 2016:
Grant’s dad went and checked the river today and said there was open water 2.7 miles east of Frontier Landing. Birchdale is open for boats to push over the shore ice but as of noon today no one had pushed boats in yet. We have had some misting rain and little down pour today as of 4:00pm.

March 14th, 2016:
We went and checked the river today and were able to get in a few hours of fishing in the 60 degree weather (check the fishing report and the Spring Fishing pictures). Birchdale is open to all boats as of early this morning and there is talk that the county is going to go in on Wednesday and open up Frontier. If you wanted to you could push a boat off the shore ice at Frontier. We checked at Vidas Landing and it is getting close to having open water but it is still froze. We are not sure how far the river is west of Frontier but it was open from the last point you could see the river from the highway. Tomorrow they are calling for a high of 47 degrees and 90% chance of rain and then on Wednesday a high of 36 degrees and 80% chance of rain/snow.

Fishing Report: March 14th, 2016:
Birchdale Landing is open to all boats and since today was in the low 60s, Grant and I, decided to take advantage of the one day we could both go fishing for a few hours. We were out just a little over 2 hours and had our limit in about an hour. We caught 9 walleyes total: we kept 4 walleyes about 15 inches, let 3 keepers go, Grant caught a 21 inch walleye that was released, I caught a 23 inch walleye that was released, and I also caught a 20 inch northern. For the few hours we were out there we saw some other people from Baudette catch some nice walleyes in the mid to higher- 20s. Yesterday, we had a group that went out of Graceton Beach ice fishing and they said they had a slower day but caught a nice 27 1/2 inch walleye that made up for the bite.

March 15th, 2016:
We checked the river about 12:30pm today and found open water in front of Vidas Landing and it is open a few miles west of that landing. The only access that was open for all boats is still Birchdale Landing. It has been raining for most of the day and looks like tomorrow we could have some more rain and snow.

BigWerm posted this last year on the Rainy River Conditions forum, should be helpful, good lookin BigWerm

Royal_Dutchman wrote:

March 15th, 2016:
We checked the river about 12:30pm today and found open water in front of Vidas Landing and it is open a few miles west of that landing. The only access that was open for all boats is still Birchdale Landing. It has been raining for most of the day and looks like tomorrow we could have some more rain and snow.

Thanks for the reports. I look for them daily. You guys still have any rooms available?

Tonka wrote:

BigWerm posted this last year on the Rainy River Conditions forum, should be helpful, good lookin BigWerm

I assume you meant the landings map? Here it is again for those interested:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zriHlHwdlJ7o.kZEtRC3AX7dU&ie=UTF&msa=0

Thanks for the reports. Are they still calling for 10 inches of snow there tonight?

BigWerm wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Tonka wrote:</div>
BigWerm posted this last year on the Rainy River Conditions forum, should be helpful, good lookin BigWerm

I assume you meant the landings map? Here it is again for those interested:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zriHlHwdlJ7o.kZEtRC3AX7dU&ie=UTF&msa=0

Sorry guys, and yes BigWerm, I didn’t even post the link, whoops. Anyways, thanks for posting the link again for everyone, last year was my first year up there and that was a very useful tool.

We ended up with about 10-11 inches of snow here yesterday (March 16th) when we talked to one group about 6:00 pm they told us that Birchdale had a lot less snow than here. Sorry I wasn’t able to get on here yesterday it was a crazy day.

March 16th, 2016:
We have open water at our place and it is just starting to snow a little before 9:00 am. The dock still has ice around it. We did hear that Vidas Landing is open to all boats and we weren’t able to get out and check on the landing today. We had one group that fished in the snow and they caught 3 walleyes and the biggest was 23.5 and they said all the other boats around them did about the same. It sounds like it was a slow day but they still had some fun. They did not say anything about the rain or snow affecting the water clarity.

March 17th, 2016:
We probably got about 10-11 inches of snow. Grant went and checked Vidas Landing about 10:30am and it is open to all boats. We will try and report more if we hear from the groups that were fishing today. A friend sent us a picture of Timber Mill’s Landing about 3:45pm and they were working on it. Grant went and checked about 5:00 pm and the road is plowed but there is still shore ice so boats are only able to push off there at this point. We still haven’t heard or had time to go check on Frontier Landing to see if it is open to all boats. At this time we believe they are still pushing off at Frontier.

Any new information out there? I heard little Fork broke and muddied things up. This is our first time going just wondering how long does it usually take to settle. Or does anyone have good muddy water tactics?

Its chocolate milk fished two days caught 2 fish and herd of one other fish being caught between the 15 boats we talked to