2017 Rainy River Conditions

Drain your outboard, which you’re supposed to do anyway. My friend wrecked his impeller last year.

grizzly wrote:

anyone do anything besides just drain the livewells so they don’t freeze over night up there when its that cold or is that good enough? coming up next week or week after and just asking so don’t break something.thanks

I have been going to the rainy for several years and seen all kinds of problems. Completely varies depending on what type of boat and trailer you have and what condition it is in. I brought a simple 14′ up one year that I didn’t even have to get the trailer bunks wet on to land and all I had to pull the plug and that was about all I had to do. The 16′ river boat I have been using this winter needs the plug pulled, livewell pickup drained, and drain the outboard motor and it has a roller trailer so that is about it. One of the most common mistakes is not using a parking brake or block on slippery landings or disconnecting the winch and safety chains before the boat is in the water. I have seen a boat or two laying on the ramp over the years. Also seen all kinds of boat and motor issues as some people just take the boat out of storage and head up. Take the boat out for a test run or look thru thing throughout the boat and trailer before you hit the road.

thanks guys for the advice, I always raise and lower motor to drain it and my boats been on the water twice this year already so its ready to go. are lakes are open. and yes thank Royal Dutchman and anyone else for the updates, please keep them coming looks like were coming up April 2nd unless we decide to come up next week.

Any updates to conditions? Have the forks let go yet?

Royal Dutchman posted on their website that water is past the international bridge in baudette and that vidas landing is open and that the timbermill landing still has some shore ice.

Sounds like the river is expected to open up at wheelers point today. At this point not sure if i would worry much about the forks. When they do open up there doesnt seem to be much in them. We have not seen any lake fish yet but the bite is still good.

what are the forks or where are they, never heard of them

grizzly wrote:

what are the forks or where are they, never heard of them

They are two rivers that flow into the Rainy from the Minnesota side closer to International falls than they are to LOW.

When those rivers let loose, the river increases in flow, debris, and muddy water which can affect fishing, especially for walleye.

Another factor can be the damn in International Falls. Right now all 5 gates are closed but if they happen to open them, the river level would rise, water become muddy, and more debris being picked up from shore with increased water level.

This happened to us last year. We were up around the 13th-17th and I believe only 2 or 3 gates were open. We headed back up three weeks later and a few days before they opened the remaining gates. The river level rose by 3ft and became really muddy.

thanks for the info, keep it coming. coming up on the 2nd and got a 13 hr. drive would hate to make the trip if it gets high and muddy.

Made it up for a quick turn and burn day and a half of fishing this weekend. Lots of people up, and lots of fish caught but the big ones were few and far between. We were in the Vidas area and caught all males with the biggest going 19.75″. Only saw maybe 2-3 big eye’s caught, heard reports of others but never more than a couple per boat. I highly doubt the river will muddy up very bad this year, there is virtually no snow left (aka runoff) and the many small rivers from Wheeler’s point to Vidas were at some stage of coming loose already. The conditions were perfect, low flow and possibly the clearest I’ve seen the river in my 10+ years going up there.

That’s great to hear. We are heading up the 12th-16th for Sturgeon.

If the river stays this clear might want to pack the night lights for sturgeon fishing.

We had a pretty good weekend up there. Good numbers each day. Nice number of bigger fish everyday and plenty of smaller ones. For 2 and a half days fishing caught 6 27″ fish and a nice 29 for big fish.

Also, just saw the Wheeler’s Point landing is open.

Thanks for all the feedback. Got into town tonight, staying at Royal Dutchman, nice room. First time on the river. Word is its slowed a little since last week. went out for a couple hours, launched at Timber. reading 38 temps at least 18 maybe 20 inch clear. heard they are doing pretty good in front of Sportsman or east of Frontier. will report tomorrow.

is the fishing good out in front of the lodges down around sportsman or close to the wheelers point ramp or within easy running distance

grizzly wrote:

is the fishing good out in front of the lodges down around sportsman or close to the wheelers point ramp or within easy running distance

It can be grizzly. I looked at sportsmans lodges river cam today and there was a lot of boats fishing in that stretch of river.

I cant get my computer to bring up the dock cam anymore

angelcam sportsmans lodge. I just type in rainy river live cam and click on that angelcam

any reports for the last couple days? going up next weekend

Ive been hearing some great things up towards the mouth, have some friends going up this weekend so should have some better info this weekend. Going up next weekend as well.

Water is up and dirty “chocolate milk” I fished out of clementson today and by 1:00pm the parking lot was starting to clear out. Bad reports are all I heard from everyone leaving. Not trying to be negative. I just wish I would of heard reports like this before I drove 400+ miles so I’m sure others will appreciate it as well.

May clear up in a couple days. Not sure how long it takes to clear up. Word is the dam opened up on Thursday.

is it worth coming up this week or is the fishing that bad now that its muddy

BigWerm wrote:

I highly doubt the river will muddy up very bad this year,

Shows what I know lol! Had a few buddies up this weekend that struggled big time due to the chocolate milk. 2 groups didn’t even go out today, just packed up and left. Will be interesting to see if there are some positive reports from this weekend…either way I’m heading up Next weekend.

Cody Malepsy wrote:

Water is up and dirty “chocolate milk” I fished out of clementson today and by 1:00pm the parking lot was starting to clear out. Bad reports are all I heard from everyone leaving. Not trying to be negative. I just wish I would of heard reports like this before I drove 400+ miles so I’m sure others will appreciate it as well.

May clear up in a couple days. Not sure how long it takes to clear up. Word is the dam opened up on Thursday.
thanks for the info we were coming up today and canceled and we are over 700 miles south. going to wait and see if it cleans up so thanks for the post.

Ok, I’m a little confused.

I just returned from the rainy after fishing Saturday and today. 9 out of 10 people say they heard they opened the dam up. A few locals laugh when they hear that news.

The flow below international falls dam has remained the same for the past 2 weeks. The flow at manitou rapids has almost doubled in the past week. The water level at manitou has gone up about 5′.

The little fork river has gone up 10′ in the past week. The big fork is clearly elevated.

Not that it matters but the dam clearly has not opened any gates. The increased water level, flow and dirty water is clearly the tributaries, not the dam.

Why the rumors of the dam opening up gates? Is this some kind of inside joke up there?

I think you’re right Big Werm. Either a local joke or just some poor assumptions. Why would water coming through a dam from a very large lake, which still has ice, turn the water dirty? I have noticed that the gage heights of the fork rivers have risen dramatically, by still says effected by ice.

Also, the rainy lake and namakan damn website reports when they open and shut gates. Not sure how quick they are to make updates but they haven’t opened any according to their history log.

I will say though that opening the gates would muddy up the water. Last year I went up a second time the first week in may well after the forks had let loose. Three days before going up, they opened a couple gates. Water height rose by 3ft and flow increased by 13k cubic feet/sec. the water was considerably more muddy and debris everywhere. I would imagine the much more current and the river pulling crap off of previously exposed banks would do that.

I also put in at pelland before I headed home and found the water clarity to be at least 4 feet.

I motored down to the little fork and found the source of the chocolate milk.

Big Fork starting to fall. The Little Fork still rising. The LF is responsible for most of the dirty water. We will need to have the Little Fork to be dropping for days before there is any change in the water clairity.