2018 Rainy River Run

2018 Rainy River Run

Congrats,
I’m glad someone found some fish. In the two trips and three days, we only could get five fish. Was still a good time but slow the days I could make it. My ego is bruised and battered, please PM me your secrets.

Nice job there Steve!

-J.

Matthew Sandys wrote:

Congrats,
I’m glad someone found some fish. In the two trips and three days, we only could get five fish. Was still a good time but slow the days I could make it. My ego is bruised and battered, please PM me your secrets.

It was not fast and furious fishing for us either we worked for the fish we got, we were out most of the day Thursday & Friday. Qn Thursday we caught around 15 fish and on Friday around 20 fish, both days fish caught were spread out though out the day.

Very nice Steve. What a fun week of fishing. We started at noon on Sunday. It was pretty much shore to shore ice at Birchdale. Went down river there and busted out a big enough area and found 4 fish for the effort. Still a great time.

Tuesday was more ice breaking down towards pinewood. Nothing like busting through big chunks of ice mixed with wood and a few dead deer. Caught around 15 this day. Lots of fun this day.

The next few days the ice moved off the spots we wanted to fish and we got our game put together. Chris and I caught 101 fish one day. 151 was our best numbers day with three of us in the boat. The other days where very decent to.

Lots of eater sized fish in the system this spring. Dont think the push of big lake fish has really started yet. Still plenty of nice size walleyes showed up. We try not to photo anything under 28 and I counted a dozen photos for the week. Just to many 25, 26 and 27″ fish to photo them all. Big fish goes to nearly the last one caught Saturday evening. A nice 30″er. Good chance it would of been last fish of the trip but I managed another 28-29 with her. What a way to end a fantastic week.

On Friday we boated up river well past Frontier till we got to the ice jam, there were a couple of boats well up in the ice jam, could not understand why they would go into an area where there were surrounded by ice when there was so much open water. If you look close in the last pic you can see two boats in the distance.

Saturday there was boats almost to vidas busting through the ice. Small boats had pushed across there to open water. One perk of busting that ice is getting to spots to fish all by yourself. The end of the week the ramps where the busiest I have ever seen them. Im guessing Frontier was over a 3hr wait to load up. Birchdale had trailers parked out and lined up on the main road.

Yea a friend of mine messaged me on Wed they put in at Frontier and fished till dust and did not get the off the landing till 9:40.

We opted to run to Birchdale and not wait in that line. 20 minute wait there and picked up 3 more walleyes on the way.

I can confirm the wait to load up at Frontier Thursday night. We got to the landing at 8:30. Finally made it to the cabin near Wheeler’s point at 12:15 AM. I felt bad having the kid hold the boat for 3 hours.

We used Birchdale the rest of the trip.

We looked for the new shinny boat out there but didn’t see it. Think we headed to birchdale about 815. Drove by frontier about 930 and seen that line.

Did anyone else have the MN DNR check their Canadian licenses?
One of our boats had a warden check all of their Canadian credentials, and even make a phone call to confirm what the limits were in Ontario. Because of the 18.1 inch slot they were well within the limits.
Seems like they were a little aggressive on their enforcement this year.
Saw a lot of them in Baudette and out by the point checking for plugs in boats too. One of our other guys got pulled over because the warden couldn’t tell whether his plug was out he drove by. (It was out)

We were never checked on either side of the river nor did I notice any DNR enforcement driving on the roads.

I guess you were lucky.

We were not checked either. We did see a few MN DNR officers around. I guess we were not really worried as all the times we have been stopped by MN or Canadian officials things have been in order and everything goes fine.

When I launched late Wednesday morning there was a Warden at Birchdale checking people coming in. I chatted with him a little, pleasant enough guy, works out of Aurora.

We have always had all of our stuff in order, so never was worried about being checked. Just wondered if anyone else had these things questioned.
I always treat wardens or border patrol agents that check me with the utmost respect, as they are merely doing their job. But if all things are in order, why keep pushing questions? Move on to the next boat.

Didnt see any wardens or customs out on the water. What we did see was plenty of people fishing minnows, drinking and one special individual drunk as a skunk north of the border. Big difference from last year when we got checked daily.

Francis K wrote:

We were never checked on either side of the river nor did I notice any DNR enforcement driving on the roads.

I guess you were lucky.

Same here.