We are 9 days out from our annual trip to Voyageurs/Rainy Lake. Any recent fishing reports, water levels, bugs and anything else going on?
We’ll be on the East end of Rainy this year, Virgin Island, and I think we’ll spend the majority of our time fishing the Canadian side of the lake. We are going to put in at Ash River and portage over Kettle Falls to avoid a long ride over the open lake. Plus this will be a new experience for me and my son.
Thanks for the help!
I dont have anything recent but you will probably barely see any boats in that area. I dont think you will struggle to find fish at all. Good luck 
My dad is up on namakan right now. I can get a update on the bugs and water levels later today. He’s not a fisherman so he won’t be any help there.
Water was high and rising fast over memorial weekend. Looks like it’s coming down again now.https://www.lwcb.ca/waterflowdata.html
Go slow and stay between the buoy’s after you portage over.
Go slow and stay between the buoy’s after you portage over.
For sure, we’ve been through the American channel several times and always get confused by the buoys so we putt through it. Just need to remember RED on the left going into Rainy.
We camped on Virgin Island South June 15-22, fishing was good all week! We spent most days on the Canadian side fishing from Brule narrows to the East in Stokes bay trying different water each day. Evenings we spent fishing walleye on the US side. Fishing was amazing on both sides! Smallmouth fishing was amazing on the Canadian side with them hitting anything topwater. Between my son and I we had 100 fish caught in 5-6 hours and decent size, biggest being 20.5″! This happened every day we fished up there. We got into some nice pike in a couple spots and more 16-22″ fish than I can count. Got to the point my son quit fishing cause his arms were sore. Walleye fishing on all the usual humps was good, especially when I figured out they were hanging out in a little deeper water off the sides of the humps. Following the contours around the humps with LiveScope made for some solid fishing. We used leaches with drop shot or slip bobbers and had steady action all week.
We put in in Ash River and portaged over Kettle Falls, it was a new way for us so we were a bit cautious but it was so much nicer than running 25 miles across the big lake! Overall great trip!
Glad you had a good trip. I’ve read some reports of guys having very, very tough fishing which I found hard to believe.
Other than that little jog at the end of Namakin where it narrows down (sorry the name of the islands escapes me right now) it’s a very relaxing trip up from Ash River. Any issues at the portage? Did they have to decontaminate the boat going either way?
Dutchboy – the portage was easy, took a little longer than normal (at least that’s what the guy there told us) due to having to decontaminate the trailer between portages. Even with the delay I figure we saved time on the additional driving time and distance across open lake. We did have our boat decontaminated on the way back out, the outside at least and it took 10 minutes to complete. Overall a great trip!
We used leaches with drop shot or slip bobbers
Heading up to the Canadian side on the 20th for a week. For the drop shot, were you casting to the fish, dragging behind the boat or fishing vertical?
Thanks
Netguy – pretty much vertical jigging due to the rocky structure we were fishing. trying to cast out over 10-20′ and slowly working back to the boat works very well but get a lot of snags and loose a lot of sinkers. Having Live Scope allowed us to “hunt” and target fish. If we could initially find them with our 2D sonar then try to drop right on them. Still amazing how many fish are down there and how many do not bite!
We didn’t use any live bait on the Canadian side but had good success using plastics on the drop shot in the same manner. Imitation leeches and shiner type minnow bodies worked well. I don’t think the walleyes on the Canadian see nearly the pressure the American side fish do.
Still amazing how many fish are down there and how many do not bite!
Thats why its called fishing and not catching. 
Thanks for the info scottaheller.
Still amazing how many fish are down there and how many do not bite!
I’ve experienced that many times!! Not the last time either.
Hey Scott,
Good to hear you had a great week up there. When we’ve stayed on the far east end we’ve always stayed at Logging Camp, another nice site but only has the 2 tentpads/lockers. The portage is pretty cool, done it about a dozen times and its funny to see your “trail” on the GPS.
Dutchboy you must be thinking of Squirrel narrows, just before Kettle. To the right is Canada and the left is US. There used to be an Arrow sign pointing left up on the rock face there, but a few years ago it disappeared??
Netboy, we are heading up on the 20th also for a week, but camping on Namakan at Mica Island just a couple miles from Kettle. Water is about 2 feet high right now so I’m hoping it drops a bit in the next week. We were at Mica the same week last year and had really good fishing, had planned to portage over but never did with the success we had on Nam. I’ll also be on mid-Namakan for 5 days mid-August so might get over to Rainy then too. Good luck on your trip!
Xplorer – have you fished the Canadian side of Namakin? We are curious if it is as good as the Canadian side of Rainy. I wouldn’t think the Canadian side of Namakin would get near the pressure that Rainy does, but I’ve never ventured into those waters, yet…..
There’s no fish in the Canadian side of namakan. None at all. 
Explorer,
I’ll be up there when you are. Hopefully the water comes down a bit but it’s gonna be high still.
Water is about 2 feet high right now so I’m hoping it drops a bit in the next week.
Some of our best years fishing up there were the high water years. Unfortunately we haven’t made the trip 2 or 3 years now, so I’m jealous of these reports and hope you all have a great trip!
They decontaminate the trailer going from Namakan to Rainy?!? The one right next to the damn with water flowing between the lakes? Sometimes it’s better not knowing… 
xplorer wrote:
Water is about 2 feet high right now so I’m hoping it drops a bit in the next week.Some of our best years fishing up there were the high water years. Unfortunately we haven’t made the trip 2 or 3 years now, so I’m jealous of these reports and hope you all have a great trip!
They decontaminate the trailer going from Namakan to Rainy?!? The one right next to the damn with water flowing between the lakes? Sometimes it’s better not knowing…
Team Crush!
They only decontaminate going from Rainy to Namakan when I was there.
Scott,
I have not, but a good retired buddy up there does all the time and is is generally better fishing than the US Side, but the nicest thing is very little pressure from others. The whole bait thing for me would kinda suck (Im a hardcore leech rigger LOL) but he does well pulling spinners and gulp worms.
I dont mind the higher water, more just hoping we can use the dock at our site since its not a “floater”. Most evenings we go cruise shorelines and toss cranks along them and usually catch a good mix of smallies/pike and a few walleyes mixed in which is fun. With the high water might be a few more eyes now.
I’ll wave as we pass the cabin Grubson, should be around 11am saturday morning, weather is looking really nice right now! Good chance we’ll head into Frontier on tuesday for bingo night, as the FW’s aunt and uncle are staying there this and next week.
I’ll leave the decontamination issue to others LOL, tho its only Rainy to Nam. Havn’t been thru it myself, the last few times we did East Rainy we boated down from the NPS dock in Black Bay.
Good fishing to all this next week!!!
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