Good morning! I will be heading up to stay with some friends who have a cabin on the North arm this week and am looking for some advice on buying bait in Canada, fishing the Canadian side, and any other info that will help make this trip a success. I have fished the MN side of rainy several times but never the Canadian side. I will also be bringing my kids up for the first time this trip so any advice on kid friendly fishing is greatly appreciated!
Plastics !
http://rainylakesports.com/index.html
We stop here to buy licences and bait most every trip up!!!
Mark
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x2 on Rainy Lake Sports. Crawlers aren’t a problem. Leeches may be in short supply and an advance call might be a good idea. Minnows die too fast, bring plastics.
Kids – you may need notarized letters with permission to take them outside of the states. I don’t have kids but know there are rules that matter. This would be in addition to passports/border cards.
License tip: you can do them online now. Saves time and hassle when you’re at Rainy Lake Sports.
I like a hard copy map in addition to the map chips. Electronics die and I’m old school in liking a map in hand.
I’m on the north arm in June and later in September. Not sure what advice for this time of year.
I fish the N arm almost everyday.The walleyes are on shallow reefs right now or stacked up on windy points.Bass are also found on windy points or pockets.Pike seem to be every where,any place that has a lot of weeds you will find pike.Baits for the kids ,4 inch mister twisters in white or yellow either casting or trolling will produce fish,if you have electronics on your boat check the deeper humps ,if you see fish you can use your trolling motor to stay on top of them and jig them,jig and crawler will work fine.The best thing to do is keep moving till you find fish.One more thing if you troll keep your boat in he 7 to 12 fow .
BB2
Thank you all for the advice!! We are very excited for the trip. The kids have been counting down the days. I went to town today and bought a variety of plastics and will probably get some Gulp Alive before I head out Wednesday. The notarized letter for the kids in hand as well as passports. I just picked up a new Garmin echoMap 93SV so I am looking forward to trying that out up there. Having always fished the American side (mostly the east end) of Rainy and I am used to having live bait so this venture into plastics will be fun. The last time I used plastics was in the 80’s fishing up north of Kenora. We will probably stop by Rainy Lake Sports before we head out as well to get at least some live bait.
Again, thank you very much for your replies. This site has the most friendly and helpful members. We will be on the lake Thursday morning so if you think of anything else before then I’m all ears!
you can bring crawlers across the border as long as they are in bedding not dirt
Thanks for the reminder to report, PatK! We had a blast! It was a rough one on the way out but once we got to Hostess Island and dried off all was well. On the first day we did really well fishing. Seemed like we couldn’t miss with walleye. Pretty much everything we tried caught fish. We used twister tails and gulp alive minnows with great luck. Also used some crawlers I picked up at Rainy Lake Sports. The guys there had no leeches and told me they liked crawlers better anyway. On the second day the fish just shut off. We would catch a couple walleye then nothing so we’d move and do the same. We used jigs, spinners, and about everything else in the tackle box and just had a tough time catching fish. We did catch a few nice northerns and some smallies along with a few walleye up in Ash Bay. The trip up there was beautiful but fishing was slow. On our last evening we towed a stranded boat back to our dock and then gave them a lift back to the landing. Was nice to be able to help someone out knowing that one day I am going to need it as well.
The kids had a ton of fun. My 5 year old has some sort of magical touch. He can catch fish where nobody else can catch fish. He’s been coming out in the boat with me since he was 2 so he had a blast fishing big water for the first time. My 8 year old daughter thought rainy was amazing and was able to bring several fish in the boat. She’s a tough girl who wanted to hold every fish we caught to get a picture to send to Mom. When we would get back to the cabin all they wanted to do was fish off the dock so I spent a lot of time untangling line and resetting bobber stops. No complaints though, it was great to see them having fun with a fishing rod in their hands. I was very impressed with both of them and won’t hesitate to take them on a trip like that again.
I have never had a bad trip to Rainy. Some trips boat more fish than others, but its always fun. I will be back in a month to fish the American side! Cant wait!!!
You will not regret taking those kids up to Canada and showing them such a great time. One day, sooner than you think, they will be adults and will be more than happy to go with you again…..
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Sean, a buddy of mine has a place in Moran Bay, east of the North Arm. I was supposed to go with him last week for a quick three or four days. He reported yesterday that the first day was pretty good, then it was like you said. Catch a fish or two out of a school, then they would either move 10′ or 50-100 yards… but even if relocated, they just wouldn’t bite. So he did lots of moving and he said most of his fish were really deep, like in the 35′ range…
Mark
Thanks for the follow up. Was hoping your trip report would be like that. So glad your kids had a good time!
2.5 weeks and I’ll be going through the Fort and then up the North Arm. Been a year and that’s too long
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