LOW/Rainy River 4/2-6/12 - Lake of the Woods (LOTW) & Rainy River - Lake of the Woods (LOTW) & Rainy River

What a trip! I usually don’t make reports because on most occasions I don’t have much to report but not on this trip. We arrived Sunday night and fished hard (12 hours a day) Monday – Friday. We ended up staying an extra day because the fishing was good and we missed part of Monday due to the inclement weather. Any time I hear thunder and lightning I get nervous and get off the water. Monday and Tuesday we fished the lake and the river near Wheelers Point and up to the church. The first few days we mostly anchored and jigged or drifted and jigged. We had more numbers of fish on the lake but not the size. Most of the fish we caught in this area where in the 20″-26″ range in 20-25′ of water with a good bite throughout the day. Our largest fish total for a day was around 50-60 for two guys. Not crazy good but good for us. Wed. and Thrus. we fished out of Vidas and found larger fish but not the numbers. We changed techniques and tried casting moxies and also 3-ways with stick baits. This produced our largest fish with a 28 1/2″ for my buddy and a 29 1/4″ for me. We have never used moxies before and on my friends first cast he landed a 26″ and 5 minutes later he stuck his 28 1/2″, he was impressed to say the least. 3/8 oystershell casted to 6′-10′ produced the best results. I struggled with the plastics but caught a few and I’m sure with more practice I’ll get better. Thursday we found a large flat off a current seam and we switched to 3-ways and proceeded to hammer the big eyes. The bite started at 3:30 and slowed at 7. We caught our largest fish with this presentation. We launched out of Frontier since it was closer to the flat we found and the bite contd. with a fish every 15 minutes until around 11:30. We moved deeper but not with the same results but still managed a few more. We found one more pod of big fish closer to the Frontier landing to end the trip on a high note. The stick bait we used was a Storm JR. Thunderstick in blue chrome. Jig color we used was gold and that’s about all we use on Rainy and the size we used were from 3/8 to 3/4. Shiners, rainbows and chubs it didn’t seem to matter. We’ve fished Rainy in the Fall but never in the Spring. If you can swing it and conditions are right on the Rainy do yourself a favor and get up there. I’m just an average fisherman at best and I caught a 29 1/4″ walleye … enough said!