Anybody ready for the spring season???

Attention all you Rainy River walleye fans….here is the scoop on ice conditions…..
As of last night (3/26), Frontier has 2.5 feet of ice. As far as boat fishing goes, the river has opened up a bunch, but it won’t be ready this weekend. The ice is still approximately 4 to 5 miles from Birchdale, but it probably wont be open this weekend. There is some open water on the Canadian side near the Sioux Rapids though. Next weekend will be the kickoff weekend for the river. Looks like only two weekends this year. The river is extremely low, and we don’t anticpate any shelf ice this year (i.e. river didn’t drop through winter).
The temperatures are supposed to be getting quite a bit colder up here too. Tomorrow night is supposed to be a low of 13° and they are forecasting 10-14 inches of snow today for the area too. Needless to say, that might slow the melt down, but beginning of next week it’ll warm up again. Early estimations are that Birchdale will be open early to mid next week. Lets hope and pray! Good luck on the water!

Steve,

Thanks for the update on the river. I know several anglers and their parties that are chomping at the river to get rollin!
Hopefully the warm weather that is to come next week wil have an impact. I have seen the river open several miles a day up there with the right weather.
Has anyone been icefishing the river lately!

Do you think that once the river gets past birchdale. the ramp will be able to accomodate bigger boats, granted if we do not have any pushed up ice heaves from the flowing ice?

Thanks for the report! It looks like things are pretty much on the same exact track (date wise) as last year. If things warm up quickly enough, that should put some decent numbers of big fish in the river for the last weekend. Once again, the May opener may be on fire for big, hungry post-spawn walleyes at the mouth of the river and LOW. I’ll be up April11-14th and will give a report. If anyone goes up previous to this, I will be happy to digest any information you are willing to divulge. Map Guide, are you going to be fishing? Could you provide a water temp every few days? Anyways, Good luck to all!

Deezee,
Ice fishing has actually been pretty slow as of lately. Lets hope the fish start showing up. I don’t think there will be any shelf ice this year. Big boats should work just fine for a change. Good luck.

Sounds like clemeston resort is reporting open river access at Birchdale as of 3/30/03. We are gaining water everyday and they are expecting frontier to have boat traffic over the ice later today or tomorrow. Numbers of slow reports, but groups are catching as well. Big fish so far is 27.5 inches. The next couple of weeks should be excellent fishing. Hope to get up there by the 11th. Anyone else planning on the trip.