Fishing through the Mayfly Hatch/Rainy Lake

  • arklite881south
    Posts: 5660
    July 10, 2011 at 3:15 pm #1291466

    We seem to be entering the final stages of a widely spread……….massive mayfly hatch. Yesterday’s trip saw our fishing action once again pick up a bit from the day before. Our customers have averaged a moderate 25-30 walleyes a day during this mayfly stretch with a lot of work involved to boat these generally negative fish. Still with the vast majority of reports from other fisherman boating fish in the single digits……OR WORSE!! we’ll take this as a victory under the circumstances. Each day over our last 5 trips we’ve witnessed fish becoming a bit more active again. We’ve slowed our presentations to literally dragging a H20 precision jig and fathead through the mud. Precision control on top of negative fish is critical to catching ANYTHING. Along with the increased activity from all walleyes it has been very noticeable in the last 2 trips that the bigger fish are realizing there is little nutritional value in the hatch.

    Yesterdays trip boated another 12 walleyes over 20 inches. (3) 23’s (1) 24 (1) 25 (1) 25.5 being our biggest. Not fantastic fishing, but heading back in the right direction. We look for the bite to get crazy good over the next week.

    Thanks to all of our awesome customers this past week!! Truly a pleasure sharing the boat with all of you!!

    As a sidenote we’re really fielding a lot of inquiries for our fall trips, but plenty of prime dates remain available for pre-books. Both September and October are truly our favorite big walleye and Crappie trips each year. Many of our customers choose a combination trip fishing for big slabs part of the day and big tank walleyes the other half……..The guide likes that too!! For a limited time we’re including groups of 3 for the same price as groups of 2 on pre-booked trips over the next week. Anglers MUST refer to this $75.00 discount seen here on IDO!!! (Brings your trip price to $133.33 per day per angler!!) Love to share the boat with your crew in chase of the BEAST!!










    hairjig
    Cudahy, Wis.
    Posts: 937
    July 10, 2011 at 7:18 pm #979607

    Chris, just out of curiousity what is the water temp during the “may fly hatch”?? Thanks,

    fredbart
    St. Paul
    Posts: 372
    July 11, 2011 at 12:13 am #979652

    What would Chris do? I got back last night from a 4 day trip camping/fishing trip to Rainy. Going in through Kettle Falls I found a very nice campsite, got on the water ready to go. When fishing is slow the question on such a big body of water is where to fish. Are they on deep humps? Current? Weeds? What are they biting on?
    Initially I took a fish fast approach, hitting spot after spot. Caught a few fish here and there but with no real pattern and hard to follow up with multiple fish. So what would Chris do? I SLOWED DOWN! Fishing a simple jig and night crawler making long casts on sand points slow dragging it back I started getting more and better quality fish. By days end I managed a respectful number of fish. Nothing lights out but hey: fish are fish.
    It’s good to have experts like Chris sharing his knowledge. Using his thoughts on slow and making long casts especially with the calm bight skies really made the difference.
    My last day I committed by time to fishing smallmouth. Using a Gitzit tube fishing very slowly on deep breaking current seams on the river section below Kettle Falls turned several very nice smallmouth as well as my larger walleyes of the trip. Lately I have spent more time fishing tubes for both bass and walleyes and am finding them both effective and a blast to fish. With the right weight you can fish them fast, popping them getting a great strike reaction. But I am also slowing them down using rapid light twitches, then settling the lure to the bottom. This approach has turned my larger walleyes this year.

    love2fish
    Shoreview, Grand Rapids, MN
    Posts: 1024
    July 11, 2011 at 12:39 pm #979703

    Great report Chris. Hopefully those flys die out. See you Friday night

    John

    arklite881south
    Posts: 5660
    July 12, 2011 at 10:07 pm #980200

    Quote:

    Chris, just out of curiousity what is the water temp during the “may fly hatch”?? Thanks,

    We were shooting 70 degree surface temps in the main basin.

    arklite881south
    Posts: 5660
    July 12, 2011 at 10:10 pm #980201

    Quote:

    What would Chris do? I got back last night from a 4 day trip camping/fishing trip to Rainy. Going in through Kettle Falls I found a very nice campsite, got on the water ready to go. When fishing is slow the question on such a big body of water is where to fish. Are they on deep humps? Current? Weeds? What are they biting on?
    Initially I took a fish fast approach, hitting spot after spot. Caught a few fish here and there but with no real pattern and hard to follow up with multiple fish. So what would Chris do? I SLOWED DOWN! Fishing a simple jig and night crawler making long casts on sand points slow dragging it back I started getting more and better quality fish. By days end I managed a respectful number of fish. Nothing lights out but hey: fish are fish.
    It’s good to have experts like Chris sharing his knowledge. Using his thoughts on slow and making long casts especially with the calm bight skies really made the difference.
    My last day I committed by time to fishing smallmouth. Using a Gitzit tube fishing very slowly on deep breaking current seams on the river section below Kettle Falls turned several very nice smallmouth as well as my larger walleyes of the trip. Lately I have spent more time fishing tubes for both bass and walleyes and am finding them both effective and a blast to fish. With the right weight you can fish them fast, popping them getting a great strike reaction. But I am also slowing them down using rapid light twitches, then settling the lure to the bottom. This approach has turned my larger walleyes this year.

    Nice report Glad you found some biters even though the fly hatch slowed them down. Took a nice load of walleyes today!! Lots of 22-25’s and a beautiful limit of 15-16 inchers.

    tomhopkins
    waconia, mn
    Posts: 132
    July 15, 2011 at 1:54 am #980965

    my wife looks good holding that big walleye toughest conditions for catching walleyes and and Chris still put us on them. thanks for all the hard work. glad to hear the hatch is over

    arklite881south
    Posts: 5660
    July 15, 2011 at 11:42 am #981005

    Quote:

    my wife looks good holding that big walleye toughest conditions for catching walleyes and and Chris still put us on them. thanks for all the hard work. glad to hear the hatch is over

    Thanks Tom!! Your wife is a heck of a “Walleye Gal”. Sure had a great time with you and pics will be there TODAY!! Lets get that fall trip planned!!

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