Little east wind action on Rainy lake

Couldn’t figure out the stubborn walleye bite today. Fished with IDO’s ProdriveAl and his son (Great guys!!). We ended up boating around 30-35 walleyes with our biggest going only 22 inches. Was pulling my hair out trying to figure out why those deep red marks had their mouths sewn shut…..East wind? LOL!! Ended up with a beautiful limit of 14-16 3/4 inch eaters, but the big girls were simply finicky for us today. That my friend does not bode well for them tomorrow however. If I’ve learned one thing when big girls shut it down for a day they often open both doors the next. Big Girl Redemption tomorrow am…….SADDLE UP!!!! Walleyes seemed to have moved away from our dominate jig and crawler bite back to a minnow action. Look for a bit of cool weather to get those fish snapping.

and I thought I was the only one having issues. for a while today it looked like the graph was in demo mode with all the marks and nothing to show. Do you go back to same spots and hit them again the next day to see if they are opening up?

I know it’s hard to do in a guide boat, but spinners are still going crazy. Think I’m getting more of a reaction strike lately but plenty of walleyes along with a 40″ and a 41″ northern in the same day. Don’t know which my daughter had more fun with catching one or netting the other. I even took the no minnow guy from another site out and after about 15 minutes and he was down 8 to 0 he grabbed an extra spinner rig rod and tried to catch up. We did try jigging and he got 1.

Quote:

---

and I thought I was the only one having issues. for a while today it looked like the graph was in demo mode with all the marks and nothing to show. Do you go back to same spots and hit them again the next day to see if they are opening up?

---

I wouldn’t forget where those fish are located by any means. We’ve clobbered the fish all summer long up to yesterday’s trip with a combination of jigs and spinner rigs like Paul has mentioned he’s using in Canada. Though we still managed a nice limit of fish and boated 30-35 walleyes those bigger fish yesterday were a bit spooked for some reason in the locations in which we were fishing. As my grandpa used to say “Can’t get-em everyday Chris!! For crying out the lake would be out of fish” LOL!! Here is what I’m going to do this morning. Those fish which weren’t that juiced up yesterday may very well make up for it today. I will definately go back and look to those schools to let the big girls out. It is my belief that schools of fish often times have windows of peak activity for the bigger fish. We may have walked into nap time a couple different times. Lots of possibilities, but finding the fish is always key. Though I haven’t fished Leech for a long time Rainy Lake has an unbelievable bite that carries on right through the once considered “Dog Days” of summer. Leech may have a bit of a slow down before the cooler days of fall? Not sure on that one. Get back after those fish you marked and change some speeds on presentations with whatever your using to see if you can get those fish to go.

Onestout~ I would be checking those fish again and again, hard to leave fish to find fish but if they arnt going you have to look else where but never forget to look back, especialy if there are no boats around,there are currents in a lake. Points and wind will be my first places in 2 weeks when I get back up there!

Well we finally made it back into RLHB on Saturday despite the 2′ waves and whitecaps in our bay… Tuesday, with Chris, was our best day fishing. We had an almost hot, calmish day Tuesday, at times wishing for some wind, boy would I be sorry for that… The big skeeter hardly even bobbed with the passing wakes, but we sure were marking some big fish around 30 fow but couldn’t get the big girls to bite. We boated at least 30 fish, with my son and Chris with 5 to 8 each before I got my first.. it was slow but steady action, Chris had us on a spot loaded with fish, a small unmarked hump up to 30 fow with 100fow all around. We move a few times, marking HUGE fish all over but none of the big girls wanted to bite. I got the only slot fish of the day at 22″
Wed we woke to20 mph winds and a thunderstorm, the rain subsided late in the am and we decided to make a run back to RLHB for some more ice… well, half way back to the houseboat, just cruising along in 30 fow at about 30mph, and lost a blade on the prop… had spare prop with but tools had gotten taken out of small boat so had to go the last 3 miles at about 5mph… got the boat fixed and headed out fishing. We targeted 30′ to 40′ with deeper water nearby, managed a few 12″-15″ eater walleyes but that was it. As the week went on the wind just continued to BLOW out of the east… we kept trying though, it was so windy we were dragging TWO 20lb anchors with almost 100′ or rope, at times hitting 1.0 mph on gps, can’t really effectively fish in those conditions but we tried. We’d catch a few each time out but they kept getting smaller and all the big fish we were marking were now in 50′-70′, even if we could’ve caught them, they were too deep to be able to release them so we didn’t try.
It was also a real adventure releasing the houseboat from shore in a 25mph wind blowing parrelell to shore too… but thats amother story.
All in all had a good vacation, was able to eat all the fresh walleye I wanted, would’ve been nice to get some big fish but oh well.. My son and I each caught a slot fish, got into a few nice perch, had a couple decent (and delicious) northerns so thats all that matters.. We’ll prolly be back, but it’ll be the summer of ’13… already saving up.
Thanks for a good time Chris, we really enjoyed it.

Great fishing with you any your son that day Al.

You could tell something was going to happen with the pressure system messing the fish up that day we fished together. Even though we caught upwards of 30 walleyes they were a bit finicky. Low and behold we found out the brutal winds were to come in after our trip. I thought about your crew out there. Sometimes you simply have to tip your hat to Mother Nature.