As I’ve done for 6+ years myself and a small group of friends have joined chris granrude in the search for late season giant crappies in the maze of islands and cuts of Rainy lake! Just like every other year chris and the great border lake did not disappoint!
The bite this year was one we would work very hard for, unlike years past when winter was on its way out, this year the brutal winter of 2013/14 still had a strong grip on the lake. The snow was deep on the lake causing some difficult travel due to slush, but we were determined and made it to the fishing spots with minimal issues……. though we did have a few. starting with one of our sleds breaking down in the middle of the back country of rainy. Chris was to the rescue the next day though with his beast of a bear cat! towing the sled to the safety of land!
With snow depths and minimal sun light making it through the ice, that causes the bugs in the mud to hatch and in turn the crappies to school up, We were forced to drill allot of holes and search for crappies through out the basins. we were able to ice a good amount of fish by drilling drilling and drilling, hopping hole to hole picking roaming fish off here and there.
We caught plenty of fish for a fish fry and some to bring home including some giant white fish! we had many crappies at and near 14″ including the two i have here. i also seemed to not get away from the walleyes even on a crappie trip as you see i managed to ice some rainy gold! most of our fish came on heavy jigs tipped with numerous plastics, fishing over deep basins.
This years ice should last late into April and make for some great late ice crappie fishing, good luck to anyone heading up to take on the giant paper mouths of border country!!
Drew Evans
