As always, Rainy Lake never ceases to amaze me and the fishing it has to offer. 
My family spent the past week fishing on the other side of the border up in the area of Northwest Bay. It’s a tradition spanning over 25 years and without question, it’s never lost it’s luster.
Although there was a week-long mayfly hatch while we were there, the fishing remained consistent and plenty of walleyes were caught from 16″ up to 28″. A few pike were caught as well with my mom catching one that tailed the tape at 35″. Nothing huge, but fun nonetheless. I did a little bit of smallie fishing early in the mornings and had a blast pitching jigs over shallow rocks and plucking the smallies as they fed off the mayflies. Wait for a swirl and pitch to it or just pitch tight to shore and hold on. 
As for the walleyes, pulling crawler harnesses around 1mph along weedlines, around points and over all parts of rock reefs worked very well. We caught ‘eyes anywhere from 5′ to 28’ deep. A harness with an orange spinner and orange hooks really worked well as did the gold spinner with pink hooks and chartreuse spinner & hooks too.
The fishing was great, the weather was great, the food was great and the 
was great! What can ya say! It doesn’t hardly get any better. 
Here’s some pics from our trip. 
10mins into the trip and…..25″er.
My kids thoroughly enjoyed their “Big Fishing Adventure”!!!
My youngest brother joined us for most of the week and got his PB walleye measuring in at 25.5″
A typical Rainy Lake smallie…
And my wife’s back-to-back 28’s (she doesn’t touch fish)! That’s all I heard the whole ride home…how she got the biggest walleye! 
Kudos to her though….these are her PB’s!
