North Arm 6/16-6/24

Back in the land of electricity, computers, and the internet. Here’s our report from the North Arm of Rainy from our annual June trip.

Weather – hot, hot, did I mention hot? 80-85 every day and no clouds for 5 straight days. The lack of wind didn’t make up for the hot either. Didn’t see a whitecap for 6 straight days and mostly full glass conditions. We always ask for stable and boy did we get stable.

Fishing – mixed bag. We were primarily after pike and didn’t do well at that. Spent a little time after walleye. We did very well there but others did not. The walleye didn’t seem to be transitioning to main lake structure just yet but expect that to change any day now.

Big fish – 15# and 11# pike with not many 7-9 pounders. Slower normal, we struggled to find a pattern for a few days. When we did then we struggled to find more of the same location profile and/or get them to trigger. 28″ walleye took top honors. Many 18″ plus or minus a couple inches to go around.

Five days without big wind. Hope I have some of that my week of July 7th

Any smallies? Wonder where they are with the crazy spring…

We are staying at The Fisheries this weekend. Supposed to rain and blow. Oh well. It’s kinda strange. If we fish for walleyes, we catch a bunch of dinks w/ nice crappies mixed in. When we bass fish, we catch the bigger walleyes. We have never really nailed the smallies. I probably throw top water too much, but its fun when they hit. I’ve had luck with a whopper plopped for LMB lately. Do you guys think the smallies would like them, too?

FryDog62 wrote:

Any smallies? Wonder where they are with the crazy spring…

Didn’t target them but got a few mixed in with everything else. Some nice ones as well. Couldn’t say with confidence what’s going on with smallies. Did see two of them holding territory a few days in a row where we kept our boat. Assumed they were on beds. The ones we caught likely weren’t on beds.

Wayne Daul wrote:

Five days without big wind. Hope I have some of that my week of July 7th

Wasn’t just lack of big wind it was lack of any at all. Made for easy traveling but hard with the heat. Pretty sure it impacted our pike fishing. Can’t explain but the walleyes didn’t seem to care, go figure.

On Kab if you don’t have wind you might as well stay in.

Nice report Pat.

Good report, are you doing a second tip up there in September? I just got back from my Canada trip (English River at Grassy Narrows) and am already looking forward to Rainy Lake in October

bigstorm wrote:

Good report, are you doing a second tip up there in September?

Tentatively scheduled for 9/8-9/15.

One thing I missed that I usually put in my reports is water temp. Sometimes helps when these get looked at later.

6/16 68 degrees
6/22 76 main lake and up to 80 in some bays
6/24 dropped to 73/74 with the slight wind to mix up the water