Rainy Lake First Timer

Heading up next week as a backup plan for our cancelled Canada trip. Any recent reports or tips?

Humps and reefs. Assuming walleye: Steamboat, Fox Islands, inside the Brule Narrows. Lots of structure further east too…just might not be necessary. I haven’t fished west of Black Bay narrows recently but that does pickup slightly as summer goes on. Just be sure you know water flows and navigational markers. Red buoys on the right when you’re heading eastward. This is confusing for many first timers since most assume the lake flows west to east. It does not. It flows east to west.

Make sure you have LM lake chip. Lots of rocks. They can pop up anywhere.

Sand Bay Fish Camp wrote:

Humps and reefs. Assuming walleye: Steamboat, Fox Islands, inside the Brule Narrows. Lots of structure further east too…just might not be necessary. I haven’t fished west of Black Bay narrows recently but that does pickup slightly as summer goes on. Just be sure you know water flows and navigational markers. Red buoys on the right when you’re heading eastward. This is confusing for many first timers since most assume the lake flows west to east. It does not. It flows east to west.

Thanks for the island suggestions. We will be houseboating so where we park the houseboat will determine where we fish a bit.

Me go, too. For same reason as you. On HB from 8/29 – 9/4. If you get a chance…post a report. I was thinking about going through Narrows and heading SE.
Have a good trip!

Thanks, I’ll see what kind of cell reception I get up there. Otherwise I will definitely post a report on Monday 8/31.

To sum of the fishing so far in one word: horrible.

Barely scraped together a meal of fish for tonight.

Heard some radio chatter of other people catching fish but we haven’t found anything consistent.

What have you been trying?

We hit a number of reefs ranging from tops in the teens, twenties, and thirties, as well as some shoreline structure. Seemed like fish we did catch were in the 25-30′ range.

My brother did ok(definitely not great by any stretch) on bottom bouncers with floaters, smile blades, and crawlers. I primarily jigged with minnows and tried jigging/rippin raps as well. Nothing worked from a jig standpoint, tried quite a few different colors and shapes, couldn’t get anything to work.

Due to the poor fishing and our dismal, mouse infested Rainy Lake Houseboat, we decided to head in Saturday afternoon and sleep at the dock. We got the fishing boats loaded up and were ready to hit the road first thing Sunday morning.

sorry sbout your results -headed up in a week. did you fish east or west of yhe narrows. Any luck with smallies

BRAD HERRINGTON wrote:

sorry sbout your results -headed up in a week. did you fish east or west of yhe narrows. Any luck with smallies

We fished all East of Brule Narrows. We fished a fair amount around Blueberry Island. We made it as far east as the Anderson Bay area and fished a couple spots around there.

FWIW, not that it’s saying a whole lot, but probably the best spot we fished was in the mid 20s around Windmill Rock. The other boat in our group picked up a few take homes and overs off that spot at least. We saw the same boat two days in a row on that spot so they must have been on something there as well.

Didn’t target smallies. My brother caught a few tiny smallies while we were walleye fishing though.

Good luck and better times up there Brad! Me and a buddy are headed up a week from next. Report back if you can.

Thanks for the info and tips Wesley! Sorry it wasn’t better fishing. Hope you enjoyed it anyway.

Quick bump here to see if anyone has a recent Rainy report. Headed up next week. TIA!