Rainy Lake, Lake Vermillion, Red Lake

A couple of buddies and I plan to go ice fishing this winter. We can’t decide between Rainy, Vermillion, or Red. Would like to hear some opinions on each lake. Mainly target walleye but would also like to chase some northerns through the ice.

I’ve never fished Vermillion. But everything I’ve heard (and seen) is that Red lake is the place to go for numbers of eaters. Rainy could get some decent slot fish, but Red will produce good numbers of fish in the 12-20” range. Last winter on red my group of 3 got 50+ walleye over the weekend and we really didn’t fish that hard.

ive honestly never heard of someone choosing vermillion as a destination trip for ice fishing. Might be a good thing… Red is a good (and popular) ice fishing lake. ive gone the last few years and had success. Not much for scenery if you are into that, Vermillion and Rainy would be a much better “adventure” trip I would imagine.

Sort of building on what phoy and crappie said, it really is about what you’re after and when you’re going Alex. If you want simple-stupid, drop your wheelhouse out among the crowd in 8 fow, catch numbers of smaller (12-17″) walleye (I’ve noticed the average size of eyes has been decreasing the last 2 years, guessing due to harvest), have very little scenery and/or are fishing early ice, URL is your place.
If you’re less about numbers (although numbers can still happen but not a guarantee like Red), appreciate the thrill of the “hunt”, like being away from others and a good view of nature, V or Rainy would be better. (I’d probably lean Rainy for better chance at a big girl).

michaelcfi79 wrote:

I’ve noticed the average size of eyes has been decreasing the last 2 years, guessing due to harvest

Here I have been thinking the average size has been increasing over each of the last 5 seasons on URL.

Agreed with the previous posts. I’d also add it depends on if you plan on hiring a guide or not. On V or Rainy there is so much structure you may need a point in the right direction, a guide, or a lot of auger time to dial them in. Red is pretty simple.

Thanks for the replies, guys. We are unsure about when we plan to go. Based off our schedules, it’s looking like either second or third week in January or second to last week in February. So the window is pretty large there.

If we go to Vermillion or Rainy, we will definitely be hiring a guide. Probably won’t on red as one of the guys in our group has fished red in years past. One of the guys has an ice castle that we plan to take (depending on ice conditions) and we will also be taking 4-wheelers to give us some further mobility. We’ve always heard red is a good numbers lake but end up catching a lot of smaller sized fish.