We made our 4th annual trip to Rainy, staying on the MN side at the Thunderbird. Drove thru the night on Friday, arrived at the lodge at 6:30AM to unload and get out fishing.
Day 1 – Sunny, light SE/E wind, temps in the low 60’s in the afternoon. We bounced around on our usual spots near the Brule with limited success but managed to pull out 4 nice keepers for dinner. Last year, we would make it a point to go back into the Rat Root river each evening on our way back to see what we could find. We went back there and didn’t mark much or have any bites, so we went out to a new area that someone on this site mentioned and started exploring (thanks Deron). We got lucky and found some cribs that held a mixed bag of fish (walleyes, saucers, crappies, perch and rock bass). Ended the day with 23 fish caught
Day 2 – Sunny, light E/SE wind with temps in the mid to upper 60’s in the afternoon. We went to our usual walleye spots starting at the Brule and heading east with some success. We had to bounce around and look for them on the graph. We would catch a few hear and there, enough action to call it an OK bite We ended the day at the cribs and the bite was good there with a good amount of crappies mixed in with everything else. Day 2 fish total was 45 fish
Day 3 – Not a cloud in the sky, winds picked up some out of the S/SE with temps in the mid 70’s in the afternoon.We started the day back near the Brule and reefs to the east, the bite was very tough with only 8 fish boated by noon (at least a couple were keeper walleyes though). We kept bouncing around until mid afternoon with not much else to show so we headed back to the cribs. Ended with a nice 17″+ walleye, 6 crappies (1 @ 13.5″) and quite a few short walleyes/saugers and rock bass. Day 3 fish total was 29 boated.
Day 4 – started out sunny, then clouds rolled in thru the day, winds more out of the South and picked up throughout the day with temps in the low 60’s in the afternoon. We started at the cribs and pulled out a few nice crappies and a keeper walleye. By mid morning, we went east hitting a few spots in the Brule and then the reefs to the east. We were hoping with the clouds coming in, the walleyes would turn on more than they had been in the past few days. It didn’t work out that way, but the walleye bite wasn’t any worse the previous days. We went back to the cribs on our way back in and caught a few short walleyes, a nice perch and a 14.5″ crappie. We ended with 40 fish boated
Day 5 – started out with light wind and rain in the morning. We headed east knowing that the wind would pick up from the SW/W in the afternoon. The bite was pretty good in the morning with a few slot fish mixed in. By noon, the clouds were breaking up and the wind was shifting a little. The bite all but stopped. We marked fish on a few reefs but only could get anything to hit at 1 spot (couple more keeper walleyes). The wind kicked up and we could no longer fish any of the reefs and the one place that we could fish (due to the conditions) held no fish. We stuck it out till mid afternoon and worked our way back with stopping at the cribs on last time. We only managed a couple short walleyes there (tiny ones). Once the wind kicked up, the temps dropped and the bite shut off. We ended the day at 19 fish boated
Overall, it was another good trip. Although the numbers of fish caught and the number of slot fish (18″ to 26″) was down from last year, we have no complaints, its part of fishing. We did better on crappies this year than any of the previous years so that was a bonus. Biggest walleye of the trip was 23.5″, biggest sauger as right at 15″, biggest crappie was 14.5″, biggest perch was 12″ and biggest northern was 34″ (we didn’t target northern but caught some while walleye fishing). We didn’t catch anything (or mark anything) in shallower than 28ft and most fish were caught between 32ft and 35ft and water temps were right around 58F on the main lake. We pulled our a few bonus smallies while reef fishing east of the Brule as well.We stayed out past sundown (about an hour or so) to see of there was much happening, and didn’t have any luck
We are booked again for next year, arriving on the morning of 10/5/17 and fishing thru 10/8 and leaving the following morning (4 full days of fishing).
