Me and another fishing junkie made our 5th annual trip to Rainy last week, staying at the Thunderbird and fishing on the MN side. Left home at 8:00PM on 10/4 and got to the Rainy Lake One Stop for bait just before 6AM on 10/5. We had out bait, everything unloaded in the cabin and boat in the water by 8AM. Our primary target is walleyes
Day 1 – 10/5
Weather was cool in the morning, mid 30’s when we left the cabin at 8AM, mostly sunny and light winds. We headed east toward the Brule and hit a few of our usual spots with some fish to show, but the bite was not hot, just enough to show us that fish were there. After bouncing around, we went further east and checked out reefs all the way down to Blueberry Island without seeing much at any of those locations. Turning back we hit a few spots on the way back in picking up a few more walleyes. We ended day one with 19 walleyes (3 were between 18″ and 23″, most were in the 15″ to 16″ range)
Day 2 – 10/6
Frost on the boat to start, blue skies and light winds. We headed east toward the Brule fishing a few spots on the way picking up some fish as we went. We hit our usual spots and around 11AM the bite slowed quite a bit so we explored heading thru the Brule and turned back SW toward Payson Island as there were some spots that looked promising on the Lakemaster chip. We worked a few areas marking fish regularly and found one spot that they were active. We picked up a nice 17″ walleye followed by a 22″ walleye, a 16″ smallie and a mid 20’s northern in a 30min span. Ended the day just shy of 30 fish, 8 slot walleyes between 19″ and 23″, a few northerns and the smallie
Day 3 – 10/7
Warmer morning and started out with blue skies and light winds. We headed east to the spots that had been producing the most fish over the previous days and the bite started out pretty good until late morning again. We had about 20 fish boated by 11AM, a few northern and smallies mixed in but all of the walleyes were good size (between 15″ and 23″ again). As with the previous day, the bite slowed about 11AM but this time picked back up around 3PM and lasted until we came in just after 6PM. We ended just shy of 40 fish with 6 walleyes being being over 18″
Day 4 – 10/8
We headed out a little earlier knowing that the wind would pick up throughout the day and some of our better spots would be unfishable by noon. The morning was cloudy and with winds not being too bad, we headed east again and fished out first spot for a while picking up some nice slot walleyes, a couple nice eaters and a few short ones. By 10AM, that spot slowed down and the waves started to build to so moved to another spot that was a little more out of the wind. We were marking fishing almost constantly but were not getting many bites. By this time the wind kicked up pretty good and we knew we had limited options so we stayed in that area and waited the fish out. Within the next half hour, we started to get some action, the first few you wouldnt feel the bite, just feel weight almost like a snag. It turned out to be slot sized walleyes. As the day went on, the bite got better as the wind got stronger. We ended up calling at a day just before 5PM when the trolling motor said enough was enough, lol. We had just over 30 walleyes this day, only 3 of them were smaller than 15″ with the biggest at 23″
Overall, another great trip for us. The total fish count was a little down this year but that was because we didnt find the crappies like last year. The quality of walleyes was the best we have had, estimating that 75% of them caught were 15″ or bigger and we had a total 25 being between 18″ and 23″. We didnt catch anything shallower than 29ft (didnt much shallower either)
I will be back to Rainy ice fishing with my wife for the first time in early January with Rainy Daze for 2 days, and will be booking my October 2018 trip at the Thunderbird shortly
