Rainy river ice out

Hopefully warmer weather is coming and you guys can get out there.

My buddy Charlie is up there breaking ice at the launch yesterday. Had the air boat out and boats on the water sending wakes breaking it all up

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRvxT6xL/

Not sure if this link will work

Video was flagged for safety violation or some thing.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Video was flagged for safety violation or some thing.

Sure wouldn’t want everybody jumping in their airboat doing airboat things.

Charlie had quite the day up there it sounds like lol. He’s a character man, fun follow on Social media and always entertaining when he was hanging out at Steve’s Lucky Bait back in the day. Haven’t made it to one of his gig’s yet, but would like to.

Pretty crazy how fast the Rainy is opening up given the weather, mainly due to the increased outflow in iFalls it seems to me.

Because its on Tiktok a Chinses owned company that is spying on us and they want to fish the Rainy all by they self’s. LOL

Bearcat89 wrote:

Video was flagged for safety violation or some thing.

BigWerm wrote:

Charlie had quite the day up there it sounds like lol. He’s a character man, fun follow on Social media and always entertaining when he was hanging out at Steve’s Lucky Bait back in the day. Haven’t made it to one of his gig’s yet, but would like to.

Pretty crazy how fast the Rainy is opening up given the weather, mainly due to the increased outflow in iFalls it seems to me.

I’ve been to many of his gigs. Most being us in the back yard around the fire. I was working with him when he would sit on our work break and play side walk music. I’m flying up and meeting him Monday next week

According to those on scence, Birchdale is open for business today

3Rivers wrote:

According to those on scence, Birchdale is open for business today

It is. I was sent a picture a hour ago

We’re going up Thursday-Saturday

Can’t wait for the first whack on the end of the rod, nothing better

I see Charlie darmer posted this last night on YouTube

I see they reduced outflows from the International Falls dam by about 25% as well. That will slow the ice-eating as well. Gotta love it.

Heading up next week on Thursday. Curious If anyone thinks the forks will be blown by then or if they will hold up with this colder weather?

Coletrain27 wrote:

I see Charlie darmer posted this last night on YouTube

<div class=”ido-oembed-wrap”><iframe loading=”lazy” title=”Dedicated” width=”850″ height=”478″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/RS93iqeO07U?feature=oembed&#8221; frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” allowfullscreen=””></iframe></div>

That’s my buddy Charlie. That’s the video that I tried to post but it was deleted

Walleyeguy34 wrote:

Heading up next week on Thursday. Curious If anyone thinks the forks will be blown by then or if they will hold up with this colder weather?

If I could predict the forks, I’d never have a bad trip up there! But, imo, the only reason the Rainy is open is due to the output in iFalls. The extended forecast doesn’t show any major warm up, so I’d bet (Depending on the odds you wanna give me ) on the Forks staying locked up thru the end of the season.

Walleyeguy34 wrote:

Heading up next week on Thursday. Curious If anyone thinks the forks will be blown by then or if they will hold up with this colder weather?

I’ll be there and I’ll post a report. Or send me a message

Walleyeguy34 wrote:

Heading up next week on Thursday. Curious If anyone thinks the forks will be blown by then or if they will hold up with this colder weather?

I don’t think they will open up by the end of the season either. Keep in mind when they do go it is still a couple days to get to birchdale. An additional couple of days til the mud gets to wheelers point. So you might still have 3 to 4 days of fishing after they let loose.

On the other hand I’m starting to wonder if wheelers point will open before the end of the season. My guess there is no.

There are SO many variables to the forks thing. Really, the only true way to predict any sort of tributary event is to actually be there when things start happening, or to know somebody who is.

Hell, even now evaluating what happened last year, I’m not sure anyone can really pinpoint one certain day or two. Some were saying “forks blew” some were saying “big release from the lake”, others said “ice jam”. Meanwhile it was mostly just runoff and a good ol spring flood (in this case record proportions) and everything just kind of all happened at once.

There’s a reason people go to the lengths they do to get their boat in the water today, it’s because tomorrow could be completely different. It does change that fast. Just gotta roll the dice and hope your number comes up. It’s a good thing the “real” season doesn’t end until May 15th. Plenty of opportunity to pick a window and go for it.

Nick Lindner has a nice little video on YouTube today. A couple decent walleyes and some “tube socks”!

Gregg Gunter wrote:

Nick Lindner has a nice little video on YouTube today. A couple decent walleyes and some “tube socks”!

Nick and Donnie are always fun to watch. Donnie is a family friend and an awesome guide up on rainy. Highly recommend him if your heading up that way and want a guide.

There is a ton of ice still on the lake. Lots of snow and a very, very slow melt going on. We did not get the snow yesterday you guys got. It was 40 degrees yesterday and will hit 40 today also. However it’s still getting into the teens at night.

I’d relax getting to the river this year.

Pretty decent trip for us so far. Put in at Birchdale Friday at 6pm and caught 20 eyes before dark. Fished a few old spots and did some exploring today. Still managed 80 today. Not much for lake fish showing up yet. Lots of smaller fish. Dustin did manage a nice pair of 29s for big fish today.

Attachments:

1. 

   IMG_20230401_220154.jpg
   

2. 

   20230401_183725-scaled.jpg
   

Is that a lake trout Mike? Never seen that in the river. We will be up this week all week to next Monday.

something odd here, a lake trout in the river ?

Just saw that lake trout on FB. Thought it was an April fools joke!

Bearcat89 wrote:

Is that a lake trout Mike? Never seen that in the river.

That’s what I said too, someone else also caught a musky this weekend.

It was a great way to start the spring up there. Not even home yet and looking forward to heading back up for 10 days.

Took awhile to find them today but did finally find a bunch later this evening. Good bite 10-13’ for me. Biggest went 25” but almost all the rest were 17-18”. I did not catch any lake fish, just river residents. Not seeing much for the big lake fish yet.

Any update on the location of the icepack? it’s been crickets since it passed Frontier….

Uncle Rico wrote:

Any update on the location of the icepack? it’s been crickets since it passed Frontier….

Someone commented on the Royal Dutchman’s post that it was 13 miles past Frontier and passed the S curves. Which has to be pretty close to Vidas.