From what I could tell last week, every houseboat available was on the lake. Get an early start and take the first open spot you find. As for fishing, I rarely travel east of the Brule, so no help.
Favorite-spot.jpeg
Yeah, just take what is available and hope for a good site. I would think deeper humps unless you have some wind or weather.
Just ask them when you pick the houseboat up. Also with a group that big you will have a couple tow boats. Send your most experienced two or three guys out ahead in a boat to scout for sites. Find a site and they can sit on it until the houseboat gets there. Just looking at my calendar that’s Monday thru Sunday. You might need to search for a bit for a site as most go out on Saturday. Ask before you leave, almost everybody has questions and those operations keep pretty good track of their boats. They will know where the most likely openings will be.
Last week on Namakan we found fish on 28-35’ rocks. There are a ton of reefs and island shorelines that fit the bill east of the Brule. You will see the boats on them and they’re easy to identify on your map chip. Also I would imagine they’re are nav charts on the houseboats, ask the operator to mark some starting spots for you when you pick it up.
Send your most experienced two or three guys out ahead in a boat to scout for sites.
X2 bring walkie talkies, or CB if the fishing boats have them, and send them ahead of you once you get east of the Brule to go scout sites. And keep an ear on the CB you may hear someone leaving a site. The Voyageur Website has pics of most, if not all of the HB sites I think. Bring plenty of ice (mostly block ice), beverages and bug repellant. Fishing I haven’t been up this time of year, but reefs, weedy bays and wind blown points are always a good place to start. Don’t sit long in spots that don’t produce, there’s a million spots to try.
Here’s a list of sites with pictures, the sandy beach ones are usually the highest priority.
http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm?pg=3450921&id=AF1BF98F-07CC-88B1-E589F767B0A9E910
We spent a 6 days on Rainy in a houseboat June 29 – July 4. We found a great site where we stayed all trip. “Marion Bay West – R41” houseboat site is very nice. Sandy beach area to secure the houseboat and nice sandy area to swim if it gets hot. The days we were there were brutally hot, high 80s and up to 90 degrees no wind and mayfly hatches. Water temps spiked to 80 degrees. We baked out on the water that trip. Needless to say the fishing was difficult…but that was 7 weeks ago and conditions better now.
The Marion Bay location is close to a lot of good looking fishing spots nearby. If you can grab that spot you won’t be disappointed.
Thank you so much!
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