Yes the arctic weather was entirely my fault. The forecast originally said that we were going to have decent weather this past weekend but that turned out to be false. I brought my sled and flip shelter and neither made it off of the trailer the entire trip. It wasn’t all bad though, I managed to salvage a day of fishing by going up to LOTW and renting a skid house for a day. I was able to experience fishing in a hard house and driving 22 miles out on the ice road with an 8,000lb truck which I have never done before. I caught some fish and had a great time. I am in love with the area and can’t wait to come back. The people are incredibly nice and for such a small town the food options are great. We stayed at the Cantilever and really enjoyed the stay. The food is great and the drinks are also fantastic. Coffee Landing and Chocolate Moose were also in our rotation and none of them failed to meet or exceed expectations. I would love to fish Rainy in the summer and as far as ice fishing is concerned I am not sure that LOTW can be beat.

Is there usually safe ice near the mouth of the river in Ranier? I see there is a public access there as well as the city beach that is on the other side of the point. Is the parking lot at city beach cleared plowed and available for access?

Thanks for the info! I still need to sort out some of the logistics but it looks like I will be there on February 7th. I tried to call Rainy Lake Marina but did not get a hold of anyone so I will try again tomorrow. I am still trying to sort out all of the details but I will be up there working for 5 days before I will get an opportunity to get out fishing so I should be able to get a plan together during that time. We are staying in Ranier so I was hoping to find an access point somewhere nearby if I can find some time to get out in the evening after work. I work for a car company and we are doing some cold weather testing in International Falls. We typically go to Ontario but with the border situation we are staying in the States.