Rainy Lake, Minnesota Walleye fishing report

Monster walleyes are showing up in big numbers as the water temperatures continue to decline. It always makes me smile a bit as the landings are now nearly empty,and the fishing is absolutely lights out! Many experienced walleye anglers will agree if your looking for a trophy eye the time is prime. Right now until ice up is one of your best chances to boat the “Big Girl”. Jaw dropping walleyes are now feeding aggressively on baitfish looking to fatten up for the long wintering season here on the border. Working big ciscoe and smelt grounds is key to big fish success!

I often times find increasing your bait size with the decreases in water temperatures will often help you best estimate the size baitfish the big walleyes are feeding on. Remember the smelt and ciscoes that they prey on are now becoming more mature, and with winter approaching it is imperative the fish put on necessary fat reserves. Considering those two things alone makes it a easy call for bigger presentations. Most of the summer I don’t mind saddling up fatheads for a nice walleye ride to my landing net, but from September on it is big minnow sandwiches from the Daze boat. The fish have been shoulder to shoulder at the big bait buffet line, and that has smiles on everyones face.

Yep we’re still slinging jigs, and today we have to credit a couple girthy girls (25&26) inch pigs to the pink Flu-Flu’s!!! LOL!! OK we were chasing big Slabs, but what’s a guy to do!! Thanks Custom Jigs and Spins!! Catching 6 and 7lb walleyes on ultra lights is a good time. During the week we spent most of our time working H20 Precision jigs in a multitude of colors over small humps. We we’re careful to match colors to weather conditions although it seems the orange/Chartruesse firetiger is hot nearly all the time!!!

I have made some minor adjustments during the week to help put a few bigger fish in the boat. Finding some of the biggest fish have continued to hold in slighty different locations than the 17-23 inch fish. Looking back on pics for week has me smile as many clients have posted a “PB”!!! tremendous fishing in both quanity as well as quality. I LOVE FALL!! I would estimate we caught and released 150 walleyes over 20 inches. We also did very well on the coveted fish heading for a nice hot oil bath!! Catching continues to be more fun than fishing!!!

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