Rainy Lake continues to be hotter than normal

Walleyes, smallmouth bass, crappies are going strong. Our unusual spring has had different effects on each specie of fish. Walleyes are scattered on points and shallow rockpiles like usual in post spawn time peiods the difference is they are really aggresive. We have done as well on flat calm days as windy days. Techniques have been pitching jigs and minnows, pitching jigs tipped with 3″ Gulp minnows ( I fish these just like a jerk bait, aggressive)and ring worms. I had never used ring worms before fishing with James holst on May 18th. What a good bait, easy to fish, very little line twist, just a subtle lift and drop with a slower retieve. Husky Jerks, Suspending Rattlin Rogues, and X-Raps are very hot if you like to cast and catch those fish that are the most aggressive in the lake.

We had a pretty good wind on Saturday May 22. It mixed the water dropping temps to the 60-65 degree range. Water temps are 10-15 degrees higher than the average for May 24. metabolism goes up with warm water, the fish are eating more often, and more food. All most all fish are coming out of 4-7 feet of water. That is one reason pitching and casting is working so well, if you jig under your boat the fish sppok and move away from the boat, when you cast there is no spooking. Yesrterday we started to see walleyes under 17″ moving into the shallows. There is a small green drake hatch going, walleyes are chowing on them. During the spring time season walleyes in shallow water eat close to 80% invertabraes.

Smallmouth have not spawned. Females are close to spawning beds, water temps are warm enough to spawn. I look for them to bed four to five days before next full moon. Topwaters, jerkbaits, inline spinners, flukes, and plastics are all working well.

Crappies are in the midst of spawning, on May 18th we were catching an equal mix of females and males. The females had very ripe eggs, on May 20th every crappie we caught was a male, not on female, same thing on Saturday.