Cabela’s Hosts Outdoors Journalists On the Chairman II

Wes from Cabela’s brought outdoor journalist Mike Pehanich founder and publisher of Smallwatersfishing.com, Steve Quinn Editor Infisherman Magazine, and Gary Lewis Author, Speaker, TV Host from Bend Oregon.

We had breakfast underway on our way to the Brule Cove mooring site.  We loaded up our Lund Pro V’s and headed out to explore Rainy Lake. We planned on targeting walleyes and smallmouth bass on the Minnesota waters in Voyageurs national Park.

Jon and I fished reefs about a ½ mile apart from one another. Walleyes were schooled fairly heavy in 22-24 feet of water.  There was very little wind. I put ¼ oz. gold Vegas jigs on Steve’s and Mikes lines.  We tipped them with ½ a night crawler. It did not take long to start scoring. We caught many 20-24” fish; Steve caught a 24 ½ and 24” walleye. We kept several for a walleye dinner. Mike is also a senior writer for Bass Master Magazine; I knew he was itching to catch some of Rainy Lakes famous smallmouth bass!

Steve Quinn, Editor InFisherman Magazine

Mike Pehanich, smallwatersfishing.com

Wes, Jon, Gary shooting picture

I had an area that I thought would be good, a long extending point with current flowing, almost like a wing dam. Mike was rigged with a Shaky Worm with a 3/32 jig head. Steve had a chartreuse grub with a willow leaf blade. Mike cast to the downstream side on the tip of the point. You could see the current breaking on the point. He did not get two shakes in when the smallie nailed it. First bass was a very respectable 20” fish. We continued down the point which turned into a big table area about five feet deep with boulders and weed growth.  We had frantic action for almost an hour.

Jon fished a different area farter east down he lake. Gary likes to cast a fly rod.  Jon worked down a wall strewn with boulders. The smallmouth were hiding alongside, in front, or in back of every boulder, on full assault, Gary had constant action on popping bugs.

Gary Lewis

On Wednesday morning Steve and Mike and I decided to cast easterly facing points in shallow water with tubes, jerk baits, Souls Shads and Shaky worms. A 3 1/2 pound plus bass followed the northern in and just sat underneath the pike. All of the fish were caught on the back hook, which I do not think is good. It means the fish are in a neutral to negative mood. Steve and Mike wanted to switch up gears and fish for walleyes on the humps. Wes, Gary, and Jon met us and we switched people around also. Wes joined Steve and I for the afternoon.

I have been fishing submerged islands strewn with boulders.  The walleyes are holding next to these boulders or boulder piles from 15-22 feet. They are snaggy and difficult to fish with snells and walking sinkers.  It did not take long to find the first school of walleyes.  I don’t know who had the hotter tick Steve or Wes, but I do know this; I could have received a reasonable amount of money for gold ¼ oz. Vegas Jigs made by Northland Fishing Tackle. Tipped with a leech walleyes had no chance. The walleye dinner on the Chairman II would be out of site  tonight!

Walleyes started to swim higher off of the bottom making it harder to catch them with jigs. I went to the double screen mode on my 1197 Hummingbird. We were now in 28 ft. of water. By hitting my left scroll button I moved the cursor over to the fish being zoomed in at 4X. The fish was 3 feet off the bottom at 25 feet.  I grabbed my slip bobber rod and set it up so the float would hold it four feet off the bottom. I tipped with a leech, tossed it out, once the line went all the way to the bobber stop the float stated up for three seconds, and walleye on! 

The picture below shows Steve's jig going down on the left literally landing on a walleyes nose and on the right the walleye and jig coming up after Steve's hook set!

Wes wanted to troll for pike before the day ended. We set up with a black and gold prism patterned Jake and a shad colored Depth Raider. The depth Raider was hot. Wes caught three pike and the Jake struck out.

Jon took Wes and Gary to try their luck the same way but came up with different results. Gary no sooner had his black and silver Storm Flat Stick out when he got hit hard at 3.5 mph. No pike but a dandy 25 ½ walleye. Jon moved them about two miles and started again and whack a dandy 28” fatter than fat walleye on the Flat Stick again.  Time to go back to the Chairman II for a panko bread crumb coated walleye dinner!

Gary's 25" walleye

Gary's 28" walleye

Our last day began with more of Rainy Lake’s fabulous walleye fishing. Gary like the panko walleye so much that he wanted to catch four to take home to Bend, Oregon.  After another great session we all went casting for bass and whatever other creatures wanted to strike.  Wes, Steve, Gary and Mike closed out their stay with a New York Strip Steak dinner cruise on the way back to Rainy Lake Houseboats.

Walleye with gold Vegas jig

Fishing the Roof Tops

I left the dock at 7:00 AM bound for the mouth of Kettle River to meet the Cardelli   family for a day of fishing.  Roxanne, Gio, and Marliss went in my boat. Nick preferred to fish in the area, less boats than further west.

We had a nice south wind about ten mph. We stopped at marker #39 by Sand Bay Island. We found a nice school in 22 ft. of water off the southwest corner of the reef.  Gio reeled in the first two walleyes. Roxanne was next. ½ a night crawlers on a ¼ oz. Gold Vegas Jig was the ticket. We lost our wind and the walleyes moved off the reef.

 

We looked around at the many reefs north of marker #39 and did not find any fish in the 20-25 ft. depth range. I cut across the top of a reef and saw a good school in 15feet of water. We dropped down and Marliss connected on a gold Vegas jig tipped with a minnow. Gio went to town catching the next four walleyes. We also caught smallmouth and rock bass.

Our wind died again and it started to get hot. We went back to the houseboat; the kids were going to do some swimming in the warm Rainy Lake water. Nick and his dad went back out with me. We started looking again on top of the reefs. Again right on the top were schools of walleyes in 15 feet of water. We switched to jigs tipped with leeches. It was flat calm but the walleyes hit hard and often. The school would move off, we’d check the next reef s rooftop and more walleyes were in 15-18 ft. of water.  Nick’s dad was on fire every time he dropped down he pounded a walleye.

 

We kept a nice twelve fish limit and let a whole bunch go. We did not run all over the lake but worked a 1 square mile area thoroughly. When you don’t find fish in the depths as the day before you have to look at different parts of the reef. In this case they went up shallower rather than deeper.

12 nice keepers!

Fly Fishing Hot July Weather

Pete Ankeny and his friends joined us on Rainy Lake Houseboats Chairman II for three days of fly-fishing for smallmouth bass July 13-15.  Guides Jon Balski, Kevin Erickson, and Bill Dougherty had the task of locating smallmouth that would be willing to take poppers off of the surface. We decided to meet for lunch and discuss what we discovered during the first morning.

Jon found smallies about 15 feet off shore. Many strikes a few boated and fish lost. I found bass to be on the first structures going into pockets or bays, we to missed a far amount of fish but did not have as many chances as Jon. Right before lunch we caught a couple nice ones on a submerged rock pile surrounded by cabbage.  Kevin found fish in the cabbage.

After lunch the temperatures climbed into the nineties.  I found bass in a current neck down with a small amount of cabbage. Pete and Dave caught bass and missed a few. We fished points with cabbage, shallow reefs with out a sniff. At 4:45 we decided to fish shallow water rock piles with a lot of weed. The next forty-five minutes we caught nice bass.

The next morning we headed out with a game plan in hand. Jon Balaski was driving to his area and saw a bass surface off a rock area with cabbage. They caught five nice ones and they stopped hitting.  Kevin had reasonable action in very shallow junky areas, places that we normally don’t fish. The same pattern held for Kevin in the afternoon except the bass waited until 5:00 PM to cooperate.

The wind picked up in the afternoon, Dave and Tom asked to fish with spinning gear. Dave was casting a 5” watermelon colored Kalin Grub.  Dave caught nice walleyes from 23-25” and bass on the same points. The heat got to be tough.

Dawn from the Chairman II

 We decided to start at 6:00 AM on the last morning thinking the bass may be on the structures early. Wrong! We did not contact bass until after 8:00 AM. We all found them in cabbage or rock and cabbage. I was fishing a nice rock and weed structure with out a sniff. Behind us a bass jumped in the middle of the bay in heavy cabbage. We moved out into the cabbage and Shell nailed a dandy, what a fight in the heavy weed growth. We continued to fish the cabbage and caught more. Dick was working a Skitter Prop in the cabbage; the bas would hit the bait and head down into the weed growth. The treble hooks would snag in the weeds and the smallmouth would get off the hook.

After lunch we fished more cabbage and they quit hitting. Jon, Kevin, and I all moved to the closest rock stuctues to the cabbage beds we were fishing. The bass went crazy, all three boats catching nice big bass literally in a feeding frenzy. We fished until 4:00 PM and headed back to the Chairman II for an early evening cruise back to base.

Pike bites on the bass

Chairman II Goes on Walleye Assault

Our guests Tim, Bryce, Nick, Shane, Joe, Tyler and Deke arrived Sunday evening about 5:30 PM. Their gang decided to dine at Thunderbird Lodge before leaving on the Chairman Monday evening.

The engines were fired up and we left port at 7:45 AM. Breakfast was served on the way up to our mooring destination. Coolers were filled with refreshments, iced, bait loaded and guides Bill Dougherty, Jon Balaski, Ryan Schmidt, and Kevin Erickson headed out on Rainy Lake at 9:30 AM. 

Walleyes were still riding high on the reefs. It just happened that Kevin, Jon, and Bill ended up on the same reef. The walleyes acted like they had not been fed for a while. Here were multiple schools from 20-23 feet deep. We had minnows, leeches, and night crawlers for bait. We have been using jigs all year and today was no different. What was funny is I used exclusively crawlers, Jon’s boat used minnows and Kevin’s boat used leeches.  Jon’s boat ran out of minnows (5 dozen), ditto Kevin, and I went through four dozen crawlers (using ½ a crawler). I like to use Northland ¼ oz jigs that have the metal barb on the hook shank. The barb really holds the crawler in place.

Shane with first walleye of trip!

Nick with a walleye for Gardy!

Guide Kevin scooping one for Joe

Joe with 20" walleye

Nick with 23 1/2" walleye that had an encounter with a pike.

Ryan went further than we did.  He found walleyes in the same depths. His boat had some dandy walleyes 24”, 25” and 27 ½” fish.  We lost count on the number of fish but a couple hundred were caught between the four guide boats.

Later in the afternoon a couple of guides decided to troll crank baits for pike. Kevin’s boat lost a dandy at the boat.  Nick Bunne had his fire tiger 10” Jake in the water for about three minutes when he was absolutely rocked. The fish ripped line off for 50 yards. Nick battled with the fish, it passed under the boat and I thought oh my god he is not going to believe this. One more pass and the pike started coming to the boat. I scooped him with the net and he was ours. The pike was so large I decided to weigh it on a IGFA certified Boga Grip scale. The mammoth pike pulled the scale down to 23 lbs.! 

Tuesday was another beautiful day. Breakfast was served at 7:00 AM. We switched the boats up a little for Tuesday. Kevin had Deke and Nick, bill had Joe and Tyler, and Jon fished with Bryce.  A shore lunch was planned for noon. 

We all split up heading to different areas targeting walleyes.  Early the walleyes were not holding well, we would catch five or six and the schools would move. As the morning progressed the walleyes started moving onto the reef tops in droves.  Joe and Tyler were using gold 1/4 oz. Vegas jigs made by Northand Fishing Tackle tipped with a leech. Action turned steady to fast. I decided to rig a slip bobber with a red hook.  I tossed it out setting the leech so it dangle about two feet off the bottom. I thought something was not right, the bobber kept going down. I set the hook and had a good fish on. The slip bobber was unreal, fish after fish. 

Tyler with a19' walleye

23" walleye

Jon decided to use a technique called slow death (for a night crawler). We use a bent hook and thread a crawler onto the bent hook sliding the worm over the knot connecting the leader to the hook. We pinch the crawler off about two inches behind the hook. The bent hook causes the night crawler to spin. If it won't spin you do not catch a fish. Jon and Bryce just creamed the walleyes.

We broke for shorelunch ant 11:45 meeting  the group at one of the day use sites that Voyageurs national Park has created.

The guides filleted walleyes, cooked bacon (for the famous Rainy Lake Bacon and Onion Sandwiches), fried potatoes, warmed baked beans, and cooked the star of the lunch, walleyes!

Just a few pieces to go!

Rainy Lake's beautiful shoreline.

After lunch it was back to more fishing the walleyes started right where they left off. Tyler hammered the walleyes on a slip bobber, Joe nailed them with the Vegas jig. 

Joe with a nice walleye!

Slip Bobber

Slip bobber down

We decided to see what the pike were doing for forty five minutes before going in.  Joe was trolling a Depth Raider and had a great hit. He wrestled with a nice pike for about five minutes before landing a nice 34" northern.

Joe's northern pike.

 Wednesday was another dandy day. We were going to have a smaller shorelunch, fish and beans and a dinner cruise on the way in.  Walleyes were tougher today. Moving around quite a bit. Fishing was good but hard to replicate the previous two days fishing. 

Deke's 22" walleye