We
left port about 3:00 PM and headed east on a twenty-five mile cruise. We had the Chairman II, Lady II, and Lady III
along with twenty-one guests and. We arrived about 6:30 PM and secured the
houseboats to shore tying them together so you can step from boat to boat. Chef
Jim and Bernie prepared a wonderful chicken and Rib dinner. Fishing would not
begin until Wednesday morning.
Rainy
Lake Houseboats guides, Joey Dougherty, Jon Balaski, Bill Dougherty, Kevin
Erickson, Matt Shermoen, Ryan Schmidt, and Bruce Jean arrived by 7:30 AM. Here was a nice breeze blowing. Anticipation
was running high! The guides headed to different areas, some fished islands
surrounded by deepwater, others fished shallows, and some fished points.
Fishing was super, we used jigs and minnow or jigs and a piece of crawler.
The
islands produced walleyes from 14-22 feet; reef tops were good mainly from
17-22 feet. Points had walleyes going from 27-30 feet. Shallow water had lots
of fish from 6-to 8 feet in narrows and points.
Our wind started to die down and fishing slowed. We met back at the
houseboats for a famous Rainy Lake shorelunch.
Many
years ago the old time guides must have had tough fishing and had to improvise
a lunch without walleyes. They took the bacon they had and fried it up, took
the onion and sliced them into slices about 1/8” thick. The lemons were cut
into wedges then squeezed on the onion slices. The slices were then seasoned
with salt and pepper. The white bread slices were buttered. The guides put the
slices of onion on the bread then three or four pieces of bacon and another
slice of bread on top. Rainy Lakes famous onion and bacon sandwich was born!
Our shorelunch has bacon and onion sandwiches for appetizers, fried walleye,
baked beans, and fried potatoes.
90
degrees temps moved in with no wind. Guides fished for bass, walleyes, and
northern pike. Buzz baits provided good action in the weeds for pike. Walleyes
bit but slower than morning.
Thursday
looked to be another beautiful day on Rainy Lake. Winds had switched to the
west and were supposed to top out at 20 mph.
We decided to fish weed edges and points in shallow water in the
different bays. Fishing was good with both jigs and minnows on points, crawler
harnesses worked quite well on the weed edges. Speed trolling Husky Jerks in
6-8 feet was excellent also.
The
afternoon was slow fish had moved off of the morning structures. Bill Dougherty
boat did not have a fish at 4:00 PM. He opted to try a shallow rock saddle
between to islands that also had a good size cabbage bed. Louie caught a nice
Eye right away on a Northland Tackle Silver Shiner Bait Fish Crawler Harness. A
couple minutes later he hammered another. Bill switched Steve and Don to the
same set up. We ended up boating 23 walleyes and a couple dandy bass in ninety
minutes.
