Ice
out on Rainy Lake was Thursday May 16th. Our first guests left the
bay on Friday May 17th. We went from having a late ice out to having
three days of intense low pressure. Winds were from the NE and fairly strong.
The system dumped 5” of rain on Rainy Lake.
The
goods news on Sunday and Monday was the walleyes were pretty hungry with plenty
of 15 – 16 1/2'’ walleyes for the fry pan with lots of 19-22” fish. There was
not any thing fancy used to catch them. 1/8-ounce jigs tipped with a chub in
5-7 feet of water. We long lined the jigs about thirty feet back from the boat
at about .5 to .7 mph.
In
the current we used ¼ ounce jigs casting them into 5-6 feet of water or
vertically jigged in 15-22 feet. I did not take the camera out in the heavy
rain, so no pictures.
Todays
target was northern pike. The day was beautiful sunny skies and warming up. Often the day after the front leaves can be
tough fishing. We started fishing points outside shallow weed bays. Nothing
doing accept for a few hammer handles.
We moved into the weedy bays and mud areas one nice walleye no
pike. About 1:00 PM we moved out to the
points on the big lake side of the bay.
Water temps wer 42 degrees. Pike will use the big lake sides of the
island points when the water is cold. Ciscoes and white fish will be shallow on
these spots. Pike love to eat them.
We
found the pike, two were nice fat 36” fish others about 4 lbs. We caught
walleys out there two. We went back into the bay for the last hour and a half.
Sun does amazing things. Walleyes were really active. We caught several really
nice one up to 27”.
We
caught all of our fish on Rapala 12 cm Husky Jerks, firetiger and a new shad
color with a chartreuse stripe on the side and it’s a killer! 12 lbs.
monofilament with no leader or swivel is the best way to fish the Husky Jerk.
Swivels and leaders affect the neutral buoyancy and action. We caught two fish
with leaders , the rest with a direct tie to the lure.
