Jim Ridling’s party arrived Thursday afternoon for their 26th annual Rainy Lake Houseboat fishing trip. Tony Casereto took them out on their first Rainy Lake Houseboat trip on one of our Kempton Cruisers. This year’s group had Jim, Phil Pyeatt, John Crawford, Doug Inman, Jim Wilson, and Ken Upchurch. Jim Ridling and Ken Upchurch live in Alabama, Phil, John, Doug, and Jim Wilson live in Arkansas. Guides for the trip were Jon Balaski, Joey Dougherty, and Bill Dougherty.
Smallmouth bass is their main target, along with walleyes caught accidently for lunch. We drove the Chairman II to Anderson Bay for a four-day stay. We arrived about 10:45 AM and ventured out for an hour and fifteen minutes before lunch. We found smallmouth immediately in shallow water. They were aggressively hitting Tiny Torpedo’s (top water prop bait) and also John Doug Toney’s homemade Doug spins.
At lunch the banter was heavy, all three boats had good bass fishing. The afternoon was awesome, there was calm winds allowing us to fish anywhere we wanted to. The bass were locating in new weed growth with rocks and gravel. It was strikes galore, many missing but plenty being caught. The first day we caught over a 100 smallies! I fished with Phil Pyeatt ( he has made his yellow Eagle Claw spin cast rods with Diawa spincast reel famous).
Saturday we were greeted with a top water fiesta, totally calm winds, pick your spot and have at it. Doug Inman started with a silver Doug Spin (silver blade) and John was fishing a Torpedo. Smallmouth were feeding on the surface everywhere. They missed the bait constantly. Doug was catching dandies on the spinner even with no wind. A person often thinks they are not touching the bait just going over it. A Torpedo has a reputation for dull hooks compared to most hooks now days. Do yourself a favor and sharpen them with a Luhr Jensen file. Once John’s hooks were sharpened it made a big difference.
After a walleye lunch we headed to a different area about four miles from the
Chairman. We started on the west edge of a good smallmouth bay. Right away the Doug Spin was hot, totally calm and getting very hot. John switched to the small spinner and it became a circus. ½ way around the bay we started catching walleyes mixed in with bass. Temperatures hit 90 degrees and no wind; surface water temperatures hit 82 degrees. We worked to the eastern edge of the bay and hit big bass on the point, then one walleye after another without a breath of wind. We had a forty fish afternoon.
Back at he houseboat each boat had similar action, may be not as many walleyes but more bass.
Sunday brought more hot weather with 10-15 mile per hour south winds. We fished strictly top waters, (all three boats) easily 70-80 bass between the boats before lunch. The heat and a little detour to the Kettle Falls Hotel started to take a little toll on our guests. Afternoon heat provided more bass but a little shorter afternoon for the fisherman.
Monday morning started with a brisk south wind that would eventually swing to the southwest and finish the day off with a 20 mph northwest wind with a temperature drop of 36 degrees from Sunday’s 90 degrees. Jim Ridling and Ken Upchurch still wanted to try the bass on top water baits. We started on some cuts that transition from the bay to the main lake.
Dandy bass were found along the whole southern cut. Overnight they had sharpened their sights. We had less strikes but almost every fish was a solid hook up. We worked the Torpedo’s with a few sharp jerks then a pause and bang the smallies would hit the Torpedo. We boated about 30 bass in the AM. During the afternoon Ken opted to fish 4” Kalin white grub and Jim opted to try a Rattlin’ Rap in blue chrome with an orange belly. Ken wanted to catch a larger size Northern Pike before we finished the afternoon. E hooked up with a very nice 34” pike on the first spot we tried. The wind had shifted to the northwest and with it came a big temperature drop. Jim was tossing the Rattlin’ Rap and nice size walleyes were liking the paint job!
With the wind came rain. We tried top water one were time before going on and caught four more on Torpedo’s. Back to the Chairman II for cocktails and a steak dinner and a breakfast cruise back to port.
