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 nightcrawlers 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.
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.
Jon decided to use a technique called slow death (for a nightcrawler). 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 nightcrawler to spin. If it won’t spin you do not catch a fish. Jon and Bryce just creamed the walleyes.
We broke for shore lunch at 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!
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.
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.
Wednesday was another dandy day. We were going to have a smaller shore lunch, 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.