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.
Today’s 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”.