Of all the lakes people talk about in Minnesota, there are a handful that really intrigue me. One of them is Rainy Lake. Over 210,000 acres with most of it inside either Voyaguers National Park or in Canada. This means there is very, very little development, leaving it a nearly pristine wilderness. Rainy Lake is known for good size and numbers of northern pike, walleye, smallmouth bass and occasionally a muskie. Last fall, for my birthday, I headed up to Rainy Lake to try and catch a muskie. I caught two that day, 47 inches and 39 inches respectively. It was a blast. (You can see the video here). This year I decided I wanted to go up there and try and fish for Walleye and Pike. I invited two friends and we made the hour long drive north to meet with Cody from Full Throttle Guide Service.
Cody wanted to start with walleye fishing and we were happy to oblige. Within 90 minutes we had landed probably over 30 walleyes! The smallest was around 14 inches long and the largest was 23 inches long. We would pitch 3/8 ounce jigs with a minnow or twister tail in muddy areas near rock piles and with a few twitches we’d usually feel the line get a little heavy. The walleyes were biting very soft, but when you felt the very slight tug, you usually were rewarded with a fish! I have no idea when we were on the US side and when we were on the Canadian side.
I usually consider myself a pretty decent walleye fisherman, but I was no match for Ron and Todd. Both of them probably landed 3 times as many walleyes as I did. But this day wasn’t just about how many walleyes I could put in the boat. I was thrilled with the opportunity to fish with two extremely experienced walleye fisherman and enjoyed watching them land walleye after walleye!
After a couple of hours catching walleyes mixed in with a few smallmouth we changed locations and tactics. Fishing near reeds we casted johnson spoons with a twister tails. It didn’t take long for the pike to start biting! Along with dozens of smaller pike we landed a 35 incher, two 33 inchers and a few 30 and 31 inchers. And of course, I had a heart breaker…
On one of my casts as soon as the spoon landed on the water a massive expolosion broke the surface and my line took off. Setting the hook I could tell I had a big northern on my line and fought him for about 30 seconds. But the big pike wrapped around some reeds and snapped me off. We were using 12 pound mono for our line and I can’t help but wonder if I would have had braid if I might have landed that fish…
Todd landed the longest pike, a skinny 35 incher. Ron also landed one that was in the mid-30-inch range.
Around 2 pm we took a break for lunch and ran over to an old hotel that operates inside Voyageurs National Park right between Rainy and Namakan Lake. Kettle Falls Hotel and Restaurant has been around for about 100 years and the food was decent!
Fishing really slowed down after lunch. We caught a couple more walleyes and maybe a dozen small smallmouth bass. On the drive home we guestimated that we landed around 100 fish between the three of us. It was an awesome day and I expect I will fish Rainy Lake again someday!
Rainy Lake Fishing Video