Rainy Lake Houseboats

I left the dock at 7:00 AM bound for the mouth of Kettle River to meet the Cardelli family for a day of fishing.  Roxanne, Gio, and Marliss went in my boat. Nick preferred to fish in the area, fewer boats than further west.

We had a nice south wind about ten mph. We stopped at marker #39 by Sand Bay Island. We found a nice school in 22 ft. of water off the southwest corner of the reef.  Gio reeled in the first two walleyes. Roxanne was next. ½ a nightcrawlers on a ¼ oz. Gold Vegas Jig was the ticket. We lost our wind and the walleyes moved off the reef.

We looked around at the many reefs north of marker #39 and did not find any fish in the 20-25 ft. depth range. I cut across the top of a reef and saw a good school in 15feet of water. We dropped down and Marliss connected on a gold Vegas jig tipped with a minnow. Gio went to town catching the next four walleyes. We also caught smallmouth and rock bass.

Our wind died again and it started to get hot. We went back to the houseboat; the kids were going to do some swimming in the warm Rainy Lake water. Nick and his dad went back out with me. We started looking again on top of the reefs. Again right on the top were schools of walleyes in 15 feet of water. We switched to jigs tipped with leeches. It was flat calm but the walleyes hit hard and often. The school would move off, we’d check the next reef s rooftop and more walleyes were in 15-18 ft. of water.  Nick’s dad was on fire every time he dropped down he pounded a walleye.

We kept a nice twelve fish limit and let a whole bunch go. We did not run all over the lake but worked a 1 square mile area thoroughly. When you don’t find fish in the depths as the day before you have to look at different parts of the reef. In this case they went up shallower rather than deeper.