Arvid’s Fishing Report

Ralph C. and I fished the River by the airport the last couple evenings. The walleye bite has been a little slow, but the sturgeon have been quite active. Saturday we caught seven walleyes. We kept our two apiece and released the others; two were very small. We also caught three sturgeon in the 35″ to 40″ range. I caught one that was tagged and I stopped at the DNR office this morning and got information on the fish. The sturgeon was tagged on April 17, 2004 in Fourmile Bay and was 35.2 inches at that time. It has been caught four times since then; the first time on 04/15/05, then on 04/14/06 and 04/18/06 and then now on 03/24/07. It is now 40.7 inches in length. Sunday, Ralph and I caught no walleyes; I caught a 46″ sturgeon. Jim O. and Mike I. were fishing close to us and Jim caught one walleye and five sturgeon. Mike caught three walleyes. You can probably tell from the pictures that it’s almost no jacket weather.
Ice conditions on Fourmile Bay have deteriorated rapidly and I understand that Adrian’s closed their ice road on Saturday. If this weather continues ice fishing will be over sooner than we thought.

Ralph with a March walleye

Jim with one of the sturgeons he caught

March sunset on the Rainy

Over the past few weeks there have been a number of fishermen like those in the picture below wanting to catch a pike in the Baudette Bay. The flags have been few and far between. They come, set their tip-ups, sit around for an hour or two and then leave.

There were two boat rigs in town this Saturday morning. I’m not sure where they were going to find some water to use them. One of the local guys was at Birchdale on Friday - Ice Fishing. It’s going to be awhile before there is open water.

I fished the river by the airport on Friday evening and caught two walleyes. One eater and one 24″. Saturday morning I caught a small sauger and a beautiful 30″ walleye.

Waiting for a flag

A beautiful 30″ walleye

We are no closer to boat fishing on the Rainy than we were a week ago. Spring hasn’t made much headways here in the north country, there is still a lot of ice on the river.

Sunday morning I fished the river for about an hour near the airport. It was about 30 degrees and windy. It seemed cold, a good thing I had the pickup to sit behind.  I caught three walleyes. One was about 7″, one was 17″ (kept that one) and one was about 27″, a nice fish. Also caught a small sturgeon about the same size at the big walleye. Even with the two fish limit that’s in effect on the river between March 1st and April 15th, it’s tough to get a limit to take home.

A nice 27″ walleye

A little sturgeon 

It’s March, that time of the year when folks look forward to the river opening up and getting in a few days of boat fishing before the season closes on April 15th. Others though, are happy to stay on the ice as long as they can and some years that’s right up until season closes. It looks like this may be one of those years with over 40″ of ice on the lake and plenty  on the river.

Tom and Glenn are the last two Bosch boys at the Baudette site and after getting their work done and the place closed up for the summer they took a day off to do a little fishing. Saturday, Tom, Glenn, two Reliable transport drivers, six of Tom’s friends up here from Michigan and South Dakota and I went to the lake. It was a beautiful day, sunny, upper thirties, no wind. It was also one of those days when a sunburn was easy to come by with the sun reflecting off the snow. We went out of Zipple Bay and northwest towards Sandy Shore. We stopped in what turned out to be 33 feet of water. Two ice augers got a real workout drilling a pair of holes for eleven guys in 40 plus inches of ice. We fished in that deep water from just before noon until about four o’clock. There were some slow times, but we caught a few fish. Tom, Glenn and I caught twenty-two; twelve saugers and ten walleyes. Not sure how many the rest caught, maybe that many. After 4:00 we moved in to 14 feet hoping for a late evening walleye bite. It didn’t happen, the eleven of us caught about six walleye in the shallower water.

Tom with a nice March sauger

Glenn with a nice walleye