Arvid's Fishing Report

The walleyes have changed their feeding habits a little. The best bite the past few days has been during the middle of the day and then they shut off a couple hours before dark. Monday evening I went on the river by the airport about 7:00 and never had a bite. George S. was there and he caught a nice 26″ walleye just as I arrived. He had caught a 29″ walleye and two eaters a little earlier but nothing more after I started fishing. Tuesday I fished during the day for a short time and caught a 26″, a 21″ and two nice eaters. There sure are a lot of nice fish in the river now. George said that he has caught several the past couple of weeks in the 28″-30″ range.

Ice conditions on the river near Baudette are still good for ice fishing. It sure looks like the season will close this Saturday and we’ll still be on the ice. I don’t remember that ever happening before. Report are that the river is open just this side of Birchdale and the boat fishermen are not doing very well. Reports are that pickups are still driving on the lake (although they shouldn’t be) with over 40″of ice and fishing reports are spotty.

George with a nice 26″ walleye

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

The Bosch Boys put in some long days at their cold weather testing site here in Baudette and some of them find that doing a little ice fishing is a nice way to wind down at the end of the day. They don’t always get to fish at the most desirable times and as a result the catching isn’t always that great, but when they do catch a few fish that’s just bonus. They have some fish houses on the river near the airport and they can be fishing in minutes from the testing site. If the weather is nice some will sit outside on the ice which was the case on Thursday evening When Ken, Kevin and George were trying to find a walleye in late February. They had a good evening, Ken caught three, George caught one and Kevin got one for the wall.
Kevin with his 31″, 11 lb walleye

My friend, Terry, called over the weekend and said that there was a good perch bite on Lake Bemidji. On Monday, I was scheduled to make a trip to the Bemidji airport to pick up some Bosch associates in the afternoon so at Terry’s invitation I went down early and fished for a couple hours in the morning. The fish house was warm, the holes were drilled, all I had to do was step in and start fishing. The action was steady and I fished with only one rod using a small swedish pimple and a crappie minnow. I must have caught between 30 and 40 perch and one small walleye. I was only going to keep 10, but ended up with 13 in the pail. The walleye was 11″, but I had perch that were bigger so I released it.

Lake Bemidji Perch

Wednesday morning, Bill M. and I went to Bemidji to get the pontoon boat for our Senior Fishing & Boating Program. It felt a bit strange pulling a boat north with temperatures below zero and knowing there is two foot of ice on the river, probably three foot or more on the lake. We got a few looks. We are now going to have a full top put on the boat locally and it’ll be ready to go when the water isn’t quite so hard.
Bill has his fish house on the river close to the airport and on our way home he invited me to fish with him for the late afternoon bite if there was going to be one. I met him on the river shortly after 4:00 and we fish for a little over an hour. We each caught a nice walleye. Fishing on the river remains slow, but occasionally you hear of someone catching a big fish in the 10-12 lb range. Reports from the lake are mixed, anywhere from fair to good, with fish being caught in various depths.

Winter activities like snowmobiling are almost nil. We have very little snow and the trails have yet to be groomed. Some are riding the river and lake, but it’s not ideal.

Bill with a nice 18-1/2″ walleye

Jonathan, Allison and granddaughter Rachel were home for the weekend. The weather was nice enough that Jonathan and I fished up river for a little over an hour both Thursday and Friday evenings. Fishing was slow. On Thursday, Jonathan caught a nice walleye and a sauger. Friday he caught a walleye; your’s truly missed a couple. On Tuesday I had caught three walleyes and two sauger and I was hoping for better than we did.

There have been some very nice fish being caught both on the river and the lake. Don Smith caught a 31″, ll lb. 10 oz. walleye on the river early in the week and the Grand Forks paper has a list of several walleyes over 25″ recently caught on the lake.

Jonathan with a 18″ walleye

Sunset in January

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