Improve your fishing success!

 Choosing the best lake for your fishing trip is the first step in improving your fishing success. One of the better destinations is Voyageurs National Park, a remarkable water based park located on the Minnesota-Ontario border. The major lakes are Rainy, Namakan, Sand Point, and Kabetogama. All of the lakes allow motorized boats without horsepower restrictions. The primary game fish species on all the major lakes are walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, crappie and muskie (on Rainy Lake).

Things to be considered when choosing a lake involve:

• what species are present?
• are there conservation measures in place to protect the fisheries?
• is the lake a good natural reproducer?
• how much pressure?
• does it have enough baitfish population to sustain fish populations?
• how remote is the fishing opportunity

A Fishing Hot Spots Map is a good tool to investigate the waters mentioned.  The maps show great detail, structure, depths, bays (how big or small), resorts (indicator of fishing pressure), and navigation routes.

According to a DNR creel census, Rainy Lake receives only a third of the pressure that Namakan, Sand Point and Kabetogama do. Why? Rainy is three times as large as the whole Namakan basin. There are close to thirty tourist facilities on those waters and only six on Rainy. While lack of pressure contributes to the outstanding fishing on Rainy, the main reasons for anglers’ success on the lake are its outstanding physical characteristics. Rainy is loaded with large protected spawning bays, Hitchcock, Finlander, Marion, Black, Saginaw, Lost Bay, Cranberry, Stokes, Pound Net, Friendly Passage, Cormorant, Moose, Bleak, Seine, Red Gut, and Rice just to name a few. Some are as large as Sand Point Lake itself.  Walleyes, smallmouth bass, northern pike, and crappies use these bays every year. While one bad cold front can wipe out an entire spawn on the smaller lakes, it may only affect only one area on Rainy. The spawn season is close to a month long on the different bays and rivers of Rainy Lake. 

Rainy Lake has also had a very successful slot limit for years. A wonderful tool on lakes with good reproduction and good food sources, Rainy’s slot limit has been wildly successful. This is not the case in the Namakan basin. They have just announced a big change in their slot limit that will be in place for the next five years, at which time it will again be reexamined. The previous slot on the Namakan basin allowed you to keep six walleyes from thirteen to 17 inches with one walleye over 23 inches allowed. This slot seemed to lower the amount of spawning stock in the basin.  The new slot allows a combination of six walleyes and saugers, only four of which can be walleyes, with one walleye allowed over 28”. This will encourage smaller fish being harvested allowing more spawning stock to live.

Rainy Lake is accessible from the Namakan basin (by way of mechanical portage, the shortest boat ride to portage is sixteen miles), but why not just stay on Rainy if that’s where the best fishing is? It’s a shame to spend three to four hours a day traveling when you could be fishing.

Because there are not as many resorts or houseboats on Rainy as the Namakan basin, it is important to make your decisions early and reserve your spot on Rainy Lake early. We know you won’t be disappointed. Learn more about summer fishing techniques and secrets in the fishing section of our next newsletter.