A Day of Fall Fishing to Remember
It was one for the books. When Greg Jones of Midwest Outdoors TV and I planned a fishing outing for fall walleyes on the Rainy River, we never thought it would end up like this! Yes, we knew there were a lot of walleyes in the river. But to get on a bite that we will never forget, that is another story.
We were shooting an episode of Midwest Outdoors TV. Jones, long time host knows these waters well. You see, his family started coming to the Rainy River back over 70 years ago and would come twice a year. “Coming to the river every year as a kid, these parts become special,” explains Jones. In fact, back in the 1st grade, he actually did “show and tell” about Clementson Bay of the Rainy River. “I couldn’t wait to tell people about it,” explains Jones. “Back then, it was so cool to tell people all you have to do is look across the river and it’s Canada! I also couldn’t wait until I was 12 years old. That’s when I could get a watercraft permit and take the boat out on my own. My family had an extra 4 HP motor which didn’t have reverse. Once we got to the old Clementson Resort, the first thing we would do is carry the motors down to the resort rental boats and hook them up. Good memories,” he says with a grin.
Starting out our day of filming, it wasn’t perfect. We started towards the mouth of the river checking a key spot to see if we could find some fall walleyes. After about 20 minutes with no bites, we decided to load the boat up on the trailer and head upstream where we had seen some nice reports from Facebook of fish going. When we were in the water, we could see about four other boats fishing. We slid to a spot Jones had fished over the years away from the other boats. I was rigged up with a jig and minnow and 
ready to fish. I dropped down and in less than a minute, had a decent walleye. Definitely a good sign. I re-baited and dropped in again and in less than a minute a nice pike. There were definitely fish living here.
Over the next few hours, we proceeded to catch walleye after walleye, sauger after sauger with a few pike mixed in. We were anchored up in an eddy just off of the current in about 9-12′ of water. The fall walleyes were just were they were suppose to be. In addition to numbers, it is always nice to catch a big one or two for good measure. We did just that with Jones connecting with a trophy walleye.
When the show was complete, we dropped Josh the cameraman off at his car and decided to jump back into the boat for another hour until dark. In that hour and 15 minutes, we caught another 31 walleyes with a couple of pigs. Again, a day to remember.
A few days after our trip, Jones was hitting the river again, this time on his own. He happened to run across a couple of students from the University of Minnesota Duluth fishing from shore. I guess I will let Greg tell it in his own words, directly from his post… Met a couple young guys shore fishing the Rainy River at the boat landing, both going to school at UMD in Duluth. Ben Paschke and Decker, they heard about good fishing and drove up to fish for the day. Figured what the heck, invited them to jump in the boat. They got there limits in about 25 minutes, think they had a good time and quite the adventure for them. Ben had the hot hand for big fish a 28″ and pair of 27.5″ his biggest walleyes so far in life. The 28″ came on his last cast, a 10 pound class fish! Good memories for all!
Yes, good memories indeed. It has been an incredible few weeks on the Rainy River. There have been so many great Facebook posts of Rainy River anglers catching piles of walleyes with a lot of trophies mixed in. Some of these fish will stay in the river over the winter. Others will filter back into the lake for ice anglers. One thing is for sure, it has been a fall to remember.
