Ice Out soon

The lake looks like it will be ice free within the next 5 to 7 days.. The area directly in front of the resort is open for about 1/4 mile…water and ice sections are crashing over the Dam. The woods are very dry with red flag Forest Fire warnings across the northern section of the state. Rain is in the forecast  the next fews days which should help with both the fire conditions and help cut down the ice on the lake.  Best quess is the ice will be out at least a week eariler than last year…should make for good opener if the water gets a chance to warm up prior to the opener.

Rainy River trip

Bill and Bucky

Last week Bucky, Bill Rosner ( both guides on Vermilion) and myself ran up to the Rainy River to catch the last day of the season for open river walleye fishing….we put in 30 miles west of International Falls…when we got on the river ..it was high and water was dirty from the runoff….so we started heading west toward Lake of the Woods ( by boat)…we traveled 45 miles to mouth of Lake of the Woods…it was crazy..we were fishing a half mile in dia section of open water along with 50 other boats.. as we were fishing the open water we were only 200 yards away from a bunch of ice fisherman spread out all over the ice on their snow machines..wish I would have taken a picture of that….we fished the edge of the mud line where it ran into the lake…we caught a couple of nice walleyes…and saw a lot of the other boats catching Sturgeon.. We ran into two guys who live and guide on the east end of Vermilion who told us they fought a huge Sturgeon for over an hour…they had a giant musky net in their boat..but said there was no way to boat this monster ..they were talking six to seven feet in length with a huge girth…(which is not uncommon for the Rainy River)…it finally broke off after they had it up on the surface once..it got to around 6 pm..and we were going to start heading back given we had an hour and half of travel up the river with floating ice coming at us…then Bill hooks a Sturgeon…on 6 lb test…After an hour and 10 minutes it finally came up to the surface…it was foul hooked in the side …but a big fish…66 inches…it was not a real heavy fish but had some nice weight to it….we had no net ..so …Bucky grabbed the tail…I stuck my hand in its mouth and we pulled her into the boat for a few pictures….now it’s after 7 pm…sun starting to go down…so we headed back…was that a little hair raising ride…dodging ice sections the size of boat along with a ton of other river debris floating ..we could not slow down for it was getting dark quickly…as it turns out Bucky got us back safe…great boat handling with a pinch of luck…