Rainy Lake Walleye

This is one of my favorite pictures. I could look at that kid's face forever.


We hired a guide to take us out on Rainy for the day. Man, that's a big lake. Me, my brothers, son, and grandson. I know my grandson had a good day. You can see that from the smile on his face. It wasn't the 1st time he ever caught a fish, but they were some of the biggest ones he ever caught. They have size and creel limits up there so we couldn't keep all the ones he wanted to keep. One of them became his favorite, because he carried that fish around all night. He showed anyone and everyone he could corner. I don't know how my son finally got it away from him.

Before we went, we all went to the Bass Pro Shops and stocked up on jigs, plastics, and other stuff we thought we'd need, but didn't use any of it. The guide had everything. He had jigs and tied them on, baited our hooks, unhooked the fish, we had a ball.

We didn't use any plastics. It was all worms. He brought leeches and minnows too, but the worms were the hot ticket that day. The best part was, he knew where the fish were. We fished a reef just outside of the American channel, and it was non-stop action all day. We just started in fishing and never moved. It seems like when we go out alone, we end up going all over the place.

We all fished for wallies, but not my son. He had an agenda. All he wanted to catch on the whole trip were northerns. He didn't want to hear about crappies, bass, or anything else. So, he brought his spoons and casted for them all day. He did catch a few too. My brother, Jim, almost caught a really big northern reeling in a walleye, but couldn't release the bail in time, so he got away. That walleye was tore up pretty good after that.

Seeing my grandson there brought back alot of memories. When my 2 guys were little, we used to go up to Whitehall, Mi. almost every weekend. There was a small lake about a block away from our house there. We were about 9 miles from Lake Michigan and would go to White Lake channel to fish. Right behind it was Duck Lake, and we fished there also. Those were good and happy days.