Rainy Lake's best kept secret

Rainy Lake is a spectacular 220 acre body of water which shares the United States and Canadian border. In July of 2006, my two favorite fishing partners and I set out for a narrow and sheltered section of the lake called Bears Pass. Bears Pass is located 20 miles east of Fort Frances, Ontario, on the Canadian side of Rainy Lake. A short boat trip to the Swell and Redgut Bays provide a variety of nearby angling opportunities to those visiting this area.

There are two resorts in Bears Pass: Coppen’s Resort and The Fisheries. Both properties provide cabins with practical amenities and inexpensive nightly and weekly rates. While the resorts are located close to Ontario Highway 11, the area has a distinctly remote feel. Around Bears Pass, there is little boat traffic, and the shoreline is largely undeveloped. The fishing here is peaceful as well as productive.

On the first morning of our visit, we targeted smallmouth bass. The railroad bridge near our cabin appeared to be a prime holding spot for smallmouth bass with steep, rocky drop-offs on both sides of the bridge. We anchored on one drop off in seven feet of water, and within minutes, my friend’s crank bait was annihilated by a smallmouth bass hanging around the shoreline rocks. Just minutes later, my jig and minnow presentation produced my first smallmouth. In the ensuing hours, the smallies remained active at various depths on the drop off, and we pulled in three smallmouth over 20 inches with the largest, 22 inches! The flurry of action suddenly halted near the bridge around midday.

That evening, we turned to walleye fishing and headed to the reefs in the south end of Red Gut Bay where walleyes often settle by mid-summer. My partners used Lindy Rigs with a minnow while I opted for a white jig and night crawler combination. The strong northwest wind provided the good walleye chop, but the recent hot and unstable weather likely scattered the walleyes to various parts of the reefs. As a result, we had little success targeting walleyes with any consistency, although we did catch a few smaller eyes working the outer edge of the reef at 35-45 feet.

After two hours of trail and error on the reefs, we stumbled upon success. By mistake, I navigated the boat on the shallowest portion of the reef, which was 5 feet. Here, walleyes were not present; instead, smallmouth holding in these shallow waters hit our lines in great numbers. The next day we followed the same pattern, working the reefs on Red Gut and Swell Bays and we discovered the smallmouths to be especially active on the 5-10 feet portions of each reef. We didn’t land any monsters on this day, as we did at the railroad bridge, but the action was constant, 16 to 20 inch bass were common during this day.

Two days have past, and we experienced some amazing fishing without venturing more then three miles from our lodging. On the third morning, we changed up to the heavy action rods and we searched for big northern pike in the weedy inlets and bays which are plentiful in and around Bears Pass. We trolled with silver spoons with no avail but we tried a very shallow bay (4-6 feet), and switched to casting our spoons in favor of trolling. Within minutes, the first northern stuck my spoon with such ferocity, the reel detached from my fishing pole as I set the hook. I did regroup in time to pull in a thirteen pound pike which was my biggest to date. The lively northerns continued to strike hard throughout out the day with several northerns eclipsing the 30 inch mark. My partner ended the day landing a 42 inch, 20 pound lunker which provided everyone in the boat a moment they will never forget.

It was finally time to depart Bears Pass, but we experienced some of the most incredible fishing of our lives, along with taking in the remarkable sights and sounds of whats known as Ontario’s “Sunset Country.” Whether you are searching for bass, walleye, pike, crappie or muskellunge, one does not have to stray far from Bear Pass to experience the best fishing Rainy Lake has to offer.