Rainy Lake, Ontario, CA

In 2008, Jack and I fished Rainy Lake in Ontario, Canada over the July 4th holiday weekend (U.S. Independence Day) for smallmouth bass and northern pike. This was Jack's first "big" fishing trip, although I had been to "Rainy" several times. We flew to Minneapolis and connected up to International Falls, MN via Northwest Airlines. Our Ontario home was Campfire Island Lodge, campfireisland.com, our favorite northwoods lodge nestled on 11 acre Campfire Island. The island is very easy to get to, a short boat ride on the lake from "The Sorting Gap" in Fort Frances, Ontario. This is an intimate lodge for the serious fisherman with enforced catch and release fishing. Dean Howard, from Kenora, Ontario, is the owner/operator of the camp and his love for the outdoors and fishing is evident in all he does at Campfire Island. The cabins are remodeled and comfortable, with hot water, showers and air-conditioning. The meals are tasty and the staff is extremely friendly and helpful. The dining cabin has a screened in porch with a fridge full of cold Molson beer! This is the heart of the Campfire Island, and many pleasant conversations, musings and fishing tales are told here after a long day's fishing.

We had warm, sunny weather and the fishing was superb! The smallies were in a typical post-spawn pattern in shallow water. This fishery is 250,000 acres of Canadian Shield Lake with numerous rocky islands, humps and boulder strewn shoreline! Jack caught many nice smallies and even more pike on his spinning reel. He did well trailing ZOOM Fat Albert cotton candy color grubs on a 1/8" jig head. We also used ZOOM Flukes, Rapala X-Raps and Mepps Aglia #4 spinners. The largest bass was 19", a nice fish, but I hooked a larger one that "got off". In short, I cast a Rapala jerkbait towards a big submerged boulder and we saw a large, broad bodied smallmouth slam the lure and run to my right, parallel to the shoreline. I didn't "set the hook" after he took the lure, my fault.

Paul, our guide, is a retired Ontario provence forester and he was especially patient and helpful with Jack. I can't thank him enough for making this trip with Jack so easy! Other trip highlights were Jack's 33" pike, bald eagles and the beautiful weather and scenery. This is a special place for us and one of the best smallmouth bass fisheries in North America. The bass have great habitat and an abundant food supply in the rainbow smelt they gorge on. I hope all you smallie fisherman get to fish "Rainy" someday, you'll dream about return trips!