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I've had the most success with Bitzer Creek's Zip Lure-3/8oz. in firetiger but other colors are also good at times.
My next favorite would be Reef Runner's Cicada but I use that mostly for smaller fish.

Interesting you mention "blades".  My buddy who fishes the river freq. in the fall and spring runs uses a blade above his jig like this.....place a clevis about a foot above your jig, place your fav blade in it, then loop your line back around and through the clevis, then tie on your jig.  He claims it works well, doesn't kink his line at the clevis and he's convinced it increases visability.  I've yet ot try it.

The Spring run up the Rainey is phenomenal.  They rip several feet of ice off the river by opening the dam discharge on April 1st.  When that finally opens out to Pine Island near Baudette on Lake of the Woods....the bait and the big momma 'eyes come flying up river.  Problem is....crowds are nasty, landings are nasty, people get nasty, weather is nasty...DNR says you can only have 2 spring fish.  So I opt to skip it and stay to the fall run.

What type of blade rig do you work all day?

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There is usually a small population of walleyes that stay in the rivers but the real big gals are lake fish that move into the river to feed and spawn and are real transients.
Some days (the best I've ever had) blade baits will far outproduce live bait esp. in low vis water. It takes a fair amount of effort to work a blade bait all day but it's paid off well.

Large is relative to your bait supply...large = near 4" Rainbows.  I coulddn't catch a fish on a 5" Shiner or even a small one.

Jigs...pink (no glow) fireball, 3/8oz under 16 ft and no current, 1/2oz good for trolling over 16 ft deep.  You rarely might need a 5/8oz if anchored upstream of a hole and you needed to drop your bait right over the break in heavier curent.  We spent 90% of the time trolling with the MinnKota....real slow.

Are the WI 'eyes you fish river fish?  or like these...Lake fish that chase bait up a river?  Visability a factor?

Interesting post Wally. I would like to know about the bait you used - large rainbows? How large? What size jigs?
For fall river runs in WI and MI we've used large fatheads that are usually only up to 3". We've also used chubs and river shiners that can be 4-5" long. We rarely need jigs larger than 3/8 oz.

Sure you can paddle it on your way from Grand Portage to York Factory, but I'm gonna talk about fishing it.

Some of you may know the fall walleye bite there is phenomonal for quantity and concentration of truely lunker fish in a small area.

This weekends work netted us (5 fishermen/2 boats) our limit of 4 good eaters each.  We also had between us...
     ..a 25" 'eye
     ..a 251/2" er that went 7.5 lbs. with a huge belly
     ..a 27"
     ..36" Sturgeon

  ....and believe it or not a 36"+ Walleye that we all had several good looks at next to the boat.  I'm here to tell you this was a record 15 lb.+ 'eye that was lost on my fathers 6 lb mono (Ha!...whats he doing with that stuff!).  Believe it or not...I saw it.  Right in front of the Frontier access in mid-river.  All our fish caught at Clemenson or Frontier on large Rainbows and a pink fireball jig.  Compared to last year...this was slower and a few less monster 'eyes.  Last year saw two 9 lb'ers and a 11 lb.

Here's a pic of sunrise over the river looking upstream from the Frontier access

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Heres a pic of my 6 lb'er, the smallest of the weeknd lunkers

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