If Fishing Comes First - Perhaps you’ve heard about Rainy Lake wall hangers or seen the holy cow big fish sizes and stringers in the newspaper or an Up North magazine. Perhaps you’ve been lucky enough to fill out yourself. Maybe you’re a first-timer looking to weave a lunker fish tale of your own. You’ve all come to the right place.

Rainy Lake is long known as a fishing hotspot, whether you’re hard core, hoping for just enough action to net a meal or just happy to be out soaking up sunshine. It’s a walleye lake with healthy populations of northern pike, crappies, smallmouth bass, muskie and monster sturgeon too.  

Want to catch more fish - or a fish - or maybe increase the odds that your guests might get some action, look up a local fishing guide to help make it happen. After all, Rainy Lake is more than 200,000 acres - that’s a lot of “let’s try here” spots.

One such guide is Barry “Woody” Woods of Woody’s Fairly Reliable Guide Service in Rainier. Woody is a local character, a Freshwater Hall of Fame Fishing Guide and truly enjoys Rainy Lake and a good laugh too.  As he says, “Over 90% of the people who fish with Woody's Fairly Reliable® Guide Service make it back the dock safely, and that's a conservative estimate.”  An outing with Woody is always a fun experience plus a great way to learn more about the area (and local real estate market too, if you’re thinking you could get used to this lifestyle).