Beta

GuidedFloats is in beta. The full site launches March 1, 2027. The mobile app follows.

Guides: claim before March 1, 2027 and your first full season of Premium is free. Claim your founding spot →

Log in List your guide serviceFor guides
Home › Waters › Minnesota › Rainy River
River · Northern Minnesota · Minnesota

Rainy River Fishing Guides

The border river between Minnesota and Ontario, running from Rainy Lake past Baudette to Lake of the Woods, famous for its spring walleye run and its lake sturgeon.

A wide sand and gravel bar on a slow river below a timbered bank
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Guides on the Rainy River

Claimed profiles take booking requests. Unclaimed profiles are built from public records so the river is never empty; the guide can claim or remove one any time.

About the Rainy River

The Rainy River runs west from Rainy Lake at International Falls to Lake of the Woods at Baudette, marking the Minnesota and Ontario border the whole way. It is a big, dark, slow river through boreal forest and farmland, and it supports two fisheries that draw anglers from across the Midwest: a spring walleye run that is one of the best in North America, and a lake sturgeon population that has recovered to the point of being a genuine trophy fishery.

The spring walleye run is the event. As soon as the ice goes out in late March and April, walleye move up out of Lake of the Woods to spawn, and the boat ramps from Baudette to Birchdale fill with anglers jigging the current seams and holes. It is cold, crowded, weather-dependent fishing and it can be spectacular. Sturgeon season follows its own calendar, with catch-and-release and limited harvest windows and fish that regularly exceed fifty inches. Summer brings good smallmouth along the rock shorelines and pike in the bays, and the river is quiet then compared to April.

The Manitou Rapids gauge reads the whole Rainy basin. This is a large river and flows in the low thousands to tens of thousands of cfs are normal, with the spring peak driving both the walleye run and the difficulty of boat control. Ice covers the river from roughly December into late March or April.

Baudette and International Falls are the towns, with a string of lodges and resorts along the Minnesota bank. Because the border runs down the middle, anglers need to know which side they are fishing and hold the right license; Ontario and Minnesota regulations differ.

This water needs a real photo

The photo at the top of this page is not Rainy River.

It is a regional stand-in, honestly captioned but generic — we will not put a name to a river we cannot prove. Send us a photograph you took here and it replaces the stand-in, with your credit on it.

Add a photo of this water See the badges

Pioneer badgeUnclaimed

Add a photo of this water

Landscape, not fish — the water itself. Reviewed by hand before it appears. The first one published here earns the Pioneer badge.

Never published. It is how the badge is held for you until member accounts open.

Posting to Rainy River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. Landscape orientation looks best at the top of the page. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name printed under the photo and on your badge. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Fished this water? Add a photo

Reviewed by hand before it appears. Pick the water, not the spot — we never publish exact locations.

Never published. We use it only if we need to ask about the photo.

Posting to Rainy River.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the Rainy River cfs

Now: 6,890 cfs, read 2:30 am CDT, Mon Oct 19, 2026 (USGS 05133500, RAINY RIVER AT MANITOU RAPIDS, MN).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

International Falls: the top of the river at the Rainy Lake outlet.
Frontier and Loman: upper river landings on Highway 11.
Birchdale: a popular spring walleye ramp.
Manitou Rapids: access near the gauge.
Clementson and Wheelers Point: lower river ramps near Baudette.
Baudette and the Lake of the Woods mouth: the main hub for spring walleye and sturgeon trips.

Seasons

Late March through May: the spring walleye run, the busiest and best-known season here.
May and June: sturgeon fishing under current season and harvest rules.
July and August: quiet water, smallmouth on the rock, pike in the bays.
September through November: fall walleye; ice forms in December and ice fishing follows.

From the water

No logged trips yet. Be the first to put this water on your map.

Log this water

Fished it or cleaned it? Log in or create a free account to log a trip with photos and earn the waterway badge.

Questions

What is the current flow on the Rainy River?

As of Oct 19, 2:30 am, the USGS gauge RAINY RIVER AT MANITOU RAPIDS, MN reads 6,890 cfs, the 32nd percentile for this date, with water temperature 50 F. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the Rainy River?

Anglers target Lake Sturgeon, Muskellunge, Northern Pike, Sauger, Smallmouth Bass, Walleye on the Rainy River in Minnesota.

Are there fishing guides on the Rainy River?

GuidedFloats lists 1 guide and outfitters on the Rainy River. Claimed profiles accept booking requests; unclaimed profiles are built from public records and link to the business.

Where can you access the Rainy River?

International Falls: the top of the river at the Rainy Lake outlet. Frontier and Loman: upper river landings on Highway 11. Birchdale: a popular spring walleye ramp. Manitou Rapids: access near the gauge. Clementson and Wheelers Point: lower river ramps near Baudette. Baudette and the Lake of the Woods mouth: the main hub for spring walleye and sturgeon trips.

When is the best time to fish the Rainy River?

Late March through May: the spring walleye run, the busiest and best-known season here. May and June: sturgeon fishing under current season and harvest rules. July and August: quiet water, smallmouth on the rock, pike in the bays. September through November: fall walleye; ice forms in December and ice fishing follows.

Where are the fishing regulations for the Rainy River?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Minnesota agency site: https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/regulations/fishing/index.html