Although fishing is booming on Rainy Lake, it has been a bust in recent years on nearby Kabetogama Lake.
Some anglers there suspect a connection.
The walleye harvest restriction at Rainy, they reason, may have shifted angling pressure to nearby Kabetogama and Namakan lakes, thus depleting those waters of walleyes. DNR biologists say that s not happening, though it was certainly a possibility. In 1988, concerned that the proposed experimental regulation on Rainy Lake could shift pressure to neighboring waters, the DNR began monitoring Kabetogama and Namakan. Biologists found that angling pressure and harvest on Kabetogama Lake actually peaked in 1989 and 90, before the Rainy regulation was put in place in 1994. Pressure on Kabetogama has gone down in recent years.