Fishing Report 5/13/03

  • walleyefinder
    Leech Lake area (God's Country)
    Posts: 51
    #1284808

    The best word to describe opener on Leech this year was “SLOW.” The fish were extremely scattered and definitely on a light bite. I did not fish much on opening weekend due to a bad case of the flu that set in late Friday night. We went out for a few hours on Sat. and ended up with only 1 fish. Sunday I was not able to make it out, but very few boats were out that day due to the high winds. Those that did go out had limited success.

    I have been on the water the last couple of days with mixed results. The best fishing I found was in the deeper water off the major points. The key is to go as slow as possible. 15-18’ seems to be the magic depth, however a few fish are coming off the shallow flats. The key to working the flats is to find patches of sandgrass as the walleyes are holding on these patches. Either a jig and minnow, or rigs are producing fish. I found my best luck with a 1/8 oz. Oddball jig tipped with either a shiner or a small rainbow. A big positive is that all the fish that I have caught the last couple of days have been in the 17-20” range.

    The water temps for the big lake were around 50-51 degrees. Today I was out by the meadows and found 55 degree water.

    The biggest thing Leech needs now is wind. Other than on Sunday (which was too windy) we have not had much if any wind. Yesterday and most of today the lake was glass, which is a rare scene for this lake and definitely does not help the fishing. The weather forecast is calling for some more wind the next couple of days and I expect fishing to start picking up.

    toddberghoff
    Prior Lake
    Posts: 79
    #266642

    Walleyefinder,

    I fished leech on the opener as well – had similar results. We found a few walleye on Saturday in shallower water, 5-8 feet, but ended up losing a lot of bait to the perch. About 1 out of 5 perch were over 10″ – so not a total bust there. One of my fishing partners landed a beatiful 27″ walleye, his only one for the day in 8ft. Total walleyes opening day, 4.

    Sunday, with the wind blowing at 35 mph, fishing conditions were miserable at best. Started in the same area and depth as saturday and picked up 1 small walleye, but found that the gators had moved in to the shallower water. Between 4 guys in my boat, we caught about 15 1-2# pike. we moved out deeper and started picking up a few walleye on the deeper breaks at about 20ft.

    It was definitely a challenging opener fighting the wind, rain and colder temps – but overall, a much better opener than last year.

    Maybe we can get together some time this year – I will probably be up on leech a few more times this year.

    Good luck.
    Todd

    toddberghoff
    Prior Lake
    Posts: 79
    #266643

    Forgot to mention, most of our fish came on 1/4 oz round head jigs and fireballs in leech lake green. the perch colored fireball also took a few, but seemed to be a favorite for the gators.

    walleyefinder
    Leech Lake area (God's Country)
    Posts: 51
    #266700

    Let me know when you will be coming up next and we will try to hook up.

    Today was a much better day fishing on the lake, it took a while but once I found them it was a good bite, should be better fishing next time you are up.

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.