We finally, or unfortunately depending on what side of the TV you are on, have finished filming our 26th and last episode for the season! It was quite a roller coaster ride, and finishing up filming the last episode didn’t disappoint!
Monday morning broke over Leech Lake with a vengeance. Pouring rain trounced our goal of getting on a quick monday morning filming session. We opted instead to wait out the rain and try to fish late morning…No dice! It continued to pour, as we arrived to the lake and decided to use the day for pre-fishing, as Tuesday’s weather was looking more promising.
The bite was pretty consistent on Monday. We fished the Hardwoods area, finding the majority of the fish in the 12ft. range. Larger fish definitely showed a preference for a #6 Firetiger Rippin’ Rap, while a jig and a shiner or rainbow seemed to yield slightly smaller fish. The water temp out on the main lake was around 48 degrees with Walker Bay being around 43-44 degrees.
Feeling pretty confident going into Tuesday, we awoke to a stiff, driving NW wind, and upper 30 degree air temps. Leech proved to be a cruel cruel mistress! Wind pummeled us, as the water temps dropped 4 or 5 degrees overnight. It was too much as we tried to fish main lake points.
The true tale was the average size of the fish. Monday we were boating mid to low 20 in fish as an average while tuesday the biggest fish boated maybe hit 20 inches. Things were looking quite bleak as it would be our last day to film for Sunday’s show.
We made a quick decision to fish a small lake in the area in hopes of escaping from the wind. Ding ding ding! It did the trick as we were soon into fish, and nice ones at that!
We spent the rest of the day grinding out some really nice walleyes. Steep breaks with inside turns which corralled the wind was the ticket. Working a jig and Shiner or a #6 Yellow Perch Rippin’ Rap would out produce other presentations. Again larger fish highly favored Rippin’ Raps. Consistent bouts of rain and sleet pretty much summed up our season, as we finished our final episode for season 8.
Also, did I mention how hard those Walleyes pounded the Rippin’ Raps! Wow…Wow…Wow. That’s fun!
I just want to thank everybody who follows along, watching the shows and giving us feedback. It sounds cliche, but on a lot of the down right sh**ty days, it was all of you waiting for a show on sunday that helped us keep pushing!
Hope everybody had a great opener!
Ben
