Leech Lake

Heading up to leech Feb 16th. will be fishing the walker bay area and any help or suggestions would be helpful. How are the ice conditions up there. Is there alot of snow on the ice.

Ya plenty of snow but its the hidden slush pockets that will do ya in

Snow Dog, Your in luck. Myself and 6 other guys are going to leech this weekend thrus-sunday. We are staying with walker rentals right out on the ice and will be targeting walleyes and perch. Ill let you know everything we find out. If anyone has some current info on leech I could sure use it. This is only the 2nd time we have fished this lake. thank you!

Trphyhuntr, Hope you guys have good luck up there. Any info you can give me when you get back will be helpful.

welp, went out there 2 weeks ago, not sure how it is still considering the “fish” bite has been a little frustrating lately. but, went to walker bay and fished the humps. We marked the most fish in humps that peeked 30 FOW and thats where we caught the most. so… just a little info but i hope it can help ya out.

How is the lake in terms of traveling? I have been getting conflicting reports of being able to drive wherever you want and don’t go off of the traveled ice roads. I would like to try a few secret spots over the next few days, haven’t had the time to get onto the lake in the past week after the warmup.

Molitor, when you fished the humps did you concentrete on the top of the humps or the base and sides of them?? Also about what depth should we be targeting this time of year?? thank you ></////////:>

I was at Leech Friday morning and Saturday afternoon this past weekend. The bite was tough and there were a lot of small perch.

We tried to access Sucker Bay with no luck, there were no roads plowed onto the ice from that side and we did not feel like driving all the way from Walker to Sucker. I heard that Pine Point had good roads but a off-and-on bite but we never got over there for ourselves.

We mainly fished the Sand Point area. We did not do very well in 30′ but caught plenty of perch and few walleye in the 17′ range. You have to do a lot of sorting to find perch even in the 9″ range but they were there. We caught one “lost” walleye in the morning and then picked off 4 from a school in the evening before things seemed to shut down.

The perch seemed to prefer the dead-stick with a crappie minnow and we caught some on fatheads too but the rainbows did not seem to work for us. We did not try shiners. I caught a few on some gulp alive but that was far less than bait and only a few fish on waxies.

Good luck up there. There is plenty of ice but we had to stay on plowed roads and there were some of those hidden slush pockets you had to watch for.

Dave

Hey thanks for the report Ducks, All good useful info. Anyone out on leech this week care to chime in. thanks for the help guys.

Thanks for the info!!! Keep me informed if the fishing gets better and how the ice conditions are.

ttt.

Latest Leech report

Well here’s what I got, fished leech thurs-sunday morn. with a few other guys. Our sleeper was set up in walker bay on a 32′ hump. We caught a total of 7 walleyes 4 on tip-ups loaded with a shiner minnow and 3 jigging a rattling flyer spoon and minnow head. All were caught between 4:30 and 9:30pm. During day time we traveled over to the shallow 9-13′ flats out from onigum rd to fish perch. We caught plenty of perch but only a couple dozen worth keeping. We also tried a few other spots for perch with similar success. In my opinion the odd weather out of the east may have slowed down the fishing as other anglers I talked with were having the same results. No eelpout of tulibee were caught. Snow Dog hope this helps and you have a litle better luck. ><////////;>

I was up at leech last weekend. Caught small walleyes under the slot. Ended up bringing home 7 walleyes total in the group. Weather had to have played a role – not what I am used to. Fished one 34′ hump. Marked a lot of fish, only a few ended up biting. Caught fish on both jigging spoons and tip ups.

Did find some perch on the grand vue flats, but really had to sort through them to find a few to keep for the dinner table.

Also ran into the Team Ice group. Somewhere from Wisconsin is where they came from – but they were pulling up lots of walleyes consistently. Outfished us handedly. They wouldn’t share any secrets, but did offer some very good tips that helped us put our 7 walleyes on the ice. A big thank you goes out to them! They made the difference in our trip.

Good luck to everyone at Leech!

Headed up to Leach Wed. night the 17th till the 21st. Sounds like the weather is going to be good just hope the walleyes and perch are biting. Maybe I’ll be able to meet some of you at the eel pout festival

Swing on in to the Gerbil Cage and say hello and have an adult libation

Hey Matt, how much ice is in Walker Bay??
Arnie

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Hey Matt, how much ice is in Walker Bay??
Arnie

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Shouldn’t be anything to worry about, I havn’t measured the ice in 4 weeks. If you made me guess, I’d say 28-30″

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Molitor, when you fished the humps did you concentrete on the top of the humps or the base and sides of them?? Also about what depth should we be targeting this time of year?? thank you ></////////:>

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The mid part of the humps was where we caught a couple but most of the active fish we caught were on the slopes of the humps… good luck