Is Leech Lake Water Level Improving

When I last fished Leech in late September the lake, like so many others up north was way down. Any chance water levels will improve with the snowy winter they had up there ??

I’d be interested to know as well.

I can’t comment specifically about the Leech Lake area, but most of the state was in the worst drought since 1988 last year. The western portion of the state has come out of it now, but the eastern and northern portion haven’t yet. We obviously got more snow this winter than usual, so that is helping. I would tend to think that we still need a very wet spring to get out of this.

I’ve lived here since 1991 and last year was easily the worst drought I’ve experienced living here.

In over 25 years of fishing there, I have found that what is happening on the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area has a great impact on Leech Lake’s water level. If they need more water down there, more water is released from Leech and that can lead to low water levels during the summer even though the year started at a decent level. It looks like the Leech area still has a 15″ snow depth, so the year should start pretty well.

The lake will need much more than the runoff from this winter to get back to near normal levels. As bad as I hate to say it, I hope most of Minnesota has a wet spring from rains. I know our lakes here around St. Cloud really need it.

I talked to a resort owner at the Northwest Sports Show and he thought that if things stand the way they are right now, it should be about 6” lower than normal which is an improvement from last fall. He also said basically what luckydave said, a lot depends on what the Mississippi needs.