some leech lake notes

With water temps in the 50’s most places and 60’s up in the frog water, the next 3-4 weeks should be silly good for crappies. Likewise, bluegills have been picnicking in the shallows on warm afternoons, they will start making beds and staying shallow as long as water temps continue to rise. We even have a few trout streams in the area, if you don’t mind bush whacking a bit. Please consider selectively harvesting these fish, as it is crucial to our fisheries.

I do enjoy early open water fishing for crappies, bluegills, suckers, perch and stream trout. However, big water walleye fishing is in my veins and the grand tradition of “walleye opener” can’t come soon enough for me. To build on the anticipation, Leech Lake is one of the best early season walleye lakes anywhere with loads of 15″-20″ fish right now with just enough bigger fish to make things really interesting for fisher folk. A 1/8 oz jig and minnow in 6-12 f.o.w. is typically the best program.

Cheers and hook-sets!

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Who knew? Did not know anything of the stream trout opportunities in that area? Beautiful brookie BTW! To early for a “dry”…maybe not, so beadhead or worm.
Expect lots of company for your opener next Saturday. Most everyone I’ve talked to is passing Mille Lacs, and headed for Leech. No ones even mentioned Red?

Of course Red, Winnie, Cass chain are great options too though. You can’t go wrong with any of those choices.

Say what? Blue gills in Leech? No way….well??? Maybe.

Leech does hold the state record for the Pumpkinseed! Tons of bluegills in here, and I am hoping they put a protected slot on them, since they do have limited areas where they are at. Tons of trout streams in the area and a good number of designated stream trout lakes with some good sized brookies and rainbows in them. Thanks for the post Phil. Hopefully we will see you out on the lake on opener.

Good luck to everyone on opener!

First opener on Leech. Fished the last 20 years or so always opening the season on Mille lacs. Breaks my heart really going to miss not being out on 3/4 at midnight with a lighted bobber. I guess this means I have given up on Mille lacs and want to start a new tradition. Hope Leech will meet expectations. Wish everyone safe and successful opener!

I’m finding perch and sunfish very shallow right now. The perch I found this morning were spawned out, bunched up and very hungry. A jig and 2″ white grub was getting crushed, 3 feet of water with muck bottom. Yesterday I had to deploy the shallow canoe to get to the way-back sunnies. Is anyone coming up early for “opener”?

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With family in town this weekend, I personally had the luxury of easing into the walleye season, which was nice with the windy and cold weekend weather. We got out for 3-1/2 hours on saturday and 4 on sunday and boated around ten walleyes each stint with plenty of keepers for a fish fry. The action was okay considering I didn’t get to my primary spots and didn’t work too terribly hard at it either day. I know some others battled the weather, stayed out all day and racked up impressive numbers. Others reported “a slow bite” on traditional opener spots. The west end of the big lake seems to be kicking out fish pretty good, but the action is not widespread. With the shallows cooling by almost 10 degrees over the past week, fish seem more active in the 10′-14′ range, no doubt due to baitfish moving deeper. By the end of the week, I expect baitfish and walleye to move shallow en masse and an even better bite. I’ll be out the rest of the week piecing it together.

Cheers and hook-sets!

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Sounds like a good weekend Phil! I can’t wait to get up there for some Leech Lake gold!

Nice images. Thanks for sharing.

A decent bite is picking up even more as the water warms into the mid-upper 50’s. This morning started off slow but as the water warmed a few ticks mid-morning, the bite turned very steady in 9-12 f.o.w. We caught way more keepers than we needed. The weather sure has improved and the bite should continue to improve, especially over the next month. Dragging a jig and any kind of minnow is working well. Moving the boat very slowly helped today with the calm sunny conditions.

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You don’t make it easy on us working stiffs Phil!!!

Can’t wait to get up there.

BigWerm wrote:

You don’t make it easy on us working stiffs Phil!!!

Can’t wait to get up there.

Text me if you are up and looking for fish, and especially if you are on fish lol!

Good reports, looks like a “happy hooking” season on Leech this year. Wondering though, did you observe more boats (anglers) this opener compared to previous years? Sounds like many bypassed Mille Lacs. Understandable, tradition’s have always been fresh caught walleye fillets sizzling in a pan to cap off the “opener”

Walleyestudent Andy Cox wrote:

Wondering though, did you observe more boats (anglers) this opener compared to previous years? Sounds like many bypassed Mille Lacs. Understandable, tradition’s have always been fresh caught walleye fillets sizzling in a pan to cap off the “opener”

It didn’t seem any busier than any other opener to me, if anything I think the weather limited a lot of people to partial-days out. Monday morning seemed busy but today there were very few boats on the lake. I do think about the future of Leech Lake often, especially when I’m filleting a catch. Thankfully, we still see the vast majority of our catch being 15″-20″ fish, which is a good sign I think. This past winter, walker bay produced mostly 10″-15″ walleyes which also bodes well for future fishing I would think.

Phil Bauerly wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>BigWerm wrote:</div>
You don’t make it easy on us working stiffs Phil!!!

Can’t wait to get up there.

Text me if you are up and looking for fish, and especially if you are on fish lol!

Haha will do! I won’t be up until Memorial Weekend, but I will definitely be spending some time on Leech for some golden eye’s and now crawdads too!

Trappers Landing Lodge wrote:

Leech does hold the state record for the Pumpkinseed! Tons of <strong class=”ido-tag-strong”>bluegills in here, and I am hoping they put a protected slot on them, since they do have limited areas where they are at. Tons of trout streams in the area and a good number of designated stream trout lakes with some good sized brookies and rainbows in them. Thanks for the post Phil. Hopefully we will see you out on the lake on opener.

Phil Bauerly wrote:

Of course Red, Winnie, Cass chain are great options too though. You can’t go wrong with any of those choices.

Looking forward to seeing you guys this weekend! I will be up this evening around dinner time.

I’d like to see some of those smallies. I know the largemouth fishing has always been good, but I understand the brown bass population is really starting to climb.

Mike, I really do need to take the time to find those bigger smallies. We get a few during our walleye outings but I have yet to really target them. The largemouth fishing gets ignored by most anglers but is amazing.

As for Walleyes, the fishing has been outstanding. We ended up with two 40 fish days, two 20 fish days, and one slow day this week. Some days it’s taking a while to find fish and get dialed in, other days no. A 1/8 oz jig and shiner is still the best but a slip bobber and leech combo and even crankbaits are producing some nice fish. Playing the wind has been key on the last two outings.

Cheers and hook-sets!

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A few more.

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Beautiful stringer of limits! Phil, any advise on how to fish Leech on a non-windy dead-calm high sun kinda day like it was on Saturday? I had a tough time finding em’…RR

roosterrouster wrote:

Beautiful stringer of limits! Phil, any advise on how to fish Leech on a non-windy dead-calm high sun kinda day like it was on Saturday? I had a tough time finding em’…RR

Yeah, that is not a good time to try and find ’em. Looking for fish in deeper water is the obvious answer. If you know where some fish might be, you can drop down to a 1/16 oz jig and let a lot of line out moving .5-.8 mph. For some reason this works very well on Leech, much better than a lindy rig at times. With that big long bow in your line the fish will feel almost no tension or weight..until it’s too late!

The other thing I do is find cover, either cabbage weeds or big shallow boulders.

If you can put a jig right on the last boulder on a shoreline rock-to-sand transition (without getting snagged up), you can often score some nice fish in the middle of the day. Most people don’t think to fish this shallow when there is no wind but you can catch fish if you can get really tight to the cover.

A slip bobber is a great way to extract fish from productive cabbage weed areas. I learned from one of the older guides to use a heavier 1/4 oz jig and set your stop so it sits just inches from the bottom. Without extra weights, the bait will drop straight down with out catching on weeds. Being very close to the bottom with a 1/4 oz jig keeps the perch, sunnies and rock bass from eating all of your bait as they are usually higher up in the weeds. Weed walleyes don’t seem to mind the heavier jig for some reason.

Thanks for all the great info Phil!

Speaking of less than ideal conditions We were greeted by early morning t-storms, sunny, and calm conditions, the cabbage weed bite was happening this morning though. Many low-to-mid 20″ fish got sore lips and hurt feelings, plus enough keepers for a respectable fish fry.

Cheers and hook-sets!

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Impressive yet again Captain! Another good day and postcard promotional worthy photos as well. Lessons to be learned are that you’re “digging” them out of weeds. Seems non-traditional this time of year, or getting away from the rock/gravel mindset? How much has the cabbage grown now? Is it up now and green, or still emerging from last years old detritus? Are you digging in to thick stuff or scattered patches? Does the sunny skies send you to the weed search as opposed to cloudy windy conditions? Ok, I’ll stop now before I get to 20 questions.

I was up on leech last week pulling northern left and right out of the cabbage in Sucker Bay. All the cabbage I found was bright green and very tall, some almost a foot below the water surface. I don’t know about other parts of the lake.

Fish are starting to scatter a bit which is typical for water in the mid 60’s. I have had one tough day in the past week but overall the bite is still very good. Have a plan A, B and C though as no two days have been alike lately. Crawlers and leeches have been putting more fish into my net lately, we have even been getting a few on shad raps. Rigging and slip bobbering leeches is currently my most productive approach.

It’s typical to get a strong leech bite when the fish flies (midges) start to hatch. A strong spinner/crawler bite usually coincides with the mayflies showing up, which will probably be in the next few weeks.

It will be interesting to see what this cold front will do to these fish, I’m hoping some wind driven patterns will emerge over the next few days. We postponed a few hours this morning but I’ll be out this afternoon and the rest of the week.

Cheers and hook-sets!

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