This past weekend I fished Leech lake with my brother and a couple of good friends. We were in search of jumbo perch and walleye. On the way to the lake the truck thermometer read a brutal -11 deg. If those arctic temps didn’t make things difficult enough, once we got to the lake we were greeted with knee deep snow mixed with slush. This made travel on anything other than a snowmobile almost impossible. Lucky for us we had a couple snowmobiles with Otter houses in tow. This allowed us to stay as mobile as possible in these less than ideal conditions.
We targeted a very large sand/weed flat in 12 FOW. Not only is this area usually full of bait fish, it’s also shallow enough for sight fishing, There’s nothing like physically seeing a fish come in and attack your bait. It adds a whole new dimension of excitement to the sport that you just have to experience.
After punching a grid pattern of holes over the area we set up our houses. With the window flaps all closed we were able to see the bottom and incoming fish very well. We were jigging 1/8-3/16oz Frostees and Rattlin flyers tipped with minnow heads. It seemed the more flash the more fish you could draw in. I did very well at times jigging the new jumbo 2 ¾” Lindy Darter in one hole and a small Frostee in the other. They’d come flying in to check out the big Darter and then spin around to slam the Frostee.
There were small perch in the area all day, so we used them as a predator fish indicator. Basically when the small perch would vanish you knew something good was about to happen. Sometimes the jumbo perch and walleye would fly in and smack your spoon, and other times you really had to work to get them to hit. We fished for most of the afternoon and had great action all day. We were able to ice a 100 plus jumbo perch along with a dozen very nice walleye. We kept enough for a fish fry that evening. It was a great way to end a great day on the lake with family and friends.
He Joe
How the heck are ya Pal!! Great mess of fish!! It is so nice to see Leech making the comeback. As a kid we fished there on summer vacations a few times, and I just loved the lake. At that time it was full of nice walleyes, perch and big pike. I personally hope that lake can be the next Jumbo Perch Factory. Are you seeing many 12’s or even bigger perch Joe??
Great report!!!
Great report on Leech and nice pics. of the fish. We were up at leech in june and had a great trip on the walleyes. Thanks for the update ice fishing.
Great Job Joe !!
I think the wife and I are going to spen a week on Leech this summer
I’ll have to stay in touch with you and your reports
Nice mess of fish Joe
Great report
John
Great read and pics Joe
Great report and awesome pics Great fish too
Joe/Chris:
Just got done talking with a fishing friend this a.m. who just got back from Leech last weekend. They fished Thursday through Sat. and worked the Goose Island area fairly hard as they only had the truck to move around with. He told me that they did really well on the perch with many fish averaging that 9-12″ size and they lost one at the hole that easily could have 15″ or longer!!! They caught a few ‘eyes and few northern, but it really was about da perch. The eyes they caught were small and the northern that they cleaned were stuffed full of small perch and ‘eyes up to 6-7″ long. He also told me that they tried to fish two lines a piece in their sleeper, but two fish on would mean a big mess of tangled lines. He eventually went to one line saying it wasn’t worth the time to untangle everything. He also wished that they would have had a sled so they could have gotten over to Portage or Sucker to work those areas a little bit. Great report, I know that Jim Hudson is running a fishing school over there this weekend.
Mark
Nice mess of fish Joe
Ditto!
Wow..Nice fish
Nice bunch of fish!!
Joe, Very nice fish & report – love the color of those huge perch
Hey Chris, ya fishing out on Leech seems to be getting better by the year. We’ve gotten a fair number of perch in the 12″-13.5″ range but the average nice fish is more like 10″.
Do you ever get any jumbo perch up in your area or do you just have big walleye, northern, crappie, pout, whitefish…?
Thanks for all the comments boys! Leech is a great area, I try to get up there a few times a year
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You know we have a decent population of yellow perch here on Rainy Lake, but they never seem to be mixed in with the walleyes in large numbers. The funny thing is when I see the biggest perch is early in the year if I’m throwing stickbaits around the walleye spawning grounds. I actually hook up a decent amount of true jumbo (12 Inchers). I imagine if a guy would sell out and fish for them you might do alright. Just not enough time in the day sometimes.
Great Report Joe
Nice Pile of Fish
I love catching Jumbo Perch, what a blast