Wednesday, June 17, 2009

June 17, 2009 -- At Leech Lake


The spot in front of our house where I caught the 22" walleye this afternoon.


Second Duck Point on Sucker Bay, Leech Lake.
At 9:00 a.m. this morning the sky was overcast and grey, the temperature was 59 degrees, the wind was calm and it looked like rain. By 10:00 a.m. a light rain started to fall. It's not raining as hard as it was most of the day yesterday, but it's once again wet outside.

Yesterday I used the last of my shiners during my second trip out on the water so I'll need to go up to Birch Ridge Resort this morning to buy a couple of scoops. I'll do that as soon as I straighten out my Northwest flight reservation from Minneapolis to San Jose next week.

Originally, I was scheduled to fly direct from MSP to SJC, but apparently that flight was canceled so I now go through Salt Lake City. The problem is is that NWA left me only 30 minutes between arriving in Salt Lake City and departing for San Jose.

Knowing the airlines, there is no way to make a flight with only 30 minutes between flights. So far, I've been dropped from my call after waiting on hold for 15 minutes, talked to a representative who had to transfer me to someone else -- during the transfer I was again dropped from the call. I called back, waited 15 minutes once again, was transferred to some other person and again was dropped from the call. I'm not sure NWA could be more inept.

I guess I'm insane, because I'm trying yet again to get through to someone at NWA and I'm expecting a different result. Finally at 1:30 p.m., I decided to quit dealing with the airline and go fishing.

Earlier in the day I had taken a break from my airline mess and had gone up to Birch Ridge Resort to buy a couple of scoops of shiners. With my bucket of shiners in hand, I got the boat in the water and motored out to depth of 10 feet off Second Duck Point. The wind was out of the south at 10 mph, thus pushing the boat north and progressively further out into Sucker Bay. The water temperature was 64 degrees.

I used a 1/8 oz. lime green/black Bass Pro Shops XPS Walleye Angler jig tipped with a lively shiner. I caught numerous perch on the two or three passes I made from Second Duck Point to in front of our house. I decided to reposition the boat and so rather than starting at Second Duck Point and drifting to our house, I'd start in front of our house and drift to Malay's cabin.

Just as I was repositioning the boat, John Newman called my cell and asked if he could join me on the water. I said sure, and arranged to pick him up at my dock in 10 minutes. After putting away my cell phone, I dropped my jig into the water and immediately hooked into something big. I battled it for a few minutes and eventually netted a very healthy 22", five pound plus, walleye.

After I picked up John we fished in the same location, my house to Malay's, for several passes and we caught lots of medium and large perch. We contemplated keeping some of the jumbo perch, but eventually all of the fish went back into the lake. We came ashore at 4:30 p.m.

John came back over to our lake house at 7:30 p.m. this evening to share a couple of cold malted-beverages and listen to some music. At 9:00 p.m. John and I took my boat out to troll #9 Minnow Raps in 8-11 feet of water in The Alley.

The water temperature this evening was 64.7 degrees, the air temperature was 64 degrees and there was a slight wind out of the south at 5 mph; a perfect night to fish for walleye on Leech Lake. There was an added benefit that we were the only boat in the area.

John had the "hot stick" tonight and caught two northern pike as well as a 15" walleye and a 19 3/4" walleye. I went fishless. Nonetheless, the conversation was lively and the weather was ideal.

John leaves for home tomorrow and I'm not sure when I'll see him again, since I'm not sure when I'll be back at the lake after June 24. But for the next week, I'm going to enjoy every minute here and get out fishing for walleye as much as possible on Leech Lake.