August 11, 2008 on Leech Lake

Much like yesterday, today was a perfect day to drift for panfish. The sky was overcast, the temperature had cooled to 70 degrees, the water temperature dropped slightly to 74 degrees, but the winds were almost identical to yesterday -- calm to 8 mph out of the south.

I left the boat lift at 1:15 p.m., pulled the boat out to 8 feet of water, put the drift sock in the water and drifted from our cabin to between Norm's and Schiebe's. I used a very similar system that I did yesterday, with one small change. Like yesterday, I used a 1/8 oz. white crappie jig tipped with a Gulp silver pearl minnow. The change was that I added a small, silver-colored Colorado blade spinner to the jig. I have found that using the spinner blade adds a little more flash to the lure and can many times mean more fish in the boat.

I had a good afternoon of fishing, catching numerous perch, crappie and rock bass, before heading to shore for some lunch at 3:30 p.m.

After a quick bite to eat, I was back on the water by 4:15 p.m. I used the same jig/spinner blade set up and again caught a number of perch and crappie. Then right around 6:30 p.m., something big hit my lure, peeled off a good amount of line before biting right through the 6 lb. test Fireline Crystal; no small feat. It was obviously some type of heavy toothy critter on the line, I'm guessing either a big pike or a small muskie. I took this as a sign to call it a day. I'll be back on Leech Lake tomorrow, weather permitting.