August 18, 2008 on Leech Lake

Under partly cloudy skies, a temperature of 82 degrees and winds out of the NW at 8-17 mph, I again continued my week long hunt for trophy panfish on Leech Lake. I left the boat lift at 3:00 p.m. and had to battle some pretty big waves and white caps as a result of the stiff wind. The water temperature, I noted, had increased to 77 degrees due to the 80+ degree temps we've had for the past several days.

My fishing location today was in 8-11 feet of water from in front of Schiebe's cabin drifting SE toward our cabin along the weed line.

Despite the wind, I decided to try a smaller jig than I've used for the past several days. Today I tied on a 1/16 oz. yellow Northland Gum-Ball jig, and tipped it with either lime-green 2" Gulp grubs or 3" Gulp Alive! minnows in smelt color. I caught numerous perch, including some nice jumbos, a number of beautiful slab black crappie and a few nice bluegills.

Around 5:00 p.m. I headed back to shore. On my way I noticed a boat with an Illinois license and saw they had a bag full of fish off the back. Typical FIB meat hunters.