September 11, 2008 on Leech Lake

I picked up our friend Rick at the airport last night at 10:45 p.m. We didn't get to our house on Leech Lake until near midnight. I know Rick was happy to be at the lake again.

After spending the morning and early afternoon on shore, Rick and I decided to some fishing just after lunch. We hit the water at 1:00 p.m. The temperature was 67 degrees, the skies mostly sunny, the winds were 5-10 mph out of the NW. I had told Rick about the recent run of great panfishing, so he asked if we could try that.

I took the boat north on Sucker Bay until we were in about 12 feet of water in front of Schiebe's cabin. I recorded the water temperature of 62 degrees. With a NW wind, this would allow us to drift SE right along the weed line near the Birches where the panfish bite had been great the past couple of weeks.

Rick and I caught several perch, crappie and bluegill. I kept only one of the jumbo perch I hooked, and by 3:30 p.m. we were back on shore.

After dinner, Rick wanted to go trolling for walleye, and he didn't need to ask me twice. We hit the water at 8:00, and by the time we came in at 10:30 p.m., I had boated four walleye. I caught a 14", two 17 1/2" and a 24" walleye. We decided to keep the two 17 1/2" 'eyes for a future fish fry.

Our lures of choice tonight were the Rapala Minnow Raps. Rick used a variety of colors, but caught no fish, I stayed with my favorite color -- hot steel -- and caught four walleye. Rick swears that tomorrow night he's going to use a Minnow Rap with some purple in it.