November 5, 2008 on Leech Lake

We woke up this morning to the news that Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States.

The temperature today was 56 degrees and the wind was out of the ENE at 5-12 mph. After yesterday's experience, where Tom and I caught lots of fish at the Birches but caught only a couple of fish at Big Hardwood Point, Duck Point and Second Duck Point, we decided to focus exclusively on the Birches today.

We used jigs tipped with live fathead minnows and fished in approximately 10 feet of water along the edge of the weed line. It didn't take us long to start catching fish. Tom and I started fishing at 11:00 a.m. and stayed on the water until 4:45 p.m. During the nearly 6 hours on the water, we caught untold numbers of perch, Tom caught a 14" walleye, I also caught a walleye (a small 11" 'eye) and we each kept 6 jumbo perch.

Together with the perch we had caught on Nov. 2 and Nov. 4, we had a total of 18 beautiful jumbo perch. Tom took it upon himself to clean all 18, and then we split the fillets. This will be more than enough for me and Kathleen to have a wonderful Leech Lake fish fry.

As it turned out, the walleye I caught today would be my last of the season. I caught 87 walleyes throughout the season, and probably more than 500 perch. It's been a great season of fishing on Leech Lake.

I hope I can get out a least a few more times before we have to pull Tom's small boat out of the water. I don't know how long that will be, however, since the temperature at night has been falling below freezing.