June 7, 2009 -- At Leech Lake

I got up around 8:30 a.m. this morning since I had stayed up to nearly 2:00 a.m. last night. After getting dressed I made my way to the kitchen for coffee and a check of the fishing conditions, i.e., the weather.

The sky was overcast and grey and the wind blew from the NE at 5-10 mph. It looked like it was going to rain again today, but by 1:00 p.m. when Rick and I hit the water, no rain had fallen.

We started drifting in about 8-10 feet of water straight out in front of our house moving in the wind toward Second Duck Point. We were using jigs and shiners and caught a handful of medium-sized perch, all of which went back into the water.

I then fired up the 150hp Mercury Verado and piloted my Lund Pro-V 1800 IFS north on Sucker Bay toward the old Bay Shore Resort. There is a hole up there that is more than 200 yards long, 100 yards wide and drops to 18 feet. In the past, I've had pretty good luck up there catching big perch and walleye.

No sooner did Rick and I drop in our jigs tipped with shiners than we started to catch some small perch. About 15 minutes later Rick caught a healthy 14" walleye, which he released. We ran out of shiners about 30 minutes later, so which switched tactics and began trolling crankbaits from one end of "The Hole" to the other. Unfortunately, we didn't catch anything.

At 3:30 p.m. we motored back to the house, read the paper, checked email and just hung out. We have now finished dinner and will most likely go trolling at 9:00 p.m. tonight.

We did indeed go out at 9:00 p.m. We were joined by 6 other boats right in front of our house, but soon after dark all of them left. We probably should have as well as the fish just weren't biting. The wind was out of the NE at about 10-15 mph and that made conditions unfavorable.

Rick did manage to catch a small hammer handle and a 14" and 15" walleye. I, on the other hand, got skunked.

We'll try again tomorrow.