July 25, 2009 -- At Leech Lake

A female common merganser, like the one I saw off our dock this afternoon

Juvenile common mergansers, like the five I saw off our dock today

4 Days and Counting...

This morning was once again more akin to a mid-September morning than one at the end of July. The temperature at 9:00 a.m. was 62 degrees, the wind was very strong at 15-18 mph out of the NNW with gusts up over 20 mph, the sky was gray and overcast, and the ground was wet from an early-morning rain.

The lake this morning is a gray color as well, with the exception of the white caps that top the waves. The weather report calls for a mostly cloudy and windy day until around 9:00 p.m. this evening when the wind is supposed to drop to below 10 mph. If that is indeed the case, then I'll try to get out to do some late-evening trolling for walleye.

By 2:00 p.m. this afternoon the sky had cleared and it was mostly sunny, but the wind hadn't let up. It was still blowing at close to 20 mph out of the NNW as I pulled the ATV out of the garage to go for a ride around Ottertail Peninsula.

When I returned home from my ride, I saw a common merganser mother and her five juvenile chicks off the end of our dock. The mother flapped her wings and basically jumped up onto our dock, while the five smaller birds paddled around in the water below her.

I watched them for 15 minutes or more before the mother finally jumped back into the water and the entire family paddled away. The chicks are getting big and should soon strike out on their own.

At 4:30 p.m. I went for a walk down West Shores Rd. to the Paulsen's and back, a nice 2-mile walk. Along the way I did a "stop and chat" with Noel Hancock who was out riding his ATV on his way to visit the Schiebe brothers.

I ate dinner a little before 7:00 p.m. and within an hour after finishing, the wind began to die down. I decided not to waste any time, and got out on the water at 8:15 p.m. The temperature was 66 degrees, the water temperature was 70.2 degrees, the sky was mostly clear and the wind was down to 8-10 mph out of the WNW.

I started by motoring out to 14 feet of water in front of the Malay's cabin and fished with a Lindy Max Gap jig tipped with a leech. I caught a couple of perch, including a nice jumbo (which I released) and lost numerous leeches to good bites. I'm guessing most of the bites were perch, but at least a couple were walleye or pike because the leech was bitten clean through.

Just before sunset, which came at exactly 9:00 p.m. tonight, I hooked something big. I got it close enough to the boat to see that it was either a good-sized pike or a big walleye, when it turned, headed for deep water and snapped my line like unwaxed dental floss in between back molars.

I figured that was a sign to switch tactics so I put away my spinning reel and took out my baitcasting rod and reel complete with my favorite hot-steel colored #9 Minnow Rap. I started trolling The Alley in 8-10 feet of water.

I caught a couple of rock bass (and thought of you Rick; by the way, Skylar was again the DJ on Z99 tonight, ugh) before hooking into a nice 20 1/2" walleye. I got the walleye close to the boat, put the landing net underneath the fish and scooped it up and into the boat.

As always, I released the reel to let out some line and as often happens, the walleye unhooked itself. However, when I reached into the net to pick up the unhooked fish it flopped just as I was putting my hand around it and my middle finger must have hit a tooth, a fin or a gill plate, because something cut the tip of my finger.

After measuring and releasing the fish, I had to mop up the blood that I was dripping all over the boat. Another fish, another cut. That must make at least 20 nice fish cuts on my left hand these past couple of months.

With the walleye back in the water and blood cleaned up, mostly, I began trolling again and looked up to see the golden crescent moon (18 percent waxing) setting into the western sky. It looked like an overly ripe slice of cantalope being dipped into a pool of black paint. A beautiful moonset.

With the light of the sun and moon now both gone from the sky, the stars came out in full force. Even the white glow of the Milky Way was clearly visible.

I didn't catch any more fish, so at 10:45 p.m. I came ashore after enjoying another wonderful night of fishing on Leech Lake.