September 18, 2009 -- On Leech Lake

I awoke to a beautiful Fall morning in the Northwoods. The temperature was in mid-60s, the sky was blue and the wind was light at 5-8 mph out of the SSE.

I did some work until noon, then decided to go fishing. John Newman was just coming off the lake as I was getting ready to go, so I went over to his harbor to see how he'd done. He said he caught a few small perch, but that was about it.

I asked if he wanted to join me on the water, and even though he was coming ashore, he said sure.

We left my boat lift around 12:45 p.m. and headed for West Goose Flats, which is just west of Goose Island. John had heard that the walleye were biting at that location. Obviously other people had heard the same thing because when we arrived there were about 10 boats in the area. We fished West Gull Flats for about 45 minutes, but we caught nothing.

We relocated to Ottertail Point, and were again joined by several other boats. I caught several small perch, but neither John nor I hooked a walleye.

At last, we headed north to The Birches where I caught a dozen or small to medium perch and a tiny hammer handle pike, but again, neither of us hooked a walleye.

The Zimmerman Walleye Classic is tomorrow, and thus far I've not hooked a walleye since I arrived on Monday. I hope that changes quickly and that tomorrow John and I both boat a number of good sized walleyes.

John and I, and possibly Tom Malay, are going to go down to The Harbor at 5:00 p.m. to register for the Zimmerman tournament. Then later this evening, John and I plan on doing some trolling for walleye. If the past is any indication, that's when we'll hook into some nice fish.

Unfortunately, the Zimmerman tournament ends at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, which is just a half hour or so before sunset. Most of the walleye I catch during my evening trolling sessions come about an hour after sunset, too late for this tournament.

John and I went trolling tonight at 7:20 p.m., just before sunset. The air temperature had cooled to just around 60 degrees, the water temperature was still a warm 72.5 degrees, and the wind was out of the SSE at 10-12 mph.

We used Minnow Raps and trolled in 9-11 feet of water in the Alley, between Malay's to just south of Second Duck Point. I hooked into a fish, but after 4 or 5 turns of the reel, the fish came off. A short time later John hooked into a very nice 22 1/2" walleye, which was released safely back into the lake.

Since we're meeting at 6:15 a.m. tomorrow morning for a pre-tournament breakfast at John's, we decided to come ashore just before 9:00 p.m. It was a wonderful, new moon night, on Leech Lake.