October 23, 2009 -- On Leech Lake

This morning at 10:00 a.m. the temperature is 29 degrees, the sky is gray and overcast and the wind is light at 5-8 mph out of the NNE.

After enjoying our coffee and having some breakfast, Kathleen and I decided to take a walk. As usual, I joined her on the 2-mile round trip walk to Paulsen's house, then I turned back while Kathleen continued on to the Community Center for the full 6 miles.

While Kathleen was on her run/walk, I got out the leaf blower and cleared off the leaves from the lakeside yard at the house. There are still many trees still on the trees, but since I leave for California in a week I wanted to get as many of the leaves cleaned up as possible.

Tom Malay has offered to come down to our house and cabin with his mulching attachment on his John Deere lawn mower to clean up any remaining leaves after they've all come down.

When Kathleen returned from her run she and I took a long leisurely walk in our woods. Many of the leaves have changed to yellow or russet brown, but there are still a good amount of leaves that are green. It's been a crazy autumn. Warm temperatures into early October then almost overnight they dropped to below freezing and there was snow.

The temperature by 4:00 p.m. had climbed to 38 degrees and the wind was blowing at 8-10 mph out of the ENE.

My plan is to pull the boat out of the water tomorrow, so I will definitely get out for one last trolling session tonight. I can't believe it's already time to take the boat out of the lake.

At 6:25 p.m. I lowered the boat into the water, fired up the Mercury Verado and slowly made my way out to 9-10 feet of water in front of the cabin. I turned the boat lights on since the sun had already set, got the landing net ready, put my #9 Rapala Minnow Rap in a bleeding copper flash color into the water and started trolling.

I made my way south past Second Duck Point, turned west out into Sucker Bay and started trolling north toward Malay's. When I was between our cabin and Malay's house, I felt that familar "thud" of a walleye hitting the Minnow Rap.

I quickly put the motor in neutral and began reeling in the fish. I could tell by the way it was fighting that it was a walleye, and I also could tell it was a fairly big fish by the weight on the end of my line.

As I got the fish close to the boat I reached over and grabbed the landing net in order to boat the fish. Once on board, I could tell it was a good-sized fish. I carefully removed the front treble hook from the mouth of the fish and took a quick measurement -- 24 1/4 inches. Any time you can catch a walleye that's over two feet long you've got a big fish. And this fish was fat too. Obviously bulking up for the upcoming winter season.

I caught the fish at 7:00 p.m. The sky was mostly cloudy and almost dark. The water temperature varied between 41.7 and 42.3 degrees. The winds had died down and the lake was nearly calm.

I fished for another hour but didn't catch any other fish. Nonetheless, I did catch a beautiful 24 1/4 inch walleye on my last open-water angling trip of 2009 on Leech Lake.