On Leech Lake, June 19, 2010

My boat, at the top of the ramp, waiting to be launched.

Today was the first day I was on the lake in 2010. I think this is the latest I've made it out onto the water in any year since I've had a place on Leech Lake.

The weather this morning was grey, drizzly and breezy, but as the day progressed the drizzle stopped and the wind gradually died down from 15-18 mph out of the NW to around 8 mph. That made it ideal conditions to put the boat in the water.

Around 1:30 p.m. Rick and I got the boat into the water and onto the boat lift. We then put the canopy on the lift and ran the power cord underneath the dock out to the boat lift and secured it for the season. I now have power at the end of the dock -- which is handy for the light at night and for charging my MinnKota electric trolling motor.

After dinner, Rick and I went out fishing at around 8:45 p.m. The sunset tonight was at 9:13 p.m., the moon was 57% waxing, the water temperature was 66.6 degrees and the wind was slight at 5-8 mph out of the north.

We used our usual Rapala Minnow Raps trolled about 50-60 feet behind the boat at a ground speed of 2.15 mph.

We trolled from Malays house to a point between Second Duck Point and Duck Point in 10-12 feet of water. After many passes with no bites, Rick finally hooked into a sturdy 22" walleye at 10:15 p.m just past Second Duck Point. The fish was hooked awkwardly, so we had to snip the barbs of the trailing treble hook to safely remove the lure from the fish. The fish fell within the Leech Lake slot limit -- where all walleyes between 18 and 26 inches must go back into the lake -- so we released it unharmed.

Then around 10:45 p.m., on our final pass of the night, in almost the same spot, Rick caught a very nice 16 3/4" eater walleye. That fish went into the livewell and will be dinner on Sunday night (Father's Day).

Even though I didn't catch a fish this night, the boat did smell of walleye by the time we made it back to the boat lift which is as it should be. All in all, a good first night on Leech Lake.