On Leech Lake -- October, 17, 2010

My brother-in-law Tim is visiting me for a week here at Leech Lake, and like myself, Tim enjoys spending time on the water in pursuit of walleye and perch. Since it was Sunday, with no work for either of us, we planned to spend as much time on Leech Lake as possible.

We did take it easy in the morning, having breakfast, reading the paper and drinking coffee, so it wasn't until just before noon that we went out fishing. The sky was partly sunny, the wind was out of the WNW at 8-10 mph, the air temperature was just over 50 degrees and the water temperature was 53.8 degrees.

The direction of the wind dictated the way I set up the boat for drifting. I motored out to about 11 feet of water in front of our cabin and the wind blew the boat toward shore and slightly south toward Newman's cabin. With the drift sock in the water the speed of the boat was just less than 1/2 mph.

Both Tim and I were using 1/8 oz. jigs tipped with fathead minnows.

We caught dozens of perch, maybe as many as 30, all of which we put back into the lake, as well as a few walleye. I caught a 19-inch walleye, which went back into the water, and Tim caught two -- an 18 1/4" walleye which went back into the lake and a 16 1/2" walleye which we kept.

At some point during one of our drifts something very big hit my jig and started peeling off line. I played it long enough to get a glimpse of it off the back of the boat. It was either a very big northern or a muskie. It must have been close to 3 feet long. My 6 lb. test Fireline Crystal was no match for the toothy critter, however, and the fish bit through the line and returned to the depths.

We came ashore around 3:00 p.m. and drove up to Birch Ridge Resort to grab a beer, eat a pizza and watch the Vikings game. I'm not a Vikings fan, but Tim is and they were playing the Dallas Cowboys in what was a must-win game for both 1-3 teams. The Vikings won the game.

Tim and I decided to go back out on the water around 5 p.m. for more drift action, before we switched to trolling after sunset.

The perch bite had cooled off, and between us we caught probably no more than 10 perch while jigging. Just after sunset we stowed our jigging rods and started trolling using Minnow Raps. I caught a 21-inch walleye and Tim caught an 18-inch and a 21-inch walleye. All fish went back into the lake.

At 7:30 p.m. we came ashore, got a fire going because the expected temperature at 11:00 p.m. was 32 degrees. All in all, a very successful day of fishing on Leech Lake.