On Leech Lake -- October 18, 2010

Today the high reached only 46 degrees. The sky was mostly cloudy and gray, and the wind was out of the WNW at 10-14 mph.

I had a lot of work work to do, so I was tied up in my house until 5:00 p.m. when my last call ended. At that point I had to get outside, so despite a little rougher water than I like to go out onto, Tim and I went fishing.

Since we had such good luck yesterday drifting and jigging fatheads, I thought we'd try that method again today. We started in about 11 feet of water in front of the Giza's cabin and drifted toward shore and the Malay's. Even with the drift sock in the water we were moving at nearly 2/3 mph. The water temperature had cooled slightly from yesterday, to 52.7 degrees.

We made several passes but couldn't even scare up a perch. In fact, neither Tim nor I had a bite in nearly an hour. We decided to one more pass then come in. That's when Tim hooked into a good sized fish as we drifted through 10 feet of water directly in front of our house. He reeled it in and we could see it was a walleye. I grabbed the net and scooped up a very nice 17 1/2-inch walleye. We decided to put it in the live well and add it to our growing walleye collection back at the dock.

We completed the drift without another bite and then came ashore just as the sun was setting; around 6:30 p.m.

Tim removed the walleye from the live well and added it to the bucket that contained the other two walleyes we kept from Sunday. After taking off my heavy parka and bib overalls, I took the fish into the cabin and cleaned them. We now have 6 nice walleye fillets for dinner when Tim's wife Sandy and their son Jackson come up to Leech Lake later this week.

The temperature around midnight when I turned off the lights was 39 degrees. Tomorrow should be another cool, breezy day. I think I'll turn my attention to the many winterization chores around the property. Lots to do in the week ahead to get the place ready for the harsh Northern Minnesota winter.

Good night from Leech Lake.