October 9, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

This morning at 8:30 a.m. the temperature was a cool 45 degrees, the wind was light at 5-8 mph out of the NW and the sky was slate grey and looked cold. I could only see one boat out in front of our house, where yesterday there was more than a half dozen. Today looked and felt like a Fall morning in the northwoods.

Duck hunting season opened in late September, so on this quiet Sunday morning I could hear the distant "pop, pop" of shotgun blasts as hunters along the shoreline and in flat-bottom duck boats shot at their prey. Last night at the OPA Pot Luck dinner/meeting, one of the attendees, the son of a OPA member, told me he'd been out duck hunting earlier in the day and had bagged several ducks. As much as I'd like to try cooking and eating a wild duck, I've never hunted for them. Nor have I hunted for grouse, pheasant, or whitetail deer. I am strictly a fisherman, at least so far.

At 9:45 a.m. a light rain started to fall, but it lasted only a few minutes; just a sprinkle really. I saw that John and Karen Newman were out fishing and had staged their attack in front of our cabin, letting the light NW wind push them south toward their cabin and Second Duck Point. It was in this location that I caught my four "keeper" perch yesterday.

As was the case yesterday, a cluster of five or six boats eventually gathered in very close proximity to one another as they fished in 10 feet of water in a spot between Giza's cabin and Second Duck Point. I get the fact that walleye often congregate in one location, but do people really need to be right on top of each other to fish? With so much water on Sucker Bay alone, there's plenty of room to -- as Moe of the Three Stooges used to say -- "spread out."

I made a hearty Sunday breakfast of eggs over medium, hash browns, bacon and toast with a big glass of orange juice. I don't eat like that every day, but on Sunday I'll occasionally splurge and have a big breakfast. As I cleaned up after breakfast I noticed that the light rain continued to fall. I stepped out onto the back porch and felt the icy cold rain fall in the 51 degree air temperature. It wasn't raining hard, just enough to make everything wet. The Newmans, as well as the other half dozen boats, remained on the water.

Right around 11:00 a.m., I happened to look out the window and saw that the Newmans were coming in off the water. They'd been out for a couple of hours in the light, cold rain so I figured they needed to come ashore, dry off and warm up.

I surprised somewhat to get a call from John Newman just before noon asking if I wanted to go out for some early afternoon angling with him. At this point the light rain had stopped, not that that would have kept me off the water, and so I agreed to meet him at my boat lift in 15 minutes. By 12:15 p.m. we were on the 60.7 degree water tipping our jigs with fatheads and slowly drifting from Poage's cabin southward in 10 feet of water.

During the next two hours I caught more than a dozen perch, including 4 big jumbos that went into the live well and later into John's bucket. He was trying to get enough fish for a fish fry for his entire family of five, so I was more than happy to chip in with my four big perch.

I also caught a medium-sized northern, which went back into the lake, as well as a 14-inch and a 16-inch walleye, both of which went back into the lake. The larger of the two fish got off on its own. I had hooked the walleye and had gotten it to the side of the boat, but rather than ask John to get the landing net and secure the fish I decided to reach over the side of the boat and land it by hand. Well, the fish turned abruptly and bit through the line and set itself free, with my jig still in the side of its mouth.

At 2:15 p.m. we came ashore so John could take his wife Karen out for some afternoon fishing. I used the time to clean up the house and eat some lunch.

Then just before 4:00 p.m. I decided to go fishing by myself. I could see John and Karen on the lake and I also spotted Tom Malay in his boat out trolling. Three of the five houses on our little stretch of Ottertail Peninsula had boats on the water at the same time. Not an entirely unusual experience, but with only five boats in sight on Sucker Bay, we represented 60% of them.

Again I used a 1/8-ounce lime-green and silver colored Bass Pro Shops XPS walleye jig tipped with big fathead minnows. I made several passes from in front of Poage's cabin southward toward Second Duck Point. During the next two hours and 15 minutes I caught a dozen or more perch, including one big jumbo, and three walleyes that measured 14-, 15- and 16-inches. Since I had two big perch in the basket at home for Sunday night dinner, all fish went back into the lake.

At 5:15 p.m. the sun came out and for the first time all day the entire area was basked in the late-Fall light of the Autumn sun. The shoreline looked particularly spectacular with the yellows, golds, oranges and reds of the leaves shimmering in the sunlight with the blue-green water in the foreground. Not that I needed it, but the beauty of Ottertail Peninsula at that particular moment, especially at Second Duck Point, reminded me of why this is where I'd rather be than any place else I've ever visited on the planet.

When 6:15 p.m. rolled around I made my way back to the boat lift and onto shore. Once the boat was secure on the lift and the minnows in the garage with aeration, I made my way to the fish cleaning house to clean the two jumbo perch which were destined to be my dinner. I was waylayed, however, when Karen Newman called to me to come over to their place and meet their new 15-week old dog, Bernard; a lab and springer spaniel mix.

I ended up spending an hour chatting with the Newmans and playing with dog before making my way back to my house to clean the perch. Eventually the perch were cleaned and I could start my dinner preperations.

In addition to beer-batterd perch (using Shore Lunch and Leinenkugel Classic Amber) I made a baked potato and steamed green beans. A tasty and relatively simple dinner.

After dinner I checked some football scores -- the 49ers won big over the Bucs 48-3, the Raiders won in Houston 25-20, and unfortunately the Packers won to go to 5-0 which means the Lions will need to beat the Bears on Monday night to keep pace -- listened to some classical music then went to bed fairly early for me, before midnight.

It was a great day fishing on Leech Lake -- two separate trips -- with two dozen perch caught in addition to five walleye. After some concentrated work time tomorrow, I hope to get out for more fishing, if the weather permits. Until then, good night from Leech Lake.