May 27, 2011 -- On Leech Lake

I forgot to check the temperature when I woke this morning, but when I checked it at 10:30 a.m. the thermometer read 44 degrees. The sky was grey and overcast and wind was out of the SE at 10-15 mph.

After a frustrating experience dealing with CitiMortgage which I won't go into here, other than to say I was on the phone with them for nearly an hour and didn't get my situation taken care of, Rick and I decided to go fishing.

I put three 6-gallon containers of gas in the boat since I noticed the tank was around 20 percent of capacity last night when we were trolling. Once the boat was gassed up, we launched and made our way to the "perch hole" near Norm's cabin. Both Rick and I were using Northland Tackle Mimic Minnow Spins.

We didn't catch anything in about 15 minutes of fishing, so we moved to "Bass Bay." During about an hour of drifting across the bay I caught maybe 10 perch, no jumbos, while Rick kept his fishless streak alive.

It was very windy in Bass Bay and with the temperature hovering just near 50 degrees, it was quite cool on the water. I had been keeping an eye on the storm that was predicted to hit mid-afternoon and from my perspective from Bass Bay it looked as if it were raining south of us near Goose Island, so I decided to get us back to shore since neither Rick nor I were wearing our rain gear.

Just as we came ashore it started to rain, but only very briefly. Within 15 minutes or so the rain had stopped, but we decided to stay warm and inside just the same.

Around 5:00 p.m. Rick and I went over to the Newman's and hung out in his garage, drank a beer or two and worked on his small boat trailer. It was raining the entire time we were at the Newman's, it rained while Rick and I ate our dinner of beer-battered walleye and it rained right up to the time we went to bed. We had a good deal of rain today.

As a result of the 40 degree temperature and the constant rain, we did not go fishing on Leech Lake this evening. Maybe tomorrow.

Water Level Update

Periodically I post the water level of Leech Lake measured by my highly unscientific method of seeing how many cement pilings of my boat ramp are under water.

On Friday, May 27, 2011, seven (7) of the pilings were completely covered with water with the waves lapping up on piling number eight.

The highest I've seen the water level on Leech Lake was nine (9) pilings covered. The lowest I've seen is none of the pilings in the water. Based on the high and low of what I've seen in the past six years or so, the water level is above average on this date.