June 3, 2012 -- On Leech Lake

The golden water of Sucker Bay this evening

Today is Rick's last day full day at Leech Lake for this trip. He's already hinted that he may be able to swing another trip up here come September or October, but who knows...

The weather this morning was as follows: the sky was grey and overcast and looked like it might bring some rain with it. The temperature was a fairly balmy 65 degrees and there was little to no wind; what breeze there might have been looked to be coming out of the southwest.

Although the Leech Lake Walleye Tournament is in its second and final day, there were relatively few boats in front of our house and cabin; maybe a half a dozen at most. The results from Day 1 of the tournament have the leading team with 13.51 pounds of walleye with six fish caught. The big fish of the day was a 7.28 pounder, which is a big fish. A walleye must be over 26 inches to be kept here on Leech Lake and that fish had to be at least 27 or 28 inches, if not bigger, to weigh 7.28 pounds.

The forecast for today called for rain and light winds starting sometime after noon, with possible thunderstorms around 2:00 p.m. So at 11:30 a.m. Rick and I thought it would be a good time to venture onto the lake to do some fishing. We had washed our rain gear the other day and it was still hanging up in the garage to dry, but since it wasn't predicted to rain for a while we thought we'd be OK. Wrong.

No sooner than we got out on the water than the wind picked up and it started raining. With no rain gear, and my aversion to being on the water in overly windy conditions, we came right back in. When the wind dies down, we'll try again regardless of the rain.

Once inside, I put my rain gear into the dryer and made sure it dried quickly; no more air drying. With my rain gear finally dry, we decided to go back onto the water for some fishing; wearing our rain gear just in case.

No sooner had we left the boat lift when a light rain began to fall. But almost as fast as it started it stopped, and for the rest of our time on the water it didn't rain again. Perfect, since we had our rain gear on.

I motored out to Bass Bay where we threw spinnerbaits for largemouth bass. I deployed the electric trolling motor and got us started fishing at the harbor near Third Duck Point in 2 feet of water. We fished all along the reeds in Bass Bay for more than an hour, but the only fish we caught was a nice 3-pound largemouth that I hooked, and a little rock bass that Rick caught. We did, however, see a large dogfish sitting on its bed in the shallows, but couldn't entice it to bite.

Having thoroughly fished our way around Bass Bay, I pulled up the trolling motor, fired up the Mercury Verado and sped the boat to Second Duck Point, no more than a five- or six-minute ride at 35 mph. Once at Second Duck Point we jigged for walleye and jumbo perch, but caught only a handful of small perch. At that point it was time to go ashore.

Once on shore, Rick and I stopped by John Newman's house for a beer and some conversation. I left about  a half an hour later, but Rick ended up staying for nearly three hours. Finally at 9:30 p.m. Rick came home and we went out for our evening troll.

The sky was mostly cloudy, the moon was full, and the wind was calm; the lake was truly flat. The water temperature was 67 degrees and the air temperature was a very comfortable 60 degrees. We made several passes from the cabin south into Duck Bay and back again, but the only fish we boated was a small walleye I caught (probably no more than 12 inches) and a pike and rock bass that Rick caught. Rick did have a walleye on the hook, but it came unbuttoned before it got close enough to the boat to net.

At 11:00 p.m. we came ashore. Rick gathered up some of his gear and stowed it until his next visit. When that will be is unknown. It could be as soon as this Fall, or not again until next Spring. In either case, it was good to have him up here in the northwoods for visit during the past two weeks.

Tomorrow I'll give Rick a ride into Bemidji so he can catch his 1:00 p.m. flight to Minneapolis. From there he's off to Las Vegas for meetings. I, on the other hand, will remain in Bemidji to have the truck serviced, run numerous errands and go grocery shopping. I'm guessing that I won't make it back to the lake until sometime in the evening.

I'll post again here tomorrow, but probably not until later in the day. So until then, good night from Leech Lake.

June 2, 2012 -- On Leech Lake

This morning at 9:00 a.m. the temperature was 57 degrees, the wind was calm to very light and the skies were high and blue. Not great conditions for day one of the Leech Lake Walleye Tournament. I was surprised to see very few boats in front of our house and cabin. Usually during tournaments there are dozens of boats fishing here. Of course, when there's a little walleye chop on the bay the fishing conditions here are much better.

Rick went next door to chat with John Newman and as a result the two of them decided to go fishing; I elected to stay home and drink coffee, listen to classical music on MPR and ease into the day. I will be interested to learn if John and Rick have any better luck fishing than they did yesterday, when they essentially caught nothing of interest.

One week from today Kathleen will arrive for an extended stay at Leech Lake. I am very much looking forward to her visit. We always have a lot of fun when we're together here at the lake. I just hope it warms up considerably so we have a chance to go swimming. I suppose we could go swimming now, but with water temperatures at just 65 degrees, it's a bit cool for our California acclimated bodies.

When Rick returned from fishing he informed me that indeed the fishing had been poor with only a couple of small perch boated. He and I then went down to Jerry Schiebe's to help Jerry put up some paneling on the roof of his porch addition. We spent about 2 hours working on it and only managed to nail up 4 sheets due to the odd framing shape of the porch. The joists did not run true and aren't spaced quite right which made nailing the paneling to them very difficult, and in some places impossible. But Jerry was nonetheless thankful for the work we did accomplish.

After a bite of lunch, Rick and I headed out onto the water to do some fishing. When Rick was out with John earlier in the day they had spotted some crappies in Bass Bay so Rick wanted to start there since he's never caught a Leech Lake crappie.

I motored the boat into 3-feet of water in Bass Bay, noted that the water temperature had climbed to 67 degrees in the bay (in the main part of  Sucker Bay the temperature was 65 degrees), and lowered the MinnKota electric trolling motor into the water.

I slowly moved us around in the reeds, and we did see plenty of crappies, including some slab-sized ones, but we could not tempt any of them to bite. After 30 minutes of failed crappie hunting we relocated to the Birches where we caught lots of rock bass and a few small perch, but no walleyes or jumbo perch.

It was time for another move so I repositioned the boat in 14-feet of water in spot between the house and cabin. Using jigs and minnows we fished for another 45 minutes or so, but only caught some small perch. Finally, just before 4:00 p.m. we came ashore, got cleaned up and went next door to join John Newman for dinner.

John had invited Rick and I to a wonderful pork loin, mashed potato and gravy and green bean dinner, which was very tasty. We talked, ate and drank a couple of cold malted beverages before parting ways around 7:00 p.m. Rick and I came back to the house, got a few things together and then went back to the boat lift around 8:15 p.m. for an evening attempt at catching some walleyes.

We started by jigging with minnows in the spot between the house and cabin in 14 feet of water, a spot where a few days earlier I'd caught several nice walleye, but by the time we got there the light breeze that had been blowing out of the NNW had died down and the lake was dead calm; not ideal conditions for walleye fishing.

In addition to the poor fishing conditions, the area was filled with more than a dozen boats; the most we'd seen on the water this year during our evening fishing excursions. We jigged for about 30 minutes or so without any luck, so we changed tactics and started trolling with crankbaits.

With the moon just one day shy of being full, we thought the walleye would be out biting like crazy, but just the opposite was true. And although some of the boats left as the sky darkened, many remained meaning that my trolling was akin to running a slalom course where the poles are constantly moving. It was not a relaxing troll.

We fished for nearly 90 minutes in the area between Malay's cabin to the north and the middle of Duck Bay to the south and we caught only two small walleyes -- Rick caught a 14 1/2-inch fish while mine came in even smaller at just over 10 inches. At that point we decided it was time to leave. Apparently none of the other boats were having any success either, because about the same time we were leaving, so did all but one or two of the other boats.

Once inside we just relaxed and listened to some music. After a quick call to Kathleen --we discussed her arrival in just one week -- I decided to close things up for the night and go to bed. Good night from Leech Lake.