Leech Lake Musky Help

Heading up on the first weekend of October for a few days of fishing. Usually fish walleye, but one of the guys brings his young son (I think 10 or 11 now) and wants to try for a musky. I told him I’d bring some gear along and we can give it a try. We spent a few hours last year casting and trolling and got a nice northern trolling back to the resort on our last day.

I don’t want to bring a ton of stuff, so I’m looking for any recommendations on bait styles and colors that work on Leech in the fall.

I fished a local musky tournament this past weekend and one of the guys suggested fishing Portage Bay. I haven’t looked at the map yet to see if this is close to where we are staying on the south side of the lake, but I’m open to any other suggestions.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions,

Dave

You can move plenty of fish casting bucktails around Pelican Island, Pipe Island, Stony Point or any of the shallower humps. After turn over I do better with gliders and Bulldawgs. Good Luck!

The first thing I would recommend is to be sure to bring proper release equipment if you aren’t a regular muskie fisherman. A big net, heavy duty hook cutter, long pliers. Hooking into a big fish and not having the equipment to land and release it isn’t a good position to be in for you or the fish.
I am not an expert on Leech, so I would defer to Fancaster and others on this one in terms of locations. Trolling large cranks like jakes, grandmas, believers, slammers, can be very effective in the post turnover period as well. Casting big rubber is probably #1 in late fall, but that probably won’t last too long with an 11 year old.

Jason,

I’m set for landing and release, I just need to find the fish. I’m a Muskies, Inc member and we had our big tournament this past weekend. My partner had six follows and boated two fish all on an Orange Spot Suick. I threw everything in the box over two days and didn’t see a fish.
Sometimes there is a particular action or color that seems to work on a particular body of water and if Leech has a hot bait I want to make sure I’ve got one along for the trip. I usually fish walleye on these trips so that’s what’s in the boat, but I know there are some monsters to be had, so will bring the musky gear along and spend a little time to see if we can get one to bite.

Thanks for the help guys,

Dave