South Side Leech Lake Update

This was the busiest opener I have seen since I have been on Leech Lake. I had to park 3 blocks away from my house since we had some nice people blocking my driveway and there wasn’t an open spot anywhere. The resort was busy and the anglers that battled the heavy winds and cold temps caught fish. It seemed like the walleye were in every depth from the reports I heard. We would have one group come in and they found all their fish in 4 ft or less, and had another group find all their fish in 20+ feet. So just spread all over the column right now. I have had my best luck in 10-14 ft of water. I found more fish on the sand humps and off of the structure. Jig and minnow combos fished either by casting and retrieving or drifting is the most popular. We did see some anglers using lindy rigs with leeches and night crawlers work well too. So the fish are on the chow right now, they just might be in a little different spot then usual. With the warm temps and more steady weather it looks like this week and the weekend should be great times to get out and fish the lake. I think everybody is fishing here, since it is busy out there. Good Luck fishing and hope to see you all on the lake.

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You guys were a perch short of the Leech Lake grand slam! I missed being able to come up and fish Leech on opener this year but hope to get up in the next couple weeks to make up for it. As always, the updates are appreciated.

That looks like a good start to the year guys!

Its still good on our end of the lake. Just a quick update before the memorial weekend crowd shows up. Fishing pressure still remains high on the lake, amazing to see the amount of boats mid week out there. Lots of nets being shown which is a fun thing to see. It looks like Phil and Steve have been busy cleaning some fish out there. We are still finding most of the fish on the sand/rock transitions with a jig/minnow(does not matter on what type of minnow, just throwing it out there.) The jig color varies from day to day the same with the depth that we find the fish. Keep moving and let the wind dictate where you will fish, 10-14 feet of water seem to be the best areas to start. We have started to see some spinners rigs catch fish and some trolling catching fish. The water temps are in the high 50’s right now. It should be another great weekend for fishing. Good Luck and hope to see you on the water.

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Yup–spinners/crawlers/bouncers are and will become part of the good options nowadays. Good report Josh. Filled the gut buckets last time in the cleaning house! LOL
Good report!

What a difference a week makes out there. Last weekend we started to see the change in the bite. I also think the lack of shiners available made that change for many anglers. If you can still get a hold of some spot tails, dragging or rip jigging the sand/rock transitions(10-15ft) is still working. For most anglers though getting a hold of spot tails may be hard so working a lindy rig with a leech or crawler works in these same areas. I have started to pull slow death rigs with bottom bouncers and it has been working well. Keep moving and getting away from the big pressured areas will produce fish for everyone. It looks like we are in that transition time for all the anglers but the fishing is still good out there. Good luck and hopefully see you on the water.

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