Its been a while since I have been here. I want to say thank you to everyone for the get well wishes and everyone who donated to help us out. The owners of the resort have helped out us out a ton. Rachel was diagnosed with epilepsy and will be out this fall at the resort so that we can get some more testing. It was a scary incident especially the first seizure that lasted a good amount of time. She will be going down this week to the U of M Epilepsy center for some testing and hopefully get everything dialed in, fingers crossed for this. Thank you everyone for the prayers hoping this week will have some better answers and get her on the right road to control the seizures. Thank you.

I might have to take you up on that mississippi offer that would be a good time.

We had thunder too! Then it turned to snow and we got 3 inches while we were out. It was a crazy day for weather.

That is pretty funny. I drew the short straw for the short bucket.

Looks like it is shaping up to be another good weekend steve. Look forward to seeing you next weekend.

That new bridge they built on county 8 is pretty low, I would guess you would not fit under that and if the water gets too low there are some big areas of rice on that river.

It has been good up here on Leech Lake. Heard a lot of reports coming from the rice bays around the lake, for mallards, wood ducks and teal. Went out saturday out on the main basin, got goldeneyes, ringers, teal, mallards, red heads and a can this past week so far. Fun to have the variety right now and surprisingly it has not been that busy out there.

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Sounds good Deron. Its picking up on our end of the lake for walleyes now. Catching them from shore is always fun. Its been a good couple days from shore and near the shorelines here on the south end since the big northwest winds are blowing. Its been a good last 2 days.

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I will probably fish Leech mostly since its my home lake. but a few trips I would love to make are:
1. Lake Winnipeg
2. Back to Ely and get into some big sunfish and hit up Knife for Lakers
3. NE South Dakota
4. sit in a glacier ice house with nick on Tonka.
5. explore more lakes in the walker area.

All depends on how busy the resort is this winter. I know its going to be another good year on Leech.

Looks like a good month of August Phil. Its picking up on our end of the lake now, cannot wait for this cooler weather moving in. Thanks for the report.

Slip bobbers and Jig and minnow are just starting to work right now. Should be good when you get up there. I know Phil has been doing good up that way. The lake is down into the upper 60’s and with the cool nights should be down in that 62-65 degree range by then.

Spring and fall are different, since there are weeds in the fall and not so much in the spring. Should be able to fish shallow and any wind blown areas. If you are up in the pine point area the flats with a jig/minnow or trolling #5s will be just fine.

Good luck out there.

I could do one or the other for you. Lov to have you back and the fishing is lining up to be awesome. Just give me a call at the resort and I can set it up for you.

Look forward to seeing you in September RR.

Yes it is right around the 18% range. We have normal tax of 6.875%, then we have a 1% road tax through the county, a 3.5% lodging tax and then an resort fee 8%. So it comes out to almost 18% with everything. It is very high, I am working with the new owners of the resort to bring that down.

Again, please call in for September I have an error going on the website, 218-836-2500 and hopefully we can get everybody set up.

Thanks,

Josh

Give me a call on the Spetember dates please. That way I can get you booked in. They had an error on the website. 218-836-2500. Sorry it took so long to get back guys.

Those look awesome. Glad to see you guys last week.

I know that Full stringer has some good bait supply down in Longville. Just this time of year its mainly families and not a lot of fisherman in the area. So keeping those large minnows alive is hard thing for most of those bait shops and resorts. You can catch fish without minnows right now anyways.

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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Both Places are good areas to camp. I know the federal dam campground is a little bigger since it is a corps of engineers and the other is a USFS campground. Federal dam area for opener is always good fishing close up there, but the stony point campground is more centrally located. Make sure you reserve in advance they fill up quickly on opener.

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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Leech does hold the state record for the Pumpkinseed! Tons of bluegills in here, and I am hoping they put a protected slot on them, since they do have limited areas where they are at. Tons of trout streams in the area and a good number of designated stream trout lakes with some good sized brookies and rainbows in them. Thanks for the post Phil. Hopefully we will see you out on the lake on opener.

Went out exploring last night once the winds died down. It was 48 on the main lake right in front of the resort. In the Marina we had 50 degrees. On the southern side of Boy and Headquarters bay I had mid 50’s and the far north of Boy bay where the river dumps in I found a small section in a cut that was 58. I caught one crappie up there, a decent bass and a couple of perch. A lot of boats up there for a mid week night. I am sure they are waiting for the crappie bite to start up there. I know the shiners have not moved into the marina yet, usually when they move in the walleye sit right outside the marina. I am hoping the warm weather pushes them in this week. Should be another great opener on the lake. I know I am counting down the days to being busy again.

There are a lot of good Lake trout lakes up the gunflint and still some nice lodging up there in the winter. Some of those lakes are smaller lakes and easier to target some of the lakers in and there are lots of them so you can move around and catch your fish. The other area I would look at would be the Grand Rapids area. They have some high fish catch rates in those lake trout lakes, you might not catch giants all the time but you will find some good keeper fish.

I have only been working on the lake now for 2 years but I know that the average angler has a hard time finding fish on this lake. If you are an advanced angler there are days that are hard to fish as well. It does have a high population of walleye in the lake according to the most recent surveys. I know watching the fish cleaning buckets and the number of novice fisherman that come through the resort that a lot of people are not catching limits, so i wouldn’t worry too much about a lot of the additional fishing pressure affect the lake. I know it would be nice to have 1 fish over 20″ since there are a lot of them in the water something like almost 3 fish per acre over 24″. They do share a lot of their findings and have a very good fisheries committee for the lake. I know they send constant emails to all the resorts on the fishery status and they also have an office right on the lake. I know they answer all my questions, and have a finger on the pulse of the lake up here.

http://www.lakelandinc.com/ Check out lakeland in Isle Minnesota. I know they make blades, beads, hooks and I know at one time I have seen blade baits come out of their factory. It is the most local one I know of.

Awesome work and that looks good. I know how much work that is to change stuff around.

It will be a walleye killer. I bought numerous husky jerks and rippin raps in that color.

NO even though an extra weekend of revenue would be nice. It would be a headache for reservations since people would want to move etc. Keep that weekend and just fish different spots. Sometimes this early ice off makes the fishing even better.

Nice Pike!

The glo goldfish in the tingler spoons have been awesome this year on leech and then the buckshot flutter spoon in electric perch. I am starting to like the vmc ice fly for the panfish in leech too.