I had a chance to spend a few days up on Leech Lake last week, preparing for and then competing in the FLW Walleye League event. It was my first trip ever to Leech, and it won't be my last.
During the pre-fishing period, I concentrated on relatively shallow water, 8-12 feet deep, in wind-blown areas. It wasn't hard to find those, believe me, with winds in the 20-30 mph range, gusting to 40 on Thursday. We were able to catch fish drifting jigs, live bait rigging and pulling spinners. My best bite for keeper fish (14-18") was on spinners, so that's what I decided to do on game day.
My co-angler Chad and I spent our day pulling harnesses behind bottom bouncers: 1.5 oz bouncers, speed 1.2-1.5, depth 10-13 feet. Our shallow bites fizzled out a bit since the wind was no longer pouring in to my pre-fishing areas, but moving deeper into some emerging weeds allowed us to contact the fish again.
We ended up weighing a tournament limit of 15-17" fish, which gave us some good points towards the championship but didn't put is in contention for the $$. With only two days of prep and no prior experience on the lake, I devoted my time to developing a numbers bite, rather than trying to swing for the fences. So, while our finish was nothing special, I am happy that I was able to find a reasonable tournament limit with just a short amount of preparation.
The photo above is one of the many 20-24" fish we caught pre-fishing and on game day. Beautiful fish, but given Leech's 18-26" protected slot, these didn't do us a lick of good on game day.
Thanks to my partner Jason Sullivan, my pre-fishing guest Dave Vollmer, and IDO staffer Ron "Sliderfishn" Bukovich for their help in preparing for and fishing in the tournament. For now, back to guiding...and then on to Bemidji in July!
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