Back In Business

Brindley's Harbor Resort

Last week was the firm cancellation of our 47th Annual Team Walleye Leech Lake opener.  It has been officially moved to the first weekend in October, 6 months from now.  Hopefully this state will get back to normal!  Because I am an admitted cynic of this situation and will not comment, and as well really enjoy fishing Leech Lake in May, my brother Steve, friend Kevin Aiona, his son Ben and grandson Jared have confirmed a reservation at Brindley's Harbor Resort starting May 8th and leaving on Monday morning, May 11.  Because of the current situation, the resort cabins and slips will be open however the lodge is closed plus there are some minor changes like we have to bring our own sleeping bags, pillows.......just like we do in Canada.  Also strict social distancing is required however I believe we will be fishing most of the time so that should not be an issue.  As of this post, the ice is still covering Leech Lake however with temperatures in the 50's and 60's we should be ice free by May 8th.  As for Leech and it's official ice out, the trend for the last 10 years has been later where we tend to deal with colder water temperatures.  Late ice out tends to mean that the walleyes are in the early post spawn period and tend to be very shallow, usually in the 6 - 10 foot range.  They haven't spread out much from their traditional spawning areas such as wind swept rock shores and points along the lake, which there are many.  It will be hard to say what the water temperature will be however last year it was relatively cold, around 47 degrees.  To find active walleyes one had to search for warmer water such as Steamboat Bay or a shoreline where the wind was blowing the surface water into.  This proved to be a great strategy, enough to win the majority of the prizes for our Team Walleye annual event.  Another excellent strategy is early evening trolling shad raps along those rocky shores.  This technique is deadly and as discussed last week, these new UV colored patterns seem to be hot.  There is always a few spawned out females swimming around which definitely gives the opportunity to catch a nice fish in the 27 to 28 inch range.  Fishing on Leech should be good again this year as the limit is 4 walleyes each, everything between 20 and 26 must be released, generally we let all the walleyes go over 20.  With the current situation it could go either way, the lake's fisherman could be few and far between or it could be the opposite as people are anxious to get out.  Either way my prediction is for a great opener!

Diawa Low Profile Line counter Reel

Although a labor of love, the last week has required getting the boat prepared for the opener.  Telling Steve that he doesn't need to bring any tackle or equipment, forces one to re-evaluate everything.  Of course the lure selections are quite easy as the boat tackle storage is quite modular with jig boxes, trolling baits, bobber rig box, live bait rig box, along with some panfish style baits and a good selection of various crankbaits to try out.  I can leave the deep runner boxes as home as we don't need them.  Basically there are 4 types of equipment that will be required.  On Friday the plan is to go crappie fishing up in Sucker Bay, the tackle strategy of choice is the slip bobber....2 of those rigs in the rod locker.  Next is a couple of jigging rods with regular monofilament for the standard 1/8 ounce Fireball Jig plus 2 jigging rods that are stiffer, and loaded with braid which can handle a new technique that we are going to try, jigging a Jiggin Rap or Rippin Rap's.  There has been a lot of talk about these types of baits in colder water and Ben is an expert at these types of baits so we will give them a try.  The forth type of rod is a longer live bait rod for pulling Lindy type rigs, 2 of them in the rod locker.  Last but not least are 2 baitcaster's with standard sized low profile reels that have line counters on them.  The line counters are not really necessary but add an element of options if a specific length behind the boat becomes needed.  I might throw in a couple of light panfish rods in case those crappies are active with small plastic jigs. While putting away the snowblower attachments in the shed, it gave me a great opportunity to start both motors on the boat.  As usual the big Evinrude starts like it never slept a wink over the winter and is ready to go on a moments notice.  It is of course Electronic Fuel Injected (EFI) so there is not hesitation as she sat there and idled till it warmed up.  The 9.8 kicker is another story as she is as cold blooded as they come.  Maybe it's my fault (of course it is!) but this is a carbureted engine and it takes a while for the gas to get everywhere it needs to fire up.  As well I am always concerned about the ethanol blend that I run as the kicker is a 4 stroke but is fed by the main gas tank.  The winterization process requires some stabilizer in the gas to help but last year I could not even get the kicker started on Opener.  After about 30 seconds of cranking over it finally started running, good enough to get her up to operating temperature as well to fire up the iTroll system, which BTW is a great way to control a kicker motor.  Everything seems to work fine and we should be ready to go with the only thing left is to clean the carpeting.  All the electronics are up to date and on Friday I plan on restarting my 6 month subscription to Sirius/XM Weather service which runs till the end of October.  This is a great feature that allows one to set a lightning warning, if lightning is within 6 miles of your current location, even in Canada, a warning goes off.  You then can overlay the weather onto your chart and go back 3 hours to see where the storm is heading.  That and Willy's Roadhouse makes it worth every penny!