Fishing on Leech

[Murph!]

The warm weather has raised the surface water temps on Leech to the upper 70's. Walleyes are staging on the humps in Walker Bay. Fishing a live bait rig(Lindy Rig) tipped with leeches, crawlers, or larger minnows is the preferred tactic. There are numerous humps, checking them with your sonar looking for pods of fish and or bait will save you time. On the Big Lake fish are still near the rocks in 20 to 25 feet. Use same tactic adding bottom bouncer and spinners tipped with crawlers is a good method to cover water.

Muskie fishing is improving. Most fish are in the scattered weeds. Look for the larger patches of weeds they are few and far between but are holding fish. I raised a large fish on the rocks so they are starting to move to the shallow reefs. Key is presence of bait fish. Let's hear what you are finding out there. Good fishing and tight lines.

[djwilliams]

Just got back from a week on Leech, Moose, Wabedo. The lakes look great and surface water temps on all 3 lakes was 75-77 in the afternoon. Fishing has been slow. Perch just aren't on yet and walleye fishing remains inconsistent. The best technique I used was a simple floating jig on a short snell baited with a crawler and drifted in 14-17 feet. The only muskie I saw was a follow from a 30 inch fish out of a cabbage/rock spot on Moose Lake. We hit North Bar, Red Rocks, Pipe, Battle. A friend of mine on Muskie First fished Five Mile in shallow then had a hunch the fish must be staging out deeper. He trolled 500 yards offshore and stuck a 50. Drew- FYI on the map issues with distances to places like Battle Point. You are definitely right. I had just completed measuring lengths using the Navionics map to find distances to fishing areas the night before we met. After we talked, I looked over 3 maps and Google Earth then I sent this note to Navionics:
In looking over my Navionics Leech Lake East map, 2006, No.1, there is significant error in the map. The scale on the map is 1:30,000. Fishing Hot Spots and Lakemaster maps use the same scale. On all three maps, one mile is equal to approximately 1.3125 inches. However, on the Navionics map the image has been enlarged approximately 1.60 times than the other maps using the same scale. This creates a significant distance error of 60% on any line or path between points that one chooses on the Navionics map. A good example is the length of Bear Island. On the Navionics map it is approximately 5.6 miles long from north to south. In reality, that island is 3.5 miles long. I checked many Navionics map measurements against Google Earth online and find those Google Earth distances consistent with the Lakemaster and the Hot Spots maps.
This is what I received from Shaun Ruge, Sales Mngr at Navionics: "Navionics has not manufactured paper maps for approximately 8 years. There will not be an edited version available from Navionics." All the Best, djw