Bass on Leech?

[RandyFish]

I have a friend with a cabin on Leech Lake, near Bear Island.

He says the walleye bite is tough, but he does not pursue bass at all.

Guys is Leech a good largemouth lake? I assume it has smallies.

Can anyone give me the "down and dirty" where-to info for both large and small mouths.

RandyFish

[Guest]

If it has smallies they don't get much press. You would think it would be and outstanding smally lake with all those rocks. It has a pretty good largemouth reputation but it is fishing not for the faint of heart. Heavy Tackle in Heavy Weeds for big fish. I think the Bear Island area is pretty good along with Boy Bay, Headquarters Bay, and anywhere else you find good weeds especially wild rice.

[Guest]

There are no smallies to speak of in Leech. There may be a couple, but no one fishes for them and I have never seen one weighed in for a tourney.

As for largemouths, Basspastor is right about thick cover and locations. I'm practicing for the MN Pro/Am on Leech this Saturday. I'll let you know about patterns and locations after the tourney.

[Guest]

Adam- I will be up there fishing as an AM. On a whim I called up today to see if they had any opennings and it turns out that they did. I love fishing the thick stuff. I will be fishing with Joel Stokka. I've never fished a Pro/Am before but fishing out of the back of the boat is nothing new. I'll introduce myself.

Hope the lake stays flat.

[Guest]

Basspastor,

I hear ya! It's been windy the last couple days, but it is supposed to be fairly calm for the tourney (fingers crossed). It's been tough fishing so far but we'll see what happens.

Glad you made it in. I'm sure you will have a great time. The MN Pro/Am is the nicest run, biggest tournament series in the region and it always is a good time. See you at the rules dinner at the casino. I'll be wearing the Aqua Innovations shirt.

Good luck!

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Adam Johnson
www.adamjohnsonfishing.com

[RandyFish]

Fishing the thick stuff?

Milfoil?

Are you relying on plastics? Heavy tex-rigged worms and jigs to get through.

How is this heavier than a Milfoil bed on Tonka?

Tell me more. I forgot there was a casino up there....blackjack and bass! Bassjack!

[HellaBass]

Not so much milfoil as it is wild rice

[Never Enough Time to Fish]

There's at least one nice bass in there. Check out the "fishing" page of Thursday's Pioneer Press. Hopefully it's still swimming for someone else to catch.

Never Enough......

[Yaeger Guide]

I fished Leech in a tournament last fall. We worked the western bay with some success keying in on the bridge rip-rap, reeds and shoreline weeds/pads. Nothing huge, but decent numbers. Prior to that, I haven't fished Leech since the 80's.

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God bless,
Judd Yaeger
Yaeger Guides (Twin Cities Guides) www.yaegerweb.com/guide

[Chad711]

Guys will there be an official Weigh in at the event? Id like to come see whats caught, thanks, Chad...

[RossT]

Hello,
29 pounds won the tournament today on Leech. We took 6th with 23.60 pounds for 8 fish. The fish were caught on OutKast Pro-Staff jigs and Spoons. Look for the thickest rice you can find and cast over the tops with a spoon, when a fish hits but misses the spoon, follow up with the jig. I would not recommend any line lighter than 20lb. test. We were using Spider Stealth 50lb, casts great and doesn't dig into the spool. Remember to take a few pictures and throw them all back! Good Luck!

Ross

[Chad711]

Wow thats a good stringger.
5 Eyes @10.75 won $8,000 in the Bemidji Krause-Anderson Tourney Saturday, I watched that weigh in.

When your casting over the rice, do the Bass still hit when your trailing some peices of grass or are they pickey, and basically hit it only when its clean?

What size/color of spoons? I know that there are nice Bass behind my place but Ive only seen on caught, basically on accident BY the Rice, you know bad cast heh....

Thanks And congrats on 6th place! How many boats were in the tourney?
102 in Bemidji.......

[RossT]

There were 104 boats in the tournament, 208 fisherman. It was a Pro-Am format where each professional angler is paired with an AM.

As for fishing rice, your bait has to be clean from all weeds, that is very important. Northland Jawbreakers and Johnson Silver Minnows will work. White, Black, and Red work well on Leech. One thing that really helped us was drenching our spoons in Berkley Bass Scent, when the fish took the spoon they would hold on for a slit second longer allowing us to set the hook extremely hard and pull them out of the rice. The trick to pulling big bass out of the thick rice is a heavy rod and heavy line, you need both to be able to winch the bass out of the rice and get him scooting accross the surface of the water, thus not allowing him to bury deep into the junk. I used a 6'10" Fenwick HMX Extra Heavy action rod matched with 50lb. Spider Stealth. Good Luck!

Ross
www.TaylorFishing.com

[Guest]

Great Job Ross, For some reason me and my pro were not able to find or land a little better quality fish. Adam Johnson was fishing pretty much the exact same water/area and doing the exact same thing and his fish averaged nearly a half pound heavier than ours; on a 8 fish limit that makes for a pretty big difference in weight. We were using weedless frogs and I tried a spoon in the morning but without luck. We should have had a limit but caught under 50% of our bites 7/18to20 bites. I got just under 50% of my bites for 5 fish and my pro was maybe at 25% landing 2.

Overall I had a great time and my Pro Joel Stokka was a really great guy, who had a rough day. He had his sun glasses blow out of the boat at blast off and just could not get the hook sets timed right and he is a guy who knows how to fish "the rice." I think you might have been on to something with putting scent and flavor on the bait as that it did seem that the fish were spitting the lure if you let the hookset take to long. My pro would hesitate a good second before setting and would often come back with nothing. I "drop the rod" and come right back up making for a set that hesitates for just fractions of a second after the hit.

[Guest]

Those bass in that rice (where Basspastor and I were fishing at least) really seemed to be spooky and lethargic for most of the day. I know I spooked quite a lot of fish with my Scumfrog, and a lot would swirl at it, but not eat it.

Later in the day, as things warmed up, the fish began to eat my Scumfrog a lot better. I would guess that overnight the water temps in that shallow rice droped enough to slow the metabolism of the fish then as the sun came out and warmed the water, they got more agressive.

It was a fun tournament. We had great weather and running across the big lake was no problem, which makes it a lot safer and enjoyable for everyone. Some big fish were caught giving even more proof that Leech is a great bass fishery!

Looking forward to Vermilion in a couple weeks!

Good luck and tight lines!

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Adam Johnson
www.adamjohnsonfishing.com

[This message has been edited by Adam Johnson (edited 06-16-2003).]