What a busy 7 days it has been have not had much time to put together a report with the 15 hour days scouting on Leech, taking reservations and getting the plow truck to a mechanic on Sunday after plowing 4ft drifts that are hard as concrete from the 30+ mph sustained winds. I scouted out on Leech last Thursday primarily for Crappies, Perch, and Blue gills. I scouted 90% of the time with the underwater camera and covered about 40 miles of ice marking way points on the Hummingbird. I did find what looked like 12+ inch crappies and some 9-10 inch blue gills. I drilled around 30-40 holes in one bay by hopping around in the sno bear only one hole at dropping the camera looking for some good standing green vegetation to set up on. I did not spend more than 5 minutes with the camera on each spot just looking for fish before we make the full transition onto leach. I put a line down and it was like a roundabout set up on top of some green cabbage vegetation. What I mean by a roundabout is that first a few bass would circle under the sno bear then some nice blue gills followed by some nice crappies. Then out of nowhere a pike just blows up the area crashing into the reeds and cabbage stirring up the water! On Leech I hooked into a few huge bass and pike. Just need to find a spot that the pike are not so active although some customers want to go after big pike. I have the spot for them. Last weekend we had 3 groups in six houses and had mixed reports due to the fact that he had a group of 12-13 that rented 3 houses for a bachelor party. They did a good job cleaning up and that was all I asked for. Not disappointed by them at all but literally would not have needed to drill the holes in one of their houses as it was primarily for the keg of beer. The other house with the Bachelor party had 4 guys in it with the Bachelor and they had some dedication to fishing. Pictured below is Alex the Bachelor with two pike he landed. The larger pike was over 10lbs. The other Grand Castle “part of the Bach party” only managed a couple walleye due to the fact that the stereo was cranked with the outdoor speakers and the music inside. Lots of laughter with this group as they played cards for several hours. Most fish iced out of the Bachelor parties houses were done by the few guys that did not go to the bar! This house is set up 30ft from the crappie crib.
One group of 5 guys in the Silver Grand Castle they had 4 walleyes and lost a few at the hole along with flags flying with the tip ups. It was a slow weekend for this group. They did have fun that is for sure. I let them use the underwater camera for the weekend. This group left now I currently have 4 people in this house husband wife and two young kids. I did not move the house with my truck being fixed they managed to hook into two crappies one 13.5 inch pictured below and another monster lost at the hole. This house is in around 9.5ft of water they have one more night of fishing. They also got a pike and a couple walleyes. I gave them the option to jump into a house sitting over by one of the cribs before dark to see if it produces more walleyes. I noticed the crib seems to hold a cloud of shiners above them. So it seems 30ft from the crib is the best spot for the houses. We are going to leave two houses on Upper Red Lake this weekend and transition three of them down to Leech Wednesday and Thursday. Few pictures below from the last few days. Pictured below is also the Northland Glo-ShotTM Spoon that caught the crappie.
