Leech Lake/ White Pass Fishing

[Kyle Sponholtz]

Has anybody been up to Leech Lake at all this year? I will be takin the pontoon out on Saturday and will be headed to Leech. Also, what are some good flies and depth to set up at? I heard buggers are good at this lake.

Has anybody fished any other good lakes up by White Pass with a pontoon besides Dog and Clear? Knuppenburg fished well last year.

Thanks! :beer2:

[Joe Fitzpatrick]

I went up to leech about 2 weeks ago on a Wednesday. About 20 guys on the lake. It took a friendly guy named Dennis to come over to me and let me know what he was doing before I caught anything...Thanks Dennis!!!!! Then the skies opened up and my net was filled with fish the remainder
of the day.....

So, the secret that particular day was an intermediate line with a small (Size10-12) olive bugger...and voila....23 fish within 2-3 hours. It was a blast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Havent fished dog lake (The lake just on the other side of the pass), so I'd be interested on how things are there.

[cabezon]

I must have overlapped with you, Joe. I spent several days there that week. The midday Callibaetis hatch was still sporadic, but some fish were definitely looking up at some times of day. The most fun was sight fishing for cruising triploids; you could drop a dry fly in their path and watch them confidently nose up to take the bug. The midge hatch was pretty lame (good emergence on one evening out of three), but some guys were successful fishing chironomids below a bobber. There were some caddis around, but I never did see much of an emergence or even egg-laying activity. As of two weeks ago, I saw just a few flying damsels and the reeds were just about to break the surface. Based on my experience in previous years, this weekend I would expect to see active damsel emergence in the morning and trout attacking damsels landing on reeds in the afternoon. I expect that the reason that an olive bugger was so effective two weeks ago were all the active damsels.

Good luck,

Steve

[Wayne Kohan]

Fished it two weeks ago, it was 45 degrees, the wind was howling and it rained hard. Caught a bunch on the surface, with just about anything - DHE, Adams, EHC... Mostly brookies in the 10 inch range, but got a couple triploids that way. I was amazed at how they were looking up when there was rain and wind stirring up the surface.... It was a blast.

Wayne

[kameharem]

was at Leech last monday fishing from the shore because I was with my son, catching lots of 10 to 12 inch brookies on parchute adams in knee deep water, lots of hatches going on all day. the guys out in the lake looked to be catching more than us including lost of the big triplods, one person I talked to said he caught 20 in an hour using a prince, but of course I can't confirm that.

[Al Moss]

My son and I were at Leech Lake on Thursday (the day it was SO hot!). We didn't catch a lot, but the Brookies were active and I landed three Tripiloids that were nice sized. Got one on a Parachute Adams, one on an Olive Damsel and one on a Black Marabou Leech.

The weeds are coming up and thus there are few places on the lake that is more than 6-8' deep. An intermediate sink line will work fine in most places, but a dry line will do what you need to do.

There were about a dozen fishers - most working close to the weeds in the early morning and then moving to the middle and north back as the day got hotter.

Good luck!

The Professor