Akeley, MN Area Report 7/30-8/6

Was up in the Akeley area for the G/F's family's yearly vacation trip. Of course We had to make it out for a lot of fishing. I got up there right before sunset on Saturday b/c I had to work, So i sat down around the fire with some of her relatives since her and her dad were already out crappie fishing, I wasn't there for 5 minutes before I got a text from her showing a 14.5" crappie her dad had just caught with the caption "and I convinced him to let it go":


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I was really anxious after seeing that fish and some of the smaller fish he brought in that night. Got up the next morning and the first thing I wanted to do was go and do some trolling for some northerns and see if we couldnt duplicate with what we did for the big fish last year. First day of trolling we got zip, not even a bump on the musky lures. Went out that night for some crappies and got a bunch of eater sized fish for a fish fry but no monsters.


Went out the next day to try trolling for more northerns and again nothing. Saw lots of marks along the thermocline, but all were smaller and we assumed them to be tullies. That was mostly the story for the week, we only saw one little hammerhandle caught the entire week out of a 800 acre lake! The DNR was doing their test netting on the lake during the week and there were a couple people in the group who were asked if they had caught any northerns. I am wondering if the DNR even got any in their test nets and that's why they were asking.


Ron and I shot up the road to try for some eyes on Leech on Wed the 3rd. Had aboot the same luck that everyone has been having as of late. No walleyes in the traditional manner. We tried rigging, spinners, trolling cranks and nothing but a lot of snagged perch on cranks and short strikes from perch on the rigs. I did have two follow from muskies, one of which was a nice mid-40's fish, but he didnt hang around the boat long enough for me to even start to figure eight. We finally moved up into the area around Saucer Hole and that's where we found all of our fish, all in less than 7 feet of water. I lost a nice pike next to the boat right before Ron got the first walleye of the day. Caught a decent amount of fish in the weeds there (surprisingly several very skinny northerns), most of which came right near any bald patches where the sand showed through on a small (1/16-1/8 oz) jig with a 3" swim-tail plastic rigged up on it. the surprising part? not a single bass. Saw plenty of walleyes, perch, and northerns and tried casting for 'Skis for a little bit in and around the hole but never saw a fish. Here are a few pics from Leech:


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Thursday and Friday we sorta just hung out during the day, but come 6 pm it was time to chase some crappies, and I was dead set on catching some big ones. So I pulled out my secret weapon the new Lindy Watsit grub on a 1/32 oz jig. We shot over to "Ron's Top Secret Crappie Hole" and started pitching jigs. Pitching jigs only seemed to get us smaller crappies, bluegills and rockies. So Ron made the decision to start long-line trolling the jigs out behind the boat because that was how he got his big fish. It wasn't 2 minutes before the first 13" crappie was up to the boat. Got some wonderful fish and even a couple of eaters mixed in, I also got a bonus eater walleye after we got a little too far off of our trolling run, which probably was one of the top-fighting walleyes I have ever had on my line (probably had something to do with the light ultra-slow crappie rod and 4lb test I had on). Here are some more fish pics from the story, Brittany's coolest shirt ever and a sunset shot that I couldnt help but share:


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Very Nice I fish the Alexandria chain of lakes quite a bit

I like the bobbers Bob. lol.

Have you been schooling Ron this summer? I looks like he's caught a few, but then he has always been able to do that as long as Brittany is there to show him some tricks. But then, Brittany has propbably shown you a few tricks too, eh?