Leech Lake — Big Chubs, Slow Pulls, and a Screen Full of Fish That Already Ate

There’s a guy at every church potluck who brings one enormous pan of bars, sets it down, and walks off without saying a word. Nobody asks. Everybody eats. Two new notes from Leech this week point in that direction: if the walleyes are already full, offer them something too big to pass up and then be patient.

Neither note is a weekly lake report. One is a TV host’s how-to column from a recent Leech trip, and the other is a reader’s email. Taken together, though, they’re the freshest Leech picture we’ve seen since our Oct. 8 card.

The big-minnow program

Mike Frisch, host of Fishing the Midwest, wrote in his Oct. 10 column that his crew had just come back from filming on Leech and caught several big walleyes. He doesn’t give the dates or say where on the lake. Here’s the setup he describes:

• Where: flats in the middle depths, 10 to 13 feet.
• How they found fish: live sonar around the boat. Once fish showed up on screen, they either eased the boat so the baits dragged slowly through the fish or made short pitches to where the fish were sitting.
• What: slip-sinker live-bait rigs with big redtail chubs. He says big suckers work too, but plenty of people would take chubs if they can find them.
• The hookset tip: when a fish grabs a big minnow, let it eat. Give it some line and a moment before you swing. This is the part I’m worst at. My hookset reaction has the patience of a toddler waiting for the microwave.

His take is that a bigger minnow gets you more bites and often a bigger fish. That’s one angler’s opinion, but it’s an experienced angler. The week before, his crew did the same thing on Kabetogama using creek chubs.

Bait everywhere, no takers

The second note comes from the Fishrapper reader mail posted Oct. 12. A reader who had fished Winnie, then Leech on “this past Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday” (no dates given, so most likely last week), spent most of that time along what he called the south end of Bear Mountain.

He found a lot of baitfish there, and plenty of bigger fish on the screen too. He got almost no bites, enough that he wondered whether his sonar was broken. The exception was a good perch bite at the very tip of south Bear Mountain. After reading Sundin’s Winnie posts, he figures the walleyes were there and just full. He also admits he doesn’t know how you get walleyes to bite with that much food around.

So Winnie’s “lots of fish on the screen, not much biting” problem from our Winnie bait clouds card may be happening on Leech too. That’s one boat’s sonar, not a survey, so don’t read too much into it.

Putting it together

• Starting depth: Frisch’s 10 to 13 feet fits with the 10 to 15 feet around rock and points in the Oct. 8 tourism note, and the 9 to 12 feet from the Oct. 7 card. That’s three sources with roughly the same depth range.
• Lean on electronics: both new notes depend on seeing fish before fishing them. The reader’s trip is a reminder that seeing them isn’t the same as catching them.
• Bring something bigger: a jig and fathead is still the standard pick in the tourism notes. Frisch’s argument for full fall fish is to go bigger and slower, and the reader’s experience doesn’t contradict that.
• Perch: if the walleyes won’t bite, the tip of south Bear Mountain gave that reader a good perch bite. A pan of perch is a perfectly good way to save a day.

The kind part

Honestly, my favorite thing here is the reader sitting there wondering whether his sonar was broken, then writing in anyway so the rest of us could learn something. That’s how good fishing information gets around up north. Somebody shares a slow day so the next person doesn’t waste a whole morning.

Fine print

This card comes from one columnist’s undated trip, a how-to column rather than a lake report, and one reader’s secondhand days on the water with no exact dates. We were given no water temperatures, counts, or fish sizes, and we didn’t add any. “Bear Mountain” is the reader’s own name for the spot. Confirm current MN DNR regs before harvest.

Sources

• Mike Frisch: Rig a big minnow to catch giant fall walleye, Northland Outdoors (Oct. 10, 2026)
• Reader Comments, October 12, 2026: “Leech Lake Walleyes Fat and Lethargic Too”, Fishrapper
• Prior cards: Leech Lake — Let the Sun Get Up, Then Go Look Deeper for Crappies, Leech Lake — Trader’s Bay to GrandVu, Nine to Twelve, Lake Winnie — Bait Clouds, Full Bellies