Leech Lake — Portage Bay, Five Mile Flats, and Perch in the Skinny Green

Leech is big enough that you can fish three good plans and still feel like you forgot a ZIP code. Reed’s Sporting Goods, via the Oct. 14 Bemidji Pioneer weekly, handed us a shorter grocery list than usual. We’ll take it.

This sits next to the Oct. 12 Frisch/Fishrapper card (big chubs, slow pulls, full screens) and the Oct. 8 Gill Tourism note (rocks and midday patience). Different notebooks. Same lake. We’re not blending them into one invented truth.

Walleyes: two neighborhoods

Minnows and crawlers are still the tools. Locations this week:

• Portage Bay
• the sand flats running from the river over toward Five Mile Point, 7–10 feet
• the weeds from Grand Vu Lodge to Goose Island, 12–14 feet

“The river” is how the weekly says it — we are not naming a mouth for them. Compared with the Oct. 7 Reed’s card (Trader’s Bay / Goose / Bear / GrandVu Flats in 9–12), this week adds Portage, the Five Mile sand-flat lane, and a clearer 12–14 weed call Grand Vu to Goose. Trader’s and Bear don’t get a shout this time; that doesn’t mean they died. It means they weren’t in this paragraph.

Perch: Walker Narrows, bring a shorter ruler

Perch are “going strong” at Walker Narrows, and shallow: 3–5 feet. The instruction is almost rude in its simplicity: “find green weeds and you’ll find perch.” Last week’s Reed’s band was 5 to 8 with Agency and Sand Point named. This week tightens the depth and keeps the Narrows as the headline.

Somewhere a cooler just cleared space out of pure optimism. I respect that cooler.

Muskies and the panfish apartment complex

• Muskies: still shallow and active. Bucktails or topwater, and the note says rocks more than weeds. Topwater is new language versus the Oct. 7 bucktail-only line.
• Panfish: a mixed bag in 5–9 feet across Steamboat, Sucker, Shingobee, and Boy bays. Shingobee joins the usual Steamboat / Sucker / Boy crew.

How to stack the recent Leech cards

• Big Chubs, Slow Pulls… — Oct. 12 Frisch/reader texture
• Let the Sun Get Up… — Oct. 8 Gill rocks / midday tip
• Trader’s Bay to GrandVu… — Oct. 7 Reed’s map
• This card — Oct. 14 Reed’s refresh: Portage + Five Mile flats 7–10, Grand Vu–Goose weeds 12–14, Walker perch 3–5 in green, rocks/topwater muskies, Shingobee on the panfish list

One shop weekly is not a chartplotter file. Confirm current MN DNR regs before harvest.

Sources

• Weekly Fishing Report: Quiet waters, but lots of bites — Bemidji Pioneer / Reed’s Sporting Goods Leech note (Oct. 14, 2026)
• Prior cards linked above