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Location: Altoona, IA | Last year at Leech I hear the comerants (sp?) are destroying the walleye pop in the lake, still stuck a few nice muskies on a fall trip. This year I am hearing the cabbage beds in portage bay are struggling to non existent because of the rusty crayfish. Has anyone been there lately? Is this lake in serious trouble? Maybe not now but in a couple of years this (I would think) could mess up the whole food chain. | |
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Posts: 654
Location: MPLS, MN | You may want to post that question here. I was up there once this year and stuck to the Walker bay area. Good looking weeds there still..
http://www.fishinfo.com/cgi-bin/board.cgi?az=list&forum=ForumID8 | |
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| I keep my boat in Federal Dam and have done so for the past 15-16 years. Until this year I never felt the need to leave the Bay to find big fish until mid- to late- October. Not so any more. There is NO cabbage left in the bay. You can see tiny "stubs" about 6 inches long on your electronics, but that's about it. It took the crayfish (or whatever is destroying the cabbage) less than three weeks to take out the cabbage at Two Points. When I checked the status of the bay in late June, Two Points was the only area to still have cabbage. Five Mile Point, the Pike Bed, New Leech Campground, "the hump", etc. were already gone, but Two Points still had cabbage. Kinda puney looking, but it was there. By mid July - nothing, nada. All that remains is the Tobacco weed, and it isn't very plentiful either. I do occasionally see a musky fisherman on the west side of the bay as I make my way south to the rocks. Not sure if they're catching anything or not. If muskies are using Portage Bay, I don't know how or where. Maybe they'll come into the rushes now in August, but that remains to be seen. I fished the rushes this weekend. Didn't see anything but bait fish were present at Five Mile Point. The water temp was nearly 85 degrees after the sun set. Highest I've ever seen. That may have had something to do with it, I don't know. Anyway, if you're intent on fishing the big lake, the rocks are your best bet. Good luck. | |
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Posts: 80
| I know other area lakes have pretty sparse cabbage growth as well this year, could it be weather related?
I know leech has rusty crawfish in it, but I would think it would take more than a year for them to be in high enough numbers to take out the weeds.
Now if we can just get the Cormorants on Leech to start eating the crawfish instead of the Walleye's.... | |
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| I fished Leech the second week of June and was finding patches of weeds all between two points all the way up through moss cribs. The weeds for that part of the lake is and always has been a common occurance. We only fished one day, never made it over to the federal dam area. I'll be fishing Leech again on Aug. 12th and 13th for the little tourny put on by Leech Lake Campground. That small tourny should give us an idea on how the fishing is. | |
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Leech