Local guide Jason Freed is going to share some of his favorite Leech Lake walleye tactics heading into the month of August.

In addition, he’s going to give us a quick update on the musky and smallmouth bass bites happening right now all across the lake.

Here’s his report:

“On Leech Lake right now, the name of the game when you want to catch walleyes is to power fish. What I mean by that is you want to use Jigging Raps, Shiver Minnows, Rippin’ Raps. You want to troll crankbaits, #5 and #7 Shad Raps or Flicker Shads. Also, power corking is a great option. These tactics are all working to catch Leech Lake walleyes right now.

“There’s tons of bait in the system, which means there’s tons of competition to try and catch those walleyes, so power fishing is the name of the game right now. Move, use your electronics, and find the active walleyes. If they don’t bite, move on to the next school and try to catch those fish.

“Musky fishing. Move to the main lake rocks right now. The fish are starting to move to the main lake rocks. They’re chasing bucktails, twitch baits or topwaters, all seem to be working right now. We’re starting to see more and more active muskies as we move into August.

“And then in terms of bass fishing, if you haven’t been out and tried to experience bass fishing on Leech Lake, now is the time. Smallmouth are starting to show up more and more on main lake rocks, as well as largemouth in some of the bays like Boy Bay and Headquarters Bay.

“Right now, there’s lot of options on Leech Lake – power fishing, being aggressive is the name of the game if you want to catch fish.”

Special thanks to Jason Freed for spilling the beans on a few of his favorite Leech Lake walleye tactics for this late summer period. Make sure to check back next week for another fresh, up-to-date fishing report from beautiful Leech Lake here in central Minnesota. We’ll have new reports through the end of the summer.