Get your line in the water, whopper walleyes awaiting

Somebody must have turned the walleye switch on because a boatload of nice entries came in this week to the North Country Angler fishing contest.Burntside Lake took the top two spots in a week where there were seven fish that weighed over seven pounds. Mark Nappa of Ely has been fishing Burntside for many years now and he used that experience to land a 10 lb. 2 oz. walleye that went 32 inches on the scale. Nappa used a leech to land the lunker and entered the fish at the Great Outdoors.Andrea Luhtanen of Minneapolis used a plain hook and a leech to catch a 30-inch, 9 lb. 14 oz. walleye out of Burntside. Great Outdoors took down the info.Rob Furnal of Indianolo, IA was also using leeches when he boated an 8 lb. 13 oz. walleye out of White Iron Lake. Spirit of the Wilderness was the registration station. Another leech user was Jeff Severtson of Plymouth, MN, fishing in Birch Lake down Highway 1, he caught an 8 lb. 4 oz. walleye and checked it in at Skube’s Bait and Tackle. Just under 30 inches was an 8 lb. walleye stringered by Chris Blood of Mitchell-ville, IA out on White Iron Lake. Ron Gierut of Cedar Rapids, IA brought in an 8 lb. walleye to the Great Outdoors he caught while fishing with leeches on Burnt-side Lake. Also using a leech (see a trend here?) was Marie Spitzer of St. Charles, MN as she hooked a 7 lb. 10 oz. walleye in Farm Lake and brought the fish in to Skube’s Bait and Tackle. Burntside has been better known for its trout population and Dale Huseby of Rose-mount helped keep that reputation by landing a 15 lb. 12 oz. lake trout. Fishing in 60 ft. of water with a rainbow minnow, Huseby reeled in the 34.25 inch fish and checked it in at Skube’s Bait and Tackle.A pair of 10 lb. northerns came in this past week as well. The first was a 10 lb. 3 oz. pike that went 36 inches for Chuck Mergenthal of Elk River, MN, caught in Bear Island Lake on a leech and entered at Timber Wolf Lodge. Mark Timmons of Ham Lake, MN used a hook and a leech to land a 10 lb. Twin Lake northern pike and brought the fish into Voyageur North Outfitters to enter the contest. Kids enjoying summer vacation have come to learn they can enjoy catching trout right here in town by fishing Miners Lake.Craig Flower of Jordan, MN and Nate Schally of Ely, each caught rainbow trout in Miners Lake. Flower used a red and white Daredevle to land a 4 lb. 2 oz. rainbow that was entered at Skube’s Bait and Tackle.Schally had a Rapala on when he caught 2 lb. trout and checked it in at Voyageur North Outfitters. Liane Jeske of Ely registered a nice 4 lb., 21.5 inch largemouth caught in Lake Vermilion at Skube’s Bait.Marlene Appleberry of Ely entered the contest again with a nice smallmouth bass caught in Shagawa Lake. This 4 lb. 4 oz. smallie went 20.5 inches on the ruler and was entered at Voyageur North Outfitters.As you can tell from this week’s entries, fishing has definitely picked up and leeches are the current bait of choice for several species.