Yes, this is a story about a leech.

Well, that’s not exactly true. It’s a story about one leech and its 100 fellow leeches (approximately) that I purchased from Full Stringer Bait and Tackle (above right) in Longville, Minnesota, on May 23, 2022.

Let me back up a bit and my story will make more sense. During late-May 2021, a friend and I wanted to target spawning smallmouth bass. Because Claire is a beginning angler, I wanted to put all the odds in her favor when it came to enticing strikes from smallmouth bass. Yes, smallies protecting nests are typically very aggressive and easy to catch on artificial lures, but the area we were preparing to fish during our week-long vacation had just been hit with a cold front that plunged air temps from 89 degrees to 39 degrees. That is not a misprint. Typical spring cold fronts can wreak havoc on fishing, but a 50-degree drop is anything but typical.

Would spawning smallies still be on their beds in 4 to 10 feet of water, or would they abandon their beds to seek more stable water temps in deeper water? If they stayed shallow, would they bite? Not wanting to take any chances with finicky fish, we stopped at the bait shop on our way to the lake and bought three dozen (three cartons) of leeches for $5.25 per dozen.

Thankfully, a decent population of smallmouth remained shallow, and Claire was successful sight fishing for bedded bass. She’d never caught a smallmouth before, and I told her during our drive to the lake that I’d consider the day a success if she caught one. The day couldn’t have gone much better considering the cold front conditions, and she landed a dozen big smallmouth bass.

As I figured, I couldn’t get the bedded cold-front bass to bite a soft plastic lure, but they couldn’t resist a leech. I rigged it on a small hook and placed a split-shot 12 inches up from the bait. The key was making a precise cast beyond the bed (polarized glasses are a must for this style of fishing), then slowly crawling the leech into the bed. Quite often the bass would stare at the leech for 5-15 seconds before deciding to suck it in. All of Claire’s bass were quickly released, and we took pics of only a few of the bigger ones. (I didn’t cast; I simply observed.)

One issue I hadn’t planned on when we were at the bait shop prior to fishing was the number of leeches Claire would lose while casting. Leeches are fairly delicate, and if you whip a cast too hard, then the leech flies off the hook. At times, too, Claire forgot to open the bail of her spinning reel before excitedly casting toward a big bass, and of course the leech flew into space as the hook stayed near the rod tip. I mention this because when we bought the three dozen leeches, I thought, There’s no way she’ll catch more than 36 smallies. Three dozen should be plenty. If memory serves, she casted off at least six leeches before catching her first smallie. In other words, we planned on fishing for the entire afternoon and into early evening, and I was wishing we’d bought six dozen leeches instead of only three dozen.

Claire eventually burned through the three dozen leeches by sunset, and because we would be targeting smallmouth on different lakes the following days, I was a smarter shopper on our next visit to the bait shop.

 

Buying in Bulk

The bait shop sign stated: “Medium leeches, half-pound, $22.”

“Excuse me, how many leeches are in a half-pound,” I asked the teenager working behind the counter.

“Not sure, let me check,” he said, leaving his post to ask a more veteran employee who was helping another customer. Several seconds later he returned and said, “It varies, but probably about eight dozen.”

It didn’t take me long to do the math. I could buy eight cartons of leeches (one dozen per carton) for $5.25 each; 8 x $5.25 = $42. Or I could buy approximately the same quantity in bulk for $22.

“I’ll take a half-pound of medium leeches, please,” I said to the young man.

I’ll be honest; I didn’t have a clue how a bait shop packaged a half-pound of leeches. So I was pleasantly surprised when he came back from the cooler with approximately 100 medium leeches actively swimming in an oxygen bag. If you’re not familiar with an oxygen bag, it’s a heavy-duty clear poly bag filled one third with water and two-thirds with pure oxygen. A knot is tied at the end of the bag after it’s filled with oxygen, then a rubber band is wrapped around the knot to ensure it stays closed.

Many times through the years I’d purchased minnows in oxygen bags because it keeps them healthy for long periods. Thankfully, I had packed a Styrofoam bait bucket (about 2 quarts) for the trip, so after Claire and I launched my boat on day No. 2 of our vacation, I simply opened the oxygen bag and filled the bucket halfway with water and all the leeches. I also had a plastic minnow scoop that worked perfectly for capturing individual leeches. 

Not only was buying leeches in bulk about half the price, but now I didn’t cringe every time Claire launched a leech into space. With approximately 100 leeches in the boat, I knew she’d never run out in one day.

Lesson Learned

My story thus far has detailed my spring fishing vacation with Claire during 2021, and for 2022 we planned a similar trip. Of course, instead of buying leeches in small plastic cartons, we again purchased them by the half-pound in an oxygen bag. As I stated earlier, this time we bought them from Full Stringer Bait and Tackle in Longville, Minnesota, on May 23, 2022.

Why am I so specific about the date?

Long story getting longer, we had a late spring in Minnesota in 2022. As a result, we discovered on day No. 1 of our vacation that the water had been too cold for smallmouth to begin bedding. We ended up catching a few smallies on jerkbaits around the main-lake areas where they normally spawn, then turned our attention to warmer back bays containing largemouth bass. The largemouth were quite active and easy to catch with soft plastics (wacky rigs, etc.), so there was no reason to fuss with our leeches.

On a different lake the following day, we ended up using leeches to target big sunfish, but at the conclusion of our week-long vacation, I headed home with at least six dozen leeches in my bait bucket.

Throughout the remainder of spring 2022, and into summer, I kept the leftover leeches in my Styrofoam bucket in my garage. I didn’t have plans to use them, but I saw no reason to throw them out, either. While it doesn’t get as hot in Minnesota as it does in many parts of the country, we certainly had a decent number of 90-degree days, and a few over 100. Because I didn’t really care whether the leeches lived or died, I didn’t mess with storing them in my refrigerator. Once a month I changed the water in my bait bucket, and I was amazed that the leeches looked perfectly healthy.

Once during the summer, my college-age son took the leeches to South Dakota on a weekend fishing adventure with his buddies, and they used them to catch a variety of fish, including a big northern pike that ate a leech while the guys were using Lindy Rigs for walleyes. I’m fairly certain this was the first time a pike had been caught in South Dakota, by a leech purchased in northern Minnesota.

During the remainder of the summer, I never used the leeches for my own fishing. However, because I volunteer at a senior resident facility on the shoreline of a lake near my home, and that facility has a pontoon I can use for guiding the residents, I’d always grab a dozen leeches prior to an outing. While I usually baited the residents’ small jigs with a chunk of nightcrawler, one resident in particular, Louie, preferred leeches. In fact, as a lifelong angler, Louie was one of the few residents who owned his own fishing tackle, and he had a small cutting board affixed to his tackle box that was specifically designed for cutting bait.

Week after week, Louie would cut up leeches to put a small chunk on his panfish hook. Finally, my bait bucket contained the last leech, and I brought it to Louie in a small Ziploc. The leeches survived just fine in my bait bucket with no refrigeration for a little over 4 months. I couldn’t believe it.

Claire and I had purchased a half-pound of leeches (about 100) on May 23, and Louie sliced up the last leech on September 26. And along the way, several anglers caught fish of all shapes and sizes, across Minnesota and even into South Dakota. It might be the best $22 we ever spent!