2022 MN musky opener

Anyone else making it out?

My son is pump to get out. I just finished up a 6’ musky rod for him last night that can handle 1 to 3 oz lures. That is big enough for a young child and large sharp hooks. He tried my musky rod last year but they were too big for him at 9’-2”. I let him cast once and he almost took me out and tossed the rod overboard. We made a 5” top water globe style lure that he wants to try first. I just need to decide where we should go.

I hope everyone has a safe MN Musky opener. I can’t wait to hit the water.

I think I am going to wait a little while until the water warms up some. Last year when muskie season opened the water temps were significantly warmer and we were heading into a major drought. This year its the exact opposite. Good luck to you Rodwork.

I will be out sat and sun. Just got done getting my flyrods rigged up and some gear for a buddy.

I am pumped as well! I will be out saturday/Sunday

I will be out Saturday morning in west/central MN. I am excited, but never to seem to have much luck on opener.

I am willing to take bets on how long my son will last casting a larger lure before he complains about how much harder it is.

Just got Sunday thru Tuesday to go find a ski. Leech and Winnie here I come

Some memes to help with the wait.

Had three follows this morning. One of them was a 45+ fish. Good start!

I got on the water by 5am with fog thick enough to not see 50′. Hit my usual milk run and never saw or moved a fish. I will be out tomorrow but I won’t be heading out early. Different game plan and stretch of water tomorrow.

On the water water from sunrise to sunset and put 4 in the net plus a couple missed chances. Fish were either in spawning areas or open water. Gorgeous day to be on the lake but zero clouds or wind made it tough to do anything but spot shallow fish and drink beer for most of the day.

What baits are you throwing at this time of the year

We didn’t get any takers but had 2 follows. Both came at the right timing to get my boy exited to keep going. Both follows came on small homemade inline spinner baits.

Had two more follows last night. I was throwing a buddys barfighter all weekend.

tswoboda wrote:

On the water water from sunrise to sunset and put 4 in the net plus a couple missed chances.

That’s impressive. Not only that you can physically toss oversized lures for those things all day for like 14 hours, but that you boated 4. A lot of muskie anglers don’t even boat 4 in an entire season.

gim wrote:

That’s impressive. Not only that you can physically toss oversized lures for those things all day for like 14 hours, but that you boated 4. A lot of anglers don’t even boat 4 in an entire season.

I couldnt cast all day long like that anymore, but did it for years and me and my buddy caught legal (at the time) fish every time out. It really was the golden age of musky fishing in MN with all the “new” lakes and the stocked fish reaching 40″. Now I go to those same lakes and lucky to see a fish. Went yesterday for a few hours and had one follow by a mid 20’s and a tiny pike to show for it. Not the best of weather for a gin clear lake for sure.

Oh trust me there were no big oversized baits involved, I threw one bait all day long – the monstrous Glidin Rap lol. The other bait that got bit casting was a Super Shad Rap. Most all of our follows were on the SSR and only had 1 fish chase a bucktail all day. Had a few smaller males that we spotted come in nose down on big grub tails – was kicking myself for leaving the fly rod at home. The big females we saw up shallow wouldn’t chase anything.

We did about a 50/50 split between casting and trolling and the trolling rips came on 10″ cranks.

Pretty cool you had some good action. Im surprised I didnt have any backlashes its been so long. My middle son wanted to go so I took him for a while. Its been years since Ive tossed the big baits and these were that big at all. Probably should have tried some hard baits vs pulling hair. My son threw a shallow invader for awhile, but nothing to show for it either. Weed growth is way behind schedule as expected.

tswoboda wrote:

Oh trust me there were no big oversized baits involved,

Regardless, the mental and physical fortitude required to commit to 14 hours of muskie fishing is still impressive. I can do it for about 4-5 hours at a time and its hard to maintain mental focus on every cast with a figure eight when there is no action.

More like 16+ hours but like said about half of that was spent trolling open water and the day actually goes by way too fast. Muskie opener has become a tradition with 2 buddies that come spend the weekend at my place – we all used to fish together a bunch and life has just gotten busier since then. So it’s great a day to catch up and reminisce with buddies who I don’t see near enough anymore. We’ve been doing it about 5 years now and every year has been a multi-fish day (2-6 fish) but this year was by far the most enjoyable weather. Last year was a slog in the 90+ degree pounding sun all day.

The funny part is we always set the alarms for 4:30 again on Sunday but I don’t think we’ve made it out for day 2 yet lol.

tswoboda wrote:

The funny part is we always set the alarms for 4:30 again on Sunday but I don’t think we’ve made it out for day 2 yet lol.

Ha, I could see that. We are all not as young as we used to be. Used to do those all dayers, but the thought of that now just makes me wore out. LOL Heck it was tough for me to survive the 4 hours yesterday since I havent thrown those baits in years. My son picked up his bass rod while waiting in line at the landing and he was like geez these are so much easier to cast!

tswoboda wrote:

Muskie opener has become a tradition with 2 buddies that come spend the weekend at my place – we all used to fish together a bunch and life has just gotten busier since then. So it’s great a day to catch up and reminisce with buddies who I don’t see near enough anymore. We’ve been doing it about 5 years now and every year has been a multi-fish day (2-6 fish) but this year was by far the most enjoyable weather. Last year was a slog in the 90+ degree pounding sun all day.

Ya that is a great tradition. I do remember last year. It was miserable for a couple weeks on end when June started.

Got out at 5am and had action the whole time, boated 2 muskies, both smaller in the 35-38″ range, didn’t bump them. In total we caught the 2 muskies, caught 4 pike and had 12 muskie follows, all in all good action, but the water needs to warm up as most follows were pretty lazy.

bigstick56 wrote:

Got out at 5am and had action the whole time, boated 2 muskies, both smaller in the 35-38″ range, didn’t bump them. In total we caught the 2 muskies, caught 4 pike and had 12 muskie follows, all in all good action, but the water needs to warm up as most follows were pretty lazy.

Nice! Did you find them in shallow spawning areas or typical summer spots?

I moved a few fish super shallow in spawning areas, definitely beat up mid size males. Just fished the one morning then stuck to walleyes.

Didn’t fish muskies over the weekend, but!

We were on a pontoon ride on ML and around Liberty Beach came across a lady in a kayak pulling something behind her. Turned out to be a huge dead muskie. Turned around a few minutes later and by that time she was on shore and someone was holding it up while others were taking pictures. It was a big one.
Then yesterday while cleaning up the beach, grabbed what I thought was a white plastic bag partially buried in the sand and turned out to be a muskie carcass, what was left was head and skin.
Two dead ones!

My first time back out since opener and my daughter caught this one… Proud dad moment tonight. Not so much proud that she reeled it in but more about how absolutely stoked she was when it hit the net. Had to send pictures and call everyone she knows once we got to the truck.

^ That is fantastic tswoboda.

They had the annual Metro Muskie Tournament on Saturday. I didn’t do it this year but I intend to try it again in the future. Last year was down right miserable in 90 degree heat and bright sunshine.

Looks like Tonka was the lake again. The winner netted two pure strains over 40 out there. Someone also caught a 50 incher. Biggest tiger muskie was only 32 inches though.

tswoboda wrote:

My first time back out since opener and my daughter caught this one… Proud dad moment tonight. Not so much proud that she reeled it in but more about how absolutely stoked she was when it hit the net. Had to send pictures and call everyone she knows once we got to the truck.

Wow! Congrats to her and to you! A memory she and you will have forever. Beautiful fish.