We (my dad, brothers, and I) headed up to Canada this past week for a 3.5 day walleye and musky trip. We did this same trip last year with exceptional results so we had high hopes again for this year. Our plan was to fish the same areas and patterns that we had last year and build off of it even more.
The first day we struggled to find much for any species of fish other than bass. I did catch a 46″ musky on a figure 8, but that was the only musky sighting of the day. Last year we caught all of our walleyes in the weeds, but during this trip it was completely void. We caught 1 measly walleye in the weeds. Spirits were a little bit low.
On Friday (day 2) the muskies were a little bit more active in the morning, we lost a few and saw several others mostly in the weeds, but we did move a few fish off rock structure as well. We grabbed a quick lunch and headed back out. On our second or third spot we caught a 42 incher and lost a big one. We switched gears and tried to figure out the walleyes again. Long story short, we found them on a 20′ mud flat with scattered eel grass and coon tail. I tried every artificial presentation I had for them, but the stubborn fish wanted a crawler. We caught 15-20 of them in the 18-28″ size range before heading back musky fishing.
We roared back to where we had caught one and lost one earlier in the day and Marty hooks up on his fifth cast. After a hard fought battle we finally got her in the net. She was 50″ on the dot. After a high five we got right back to continuing our drift. 10 casts later one appeared behind my bucktail and caught me by surprise. It was overcast and 8:30PM so glare and visibility was poor. I did a quick turn and hung it high outside where she T-boned it. I ripped back into her and it was all I could do to stay in the boat while trying to free spool the reel. We got her in the bag after an extremely hard battle. 50″ on the dot again. Back to back 50 inchers about 10 casts apart will be something I won’t forget anytime soon!
The final day gave up another musky and a bunch more walleyes. From what I could tell, the majority of the muskies weren’t using the weeds. The fish that were in the weeds were biters and really good quality though. My boat had 5 muskies in 3.5 days of fishing. My brother Sam’s boat had two. He spent much more time fishing for walleyes than muskies and caught them up to 11.5 pounds! Bottom bouncers and spinners were his go-to method.
We caught all our fish on #9 and #10 bucktails. Gold and copper blades were the best. We saw very few muskies, they just bit. All of them came out of 12-15′ cabbage.
I’m really impressed with the 175SHO on the Warrior 2090. With a full tank of gas plus 15 extra gallons, all of our gear and food for 3 days it cruised very good at 37 mph. I drove it really light on the throttle to conserve fuel, but it would still go 46-47 MPH with a literal boat load of gear. This boat motor combo is a home run in my opinion!
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