You can never go wrong with a bucktail. Some of my other favorites are depthraider, depthraider jr. giant tubes and various topwater baits.
for sure if you want to catch northerns than the best lure i have ever found is the Mepps Psyclops. it is amazing. since saturday (opener) my brother-in-law and my dad have got 1 northerns on it. the biggest so far being 30″. they have two of them. we have also caught a 15″ largemouth and a 26 inch walleye casting them for northerns. and for muskie i would go with either a black or orange bucktail. but take my advise and go with the mepps lure. it is absolutely great. make sure you get the number 3 size. and for only 3.75. is makes it a pretty good buy too.
Had good luck last year in Canada using a 4″white squid with an 1/8oz slider jig head on a fly rod it was KILLER on the northerns.
You’ll want to have a few different presentations at your disposal, and in most cases you’ll catch both muskies and northerns with them. Here’s my top five:
1. Spinnerbaits – pick up a large tandem spinnerbait and throw it shallow and along/across the breaklines. A couple of good brands are M/G, Radd Dogs and Candy Spins.
2. Bucktails – pick up a couple different sizes and throw them in similar fashion to the spinnerbaits. Most have treble hooks, thus will be much more likely to hang in the weeds, so make sure you give it a good rip if you start hitting them (good trigger for following fish as well). Look for Mepps products, as they offer quality lures in a variety of sizes.
3. Topwater – Look for a good prop topwater bait and hit every fishy looking structure you can find with it, including structure that is away from shore. Muskies and northerns primarily feed upwards and it’s nothing for them to cover 20 feet to get a meal. Options include Topraiders, Stompers, Awakers.
4. Crankbaits – Pick up a couple decent sized crankbaits and use them similarly to what you’d do for bass and walleyes. Cast ’em, twitch ’em, troll ’em…any of these presentations will work. When casting, don’t forget to pause during your retrieve to give the bait some erratic action…it’s all about triggering these toothy critters. Good options include Jakes, Grandmas, Depthraiders, Shallowraiders and they come in a variety of sizes.
5. Glide baits – These are a little trickier to work until you get the hang of it, but can be awesome producers when worked correctly. Throw them shallow, along/across breaks and over deep structure as well. A couple of good options are Phantoms and Reef Hawgs.
If you don’t already know, the first thing you’re going to find when looking for musky baits, is that there are endless options and colors available. Most of the products I listed can be found at Gander Mountain, but if you’re really interested in checking out the selection of baits available, head to Thorne Brothers in Fridley (www.thornebros.com)as they have as good a selection as you’ll find anywhere. Additionally, their staff is second to none with customer service and helping get people started with an initial selection of baits. If you’re at all serious about chasing these fish, it would be worth your time to make the trip.
One bit of warning….musky fishing is addictive…once you catch a decent fish, you’ll wonder why you wasted so much time chasing anything else!! 
Good luck…feel free to PM me with any further questions.
Eric – musky addict
Big Daddy hit it pretty good.
It mostly depends on what body of water you are working.
For example, my “go-to” lures for Minnetonka differ from Mille Lakes, which differ from LOTW. Mostly due to color.
COLOR DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE WITH THESE FISH!!!!
For metro lakes….
My 5 “go-to” lures are:
1) Buchertail, Black with orange blade
2) Phantom, Perch
3) Viper, Firetiger
4) Top Raider, black with orange dots
5) 8″ Jake, sucker
These are my “starter” baits for the majority of the time on the water.
Cloudy windy days require different colors than clear calm skies.
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