I’m wondering from the other fisherman how often you catch a species that you were not after. I’m of course a Muskie guy but I’m looking for when you are fishing walleye or ? and you hook into a Skie what was your presentation? How often does this happen? does it seem that it happen in a certain place or time?
Thanks!
Steve
My experience with fishing leagues has been when you only have a short amount of time(3 hrs. in the evening). You need to cover alot of water, fish large fast presentations and you tend to catch big fish of all species in most cases. Sometimes this doesn’t work due to weather, but has proven to be more successful than not. The one muskie I did catch was working a weedline with a 2oz. spinner bait casting for bass.
I was tossing a #5 Mepps to flooded grass and timbers on the St. Croix River for smallies when a 30″ muskie decided it wanted to give a quick visit! Had a 32″ pike make the same decision minutes later. I did find a good mess of smallies after that, but I was beginning to wonder when the first 2 fish of the day had teeth!
Steve,
Every year I have been fortunate to boat between 3-5 muskies (biggest 49″) on Mille Lacs either fishing smallies on the rock piles with small topwaters or small cranks. The last couple years we have some success trolling for eyes at night in the fall with various stickbaits and boating a couple ski’s.
I have a short humorous story…..
One day out of Wahkon bay, I was throwing topwaters for smallies and at the very end of my cast rose a muskie, she chomped at the bait 4-5 times before it got near the boat without getting any hooks, then at the side of the boat, I was walking it in place and up she came again and completely inhaled it, I immediately set the hook and she sheared the line instantly. In 3 ft of water I stood there and watched her below the surface as she opened her mouth and shook her head back and forth and out came my topwater right to the top of the surface and all I had to do was bend over and pick my bait off the surface. Nobody was with me that afternoon, but I just laughed out loud and shook my head and continued throwing.
Those muskies have funny personalites at times.
That’s hilarious and in that “who’d a thought” catagory! Thanks for sharing………………..that was awesome! :O)
Being a musky fisherman, I wish those toothy critters would bite more often than the other species I tend to catch while fishing muskies.
I tend to get some nice pike and those crazy largemouth always seem to hit baits larger than themselves.
If only those muskies would eat instead of follow all the time … it’s what keeps me coming back though !!!
Matt Beulke
I’ve never caught a muskie intentionally…. but I’ve had some pretty cool runnin’s with them completely on accident. Fishing perch on slip bobbers with light gear. Consistent story here…. small perch is hooked and reeled to the boat quickly, big nasty muskie snatches perch sideways in its mouth and proceeds to slowly swim around the boat in a calm unhurried fashion. Eventually about the time perch angler thinks “hey, I might have a chance here!” the muskie snaps fishing line and slowly sinks out of sight. Done that 3- 4 times in my life.
I do “accidentally – consistently” catch big pike and muskie at night on Mille Lacs in the fall trolling walleye sized plugs around the rock reefs and weed beds. This fall was more of a pike year, last season muskies were more common for some reson, with at least one pike over 17 – 18 Lbs showing up about every other night or so on average. I actually noticed a patternable night bite on the pike, during the full moon or a couple days on either side of the actual full moon, the pike would go ape about 3 AM…. when the moon was high over head. For that week of the full moon we typically saw 4 – 6 nice pike each night.
Matt, I was shocked to see the size of the walleye that went for a Cassen’s Classic Jerk-Bait I was working back to the boat, last October on Mille Lacs, while chunking for Muskie. This huge walleye was doing his best to eat this muskie bait. Every time I would jerk it, he’ld make another snap at it. Makes me want to throw larger baits for eyes! I am thinking of using some larger minnows (for the real big eyes) in the 10 to 12 inch range, next October on Mille Lacs.
So… a couple of questions for ya, do you throw artificals all the time or do ya use any live bait at all for Muskies? Or, is there a time or particular place for live bait Muskie fishin? And If you use live bait, how do you rig em up?
Hawger
I’ll answer that one and watch for Matt’s reply. I almost always use artificial baits. Kind of a weird thing but live bait for muskies is frowned upon by most MN muskie anglers. This is not the reason I use artificials rather I use artificials bacause I like to think I fool the fish. On the other hand if you are from Wisc. using live bait is a natural thing to do. Of course in Wisc. you may use two lines and throw an artificial to bring fish in and have a sucker out that will typically get hit after a fish follows an artificial bait in. Wisc. is kind of strange in my opinion they allow 2 lines but don’t allow trolling? Must be the beer and cheese. HA! :} back to when I use live bait…I will use live bait when I have a child that may not be able to throw artificials or an elderly fisherperson. Recently ALOT has been published in the muskie circles about the use of single hook rigs and mortality of the fish. Single hook rigs kill fish plain and simple. All studies that have been done confirm this. Yet the same studies say that quick strike rigs used correctly are just as or safer than using artificials. For most of MN muskie anglers they then take this as all live bait fishing is unacceptable, that it isn’t sporting. I disagree completely and think that using a proper rigged sucker can be quite fun and challenging. Especially after a long day on the water without a follow a sucker can save the day. The real difference in Live bait vs. artificial is the fisherperson him or herself and how they use it. Unless more education/sharing is done by the more high profile guides and pros then nothing shall change and live bait will still have a bad name.
This is just my opinion. I’d love to hear others!
Steve
Oh yeah wanna catch BIG bass? Throw a giant Jackpot on Minnetonka…
Stupid fish.
I throw artificials 100% of the time. A huge part of the thrill of musky fishing since they don’t bite most of the time is that “follow” … which you are never going to see dangling a sucker.
I was going to give some live bait fishing a try this fall when it got really cold and the fingers couldn’t handle casting any longer. As we all know, it turned out to be a great fall so I could cast more than I expected. (I can also be accused of doing too much waterfowl hunting this fall, when I should’ve been chasing those stupid fish.)
I am going to make a point of live bait fishing this next fall. I am going to experiment with two different applications: circle hooks and also with quick strike rigs. Different anglers like different applications. The old six one way, half a dozen the other way story.
Matt Beulke
Throwing artificals… is there a patter to this as far as spring, summer, fall…size, color? I never know what to use, where and when.
I never have to guess on a sucker… Hawger
Hawger:
Typically, there is a “text book” pattern that anglers tend to follow.
However, as we all know, the fish don’t read books. I tend to fish whatever pattern I am confident with at any given time. If you don’t have confidence, you may as well get off the lake.
Here are the general rule of thumbs I use (which are going to very from the next guy):
SPRING = small baits and slow it down … small bucktails, jerkbaits
SUMMER = big baits and speed it up … burning bucktails and large crankbaits
FALL = big baits and slow it down … larger slow worked jerk baits, slow cranks
Again, these are general guidelines I use, but if fall fish are not moving on slow jerks, may as well burn a bucktail and see if that moves them.
Nobody will ever figure these stupid fish out, so there are no rules. The more I read and the more seminars I see, sometimes it may pay to do totally opposite of what the “text book” says !!!
Matt Beulke
One thing I forgot to mention:
Throw topwater anytime you want !!!
Don’t ever let anybody tell you the water temp is too cold for topwater.
You’ll be the one smiling with a hawg photo.
Matt Beulke
http://www.muskynut.com
I have a good story for this thread…..Last winter (Jan 25), I was fishing crappies on a metro lake in 18 feet of water. I was catching numerous tiny crappies. I had just dropped my 1/4 oz “weasel” down the hole…..about 2 feet under the ice when WHAM!, a fish took off with my bait. Using a light action ice rod and 4lb fireline I eventually hauled up a 46 inch, 24 lb tiger muskie. It was awesome to say the least! The lesson learned here (I think!), is that muskies will roam just below the ice looking for food. I had been marking fish which were probably crappies only a few feet under the ice. I’m sure he was feeding on them.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.