Muskies

Is there a good population of muskies there? How is the lake for recreational boat traffic on the weekends? Is it worth fishing for muskies?

Tons of Muskies and other BOATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Notice the size of BOATS)

The heavy boat traffic starts about 10:30/ 11 am — and goes until atleast 9pm. I plan to be out there about 5am on opener (7th) to get a few good quiet hours in, plenty of bassers out there, but the recreation boaters are the “problem”. Once the main lake gets choked with boats, there are many “quiet” spots for later.

Good Luck!
Steve

I agree 100%. The lake is full of muskies. Iusually catch a dozen or more a year by accident fishing bass. The fall is the best time for me anyway to target Minnetonka muskies. Plan to get an early start or pray for rain to avoid the pleasure boaters.

fig8em
i used to fish minnetonka qiute a bit until last year when i moved to mille lacs. the fish seem to be conditioned to all the boat traffic. some of my better spots were in or near channel areas that had alot of boat traffic. another option is fish it after dark. this has worked as well. you have to do your scouting during the day and what i did was mark the area that i was fishing on my gps and come back after dark and be able to cast the spots on the spot. a word of warning is that most of the boats out after dark are large cruisers, so watch out. there is alot of nice fish in that lake. most being in the 36 to 44 ince range. my personal best from minnetonka being a stout 48 incher caught on dec 7th a few years back. good luck and let me know if it works out for you…… tom f.

I am not a muskie fisherman but living near Tonka and spending a fair amount of time on it has led me to the conclusion there are TONS of muskies in this lake. I would go as far as to say you’d have as good a chance catching a muskie on Tonka as anywhere else. There are gobs in the mid 40’s and enough 50’s to make a prospective Muskie fisherman quite interested. We caught a 45 incher while trolling cranks for walleyes last fall.

I have fished Tonka a lot on weekends – especially for bass. Earlier comments were right on. Boat traffic on weekends is not a problem ’til mid morning. It is crazy after that but I have found I can keep bass fishing by hitting out of the way spots, docks, and little bays. Walleye fishing would be a joke during a weekend day.

A lot of people give this lake a bad rap because of the unreal boat traffic. But, I will always have a spot in my heart for ‘ole Tonka. My two biggest northerns, biggest LM bass, and 2nd biggest walleye have come from this lake along with my boat’s only Muskie.

Mike, It was great to meet you and talk some Tonka fishing — 4am and in the dark — I didn’t know who you were until I saw your name on the boat as I was heading out.

How did you do?

We had a great day — NO Boat traffic!!! We raised a few nice Muskies and caught 7 or 8 nice pike. The Muskies were pretty slow, but I did get two to hit, missed them both! One was small other was a BIG Fish. There were a lot of Fishermen, but hardly any pleasure boats.

Hope to run into you again, hope you had a good day.

Steve Sedesky

We had a great day. I managed some real nice bass shallow on the inside weedlines. I saw another muskie shallow (2-3′) on a sand-gravel point that was low to mid 40’s. I spooked her before I could cast at her. Oh well. You are right, there were a lot of fisherman out there. Every weed point with a bouy on it had at least one boat on it. I saw 1 smaller muskie caught on Bohn’s Point early. Good to meet you too. We’ll see ya on the water again I’m sure.