Twin Cities Early Summer Muskies

Fishing has been very inconsistent over the past 2 to 3 weeks. Muskies are rarely doing the same thing 2 days in a row this year. Inconsistency has been the common theme but with that said, fish still need to eat and being ready when a feeding window opens up is crucial. Usually, I like to have a timing pattern nailed down by this point of the season but in 2013 this has proven to be difficult. Many times this year it’s been a weather event like a wind change, pressure change, or storm system moving in that gets the fish to finally eat.

There still has not been much of "blades" bite this year… This is referring to the ultra-popular double bladed bucktails that kick off a ton of vibration and seem to be irrestible to muskies as the water warms up. My boat has caught maybe a half dozen muskies on bucktails this year and the majority of them have been on smaller single bladed bucktails like Dreamcatchers. If the night bite ever picks up, the larger double bladed bucktails like Double Cowgirls and Kramer Bros. Tackle’s Windowmaker’s will start to rack up the catches, but for now it’s been almost non-existent.

There has been a little bit of an open water bite going on some of the lakes over the last week or two. Muskies are out roaming the open basin chasing baitfish high in the water. Here, I am often trolling open water looking for large pods of baitfish on my sonar. When I locate bait, I prefer to stop and cast. Big rubber is my favorite in these situations, with Pounder Bulldawgs being at the top of the list for baits.

With the warmer weather we’ve been having it’s heating up the surface water and likely pushing bait and muskies down a little further. If this keeps up for too long, we will be faced with a situation like last summer. Hopefully the nights stay cooler and the water mixes up enough to keep it at a reasonable temperature. I am looking forward to getting on some steady patterns. I believe that the we’ll either see this in the form of a night bite or it might not be until August when things seem to always stabalize. Either way muskies are still hitting the net… Not quite as often as usual but it makes every fish special and makes you appreciate each and every bite!