With the forcast looking good, the beer getting cold, and two guys darn sure they won’t be at work on Friday, the stage was set for a memorable weekend of fishing a couple of lakes in the Aitkin area. Pictured here is my new personal best, a 46.5 taken on plastics.
We started musky fishing bright and early Friday morning, choosing to target a nearby favorite, Cedar Lake. The lake is a 1,769 acre gem that sports sharp drop-offs, large shallow weed flats, a series of well defined rock piles, and 10′-15′ of water clarity. Keying in on the muskies on a lake like this means spending a lot of time on the transitions. All the fish we boated, and had follow were laying up on the weed edge adjacent to deep water. Situations where the boat was in 26′ of water, and within a 10 yard cast, your bait was hooking up with weeds in 3′. We fished the Lindy Tiger Tubes exclusively. That’s right, Tiger Tubes, you know the bait your buddy laughs at you for buying, and never makes it out of the box. In our boats tubes have accounted for 17 muskies this year, including 3 this weekend. Swimming them with a rise and fall action has been deadly, and the soft nature of the bait makes for consistent hookups. Colors included Salt/Pepper, Smoke with Rd/Blk fleck, and Pumpkinseed with Red fleck. They have been discontinued, and are becoming a little bit harder to find, so good luck. The final tally for Muskies over the 3-day weekend; 18 fish- 3 boated, 15 follows. 36″, 46.5″, 36″
Between musky sessions we did find time to fish a little private lake east of Aitkin, that I have called home water for at least the last 20 years. The bass were in a full swing summer pattern, with Chompers Tubes and Salty Sinkers taking almost all the fish off the deeper weed edges. Natural colors were best, pumpkinseed & rootbeer with rd/grn fleck. For the record we caught 27 fish in 3 hours, the score was 22 to 5, a royal trouncing among my fishing peers. We had three fish in the 18″-19″, with the average being around 16″. The trip ended up just being a short afternoon to rest the arms, on a little bass hole I call Menotellya.
As an aside, we hit Mille Lacs Thursday night on the NW side. Launching at Myr Mar around 10:30p.m., the plan was to troll a combination of large spinnerbaits and shallow cranks down the weed line from Wealthwood to Garrison. Weeds on this side of the lake are now extended to 17′ of water, and are not defined so much by a line, but more a series of fingers, flats, drops, and turns. We got blanked that evening after 6 hours of fishing , but we did learn a few things. First, when trying to establish trolling lines along a weed edge, use your GPS and use it often, every time we went off, or came up on the weed line, the MOB button got pushed. By the end of the night, intstead of just a zig-zagging series of routes on the plotter, we had a collection of waypoints to reconnect. Second, and this was something I saw on this site, attatch a split shot 3′-5′ above your bait when you have a situation with a fair amount of floating or loose weed debris, the shot catches the weeds before they are able to foul your bait. For anyone who likes to play percentages, trolling the north side right now is it, and it is only going to get better as we approach fall.
Big thanks to Jeff & Mike. And of course Mr. 5 mph, “Smiley” at Farm Island Campground for a great stay.
Dan Larson
Hawg Hunters Guide Service
612-247-9398
Dan
A couple quick questions if you don’t mind.
What kind of gear are you using when fishing the tiger tubes? Any suggestions on colors? I’m heading w/ Bluefleck to Mille Lacs in 2 weeks and I’ve got a hankering to spend a little prime time looking for the ‘big bite!’
Thanks much in advance. Excellent report by the way. The advice about using GPS to manage those trolling runs along the weeds is top notch.
MY BEST LUCK THIS YEAR HAS COME ON SALT/PEPPER TIGER TUBES, THROWING 6-7FT RODS WITH BLACKSPOT FOR LINE. I THINK THAT THE WHITE TUBES TAKE THE CAKE WHERE WHITE FISH ARE PRESENT. NICE FISH LARS… THAT ONE EVEN LOOKS BIG IN YOUR HANDS. CONGRATS ON THE PERSONAL BEST.
Thanks for the tips on Cedar! I spend a week every year in the area and have fished that lake several times with limited success, a 38 inch Musky and a lot of Northerns. It’s a decent Bass too and I’ve done well with them but not with the Muskies.
James
My musky gear is pretty straight forward, 7′ rods (St. Croix Premier and Shimano Compre), Garcia 6500’s (C3 & C4) and Shimano Calcuttas, line is typically Power Pro 80-100lb or Cortland Black Spot. A couple things about the tubes, the trailer treble catches on the leader once and awhile so I would suggest using a jerkbait leader instead of a steel or titanium wire leader, it has proven to limit the amount of this happening. The tubes come in a variety of colors but our best luck this year has come on salt/pepper and smoke w/ red/blk fleck. The plastic is really soft so it doesn’t take much to wreck a tube, even the northerns can render one useless. They come two in a pack so a couple extra might not be a bad idea. Swimming them with a rise and fall is our best producing technique. After the initial air pocket slips out of them on a cast they sink at about 1.5′ to 2.5′ feet per second depending on what kind of line you’re using. Also don’t hesitate to vary your retrives, often it will be the more eratic dart and fall that draws the fish’s interest. Boatside??? Well we are still trying to figure out how to get them to hit on a figure-eight. The bait more or less loses its action when you run out room, we’ve been sticking with a fast swim raising and lowering the bait in the water column. We’ve noticed a trend in that most fish over five pounds always end up hooked by the single on the jighead, tempting us to cut the treble stinger (because of weeds), but no one has been that brave yet. Lots of luck on Mille, I am going to try and get back up there soon.
Welcome to IDA MUSKIES
Thanks Steve, I have been looking in here a lot and I really like what I see. Not a lot of BS. It all seems like a bunch of good guys just sharing good info. Thanks again for the welcome.
Welcome aboard MUSKIES
Thanks scott, boy I sure feel welocome here. I think that is part of what seperates this site from all the others. It’s the people out here.. Thanks again..
So let me see if I’ve got this right James……in a couple weeks the Crestliner will become a Musky boat??? “Aweful funny looking Musky boat.” I remember some words similar to that, coming from someone on the river this spring, but for the life of me I can’t remember his name?
Well now that the sarcasm is out of the way, good luck and some pics posted of your catches would be awesome!! Muskyman
Nice report Dan! Those are some nice fish!
I have been seeing 1-2 muskies an outing lately on the Miss River back home all last week as I spent every day chasing smallies. Set hooks into a couple of muskies, but they were smaller. One fish I kept bugging throughout the day as I would let him settle down for a couple hours only to come back and have him show himself again within 2 casts. That fish was a little bigger, my guess was 44″-45″. the rest were low 30″ fish. Never did get any hooks into her though!
Thanks for the report
Sounds like you have some very territorial fish going up there. I have seen that a few times fishing the Miss up by Brainerd in the fall. Same type of situation, an overall lack of livable water (mostly shallow, fast current) concentrates these fish in just a few prime locales. In all the time I have been fishing the Miss above the CR Dam I have never seen a Musky, I have been bitten off quite a few times but of course can only speculate as to what toothy species it was. However, I have seen a few very large Musky below the dam, sunning themselves, porposing, or pressing baitfish to the surface.
I was out this weekend with mixed results, water temp on Saturday was 70.5, caught 8 all short, then yesterday water was up to 73 and we only managed 3 in two hours. Last year about this time average water temp was probably in the low 80’s, and the fish seemed much more concentrated.
Either I am going to have to bite the bullet, risk my prop, and start fishing some skinny water, or just sit on my haunches and wait the fish out down south of the bridge.