Minnesota Muskie Fishing Report

Imagine hooking up with 5 muskies all in the 40-50 inch range, in only two hours of fishing, all within 150 yards apart from each other on a metro area lake!!! That’s exactly what fellow IDO Member – Bob Bowman and I experienced Tuesday night!!!

Now for those of you who don’t know Bob, he’s a musky guru. This guy takes musky fishing to a whole new level! He truly understands what it takes to put big fish in the boat. More on this later…

We hit the water with high anticipation due to the fact we fished the same body of water about a week before and had numerous follows (9 to be exact). Bob marked a waypoint for each fish on his G.P.S. so we could target these same areas. These big fish will roam around, but usually have a tendency to stay within a piece of structure that holds baitfish. The day started out quickly and Bob raised a good fish on a white plastic swimbait made from DunWright. This fish was active and followed Bob’s lure to the boat, lost interest and then reappeared at Bob’s figure eight. However, she would not commit and slowly swam to the depths below.

I started out using a top raider and eventually switched over to a tube bait. About an hour had passed and I decided to mix it up. Bob suggested that I try another DunWright swimbait in a walleye profile. He informed to mimic a wounded walleye by doing a pull/pause presentation. Sounds easy to me! So… on my very first cast I’m pausing and pulling when all of a sudden I get a hook up! I yell “Fish on Bob!” Bob looks at me in amazement because I just casted it out there! He then asks, “How big is it?” I told him I really didn’t know because I’ve never caught a musky before on musky gear. I finally get the fish near the boat and then I know it’s pretty big because I can’t even budge it. It slowly comes up and we now both it’s a really good fish! Bob tell’s me he’s ready with the net and the fish starts slowly swimming parallel to the boat. I’m letting her do her thing, trying not to force her when all of a sudden my bait comes flying out of her mouth. And just like that…. it’s over. Now, I’m no judge of these toothy critters but Bob is and said that was a 48 inch fish. I asked him if I did anything wrong or was there anything I could of done differently. Bob assured me that I did everything right and it was just a bad hook up.

I said “that was fun… let’s do that again!!!” I then scolded Bob for wasting my time by throwing that other stuff for an hour and I told him that I wasn’t going to throw anything else for the rest of the night!

About 20 minutes later and about 75 yards away where we had the big girl on, I’m doing my pulling and pausing and WHAM… I get another hit. I yell “there’s a fish!” Bob looks at me again, and says ”Really?” I yell back “Really Really!!!” His eyes now are big as saucers and once again he’s diving for the net. The fish comes in fast and as it surfaces, we both can tell that the hook up is questionable. I get the fish turned and Bob gets ready. As the fish gets within arms distance, it violently shakes it head as Bob is going to net it and out pops the lure again! Bob does the best he can and tries to scoop her up, but with one flick of the tail, the fish gets her head out in front of the net and slowly swims away as the rest of her body rubs against the brim of the net. Everything was like in slow motion. Oh… how close can you get??? We had her right there and only needed about another foot but yet she escapes! We actually started hugging each other on the lake! I know it sounds weird, but we both felt like we had just lost one of our own! Bob guessed that fish to be around 46 inches and commented several times that this fish had some really cool markings on it and was absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn’t know the difference…

Now at this time, Bob realizes that I’m either on something… or on to something, and immediately switches over to another DunWright walleye style swim bait but this time with a thumper tail. And wouldn’t you know it, about 15 minutes later, Bob’s bait gets smashed right under the boat and we have another fish on! This fish goes toe to toe with Bob. Shortly after, Bob raises the fish so we can see it and we both realize that it’s really big! As I’m diving for the net, Bob then yells “NO” as his bait pops out of the musky’s mouth. We lost another one! We can’t believe it! All three of these fish T-boned our baits and we just couldn’t drive the hooks home. We started to wonder how many chances are we going to get? We just had 3 big fish on and have failed to land any of them. This fish looked bigger than my first one and Bob estimated it to be around the 50 inch mark. Now, we could have been really down, but we weren’t. We were having the time of our lives just witnessing these huge muskies and sooner or later we both know we would put one in the net!

We continued to huck our baits and talk about if there was anything we could have done differently to put these fish in the net. We really came up with nothing and just kept on casting. We raised another smaller fish but that one wouldn’t eat.

About a half hour later and right where we had our first hook up, Bob tells me we are on the spot again. The very next cast, he pull/pauses a couple of times and BANG! Another fish on! This fish swims right towards the boat and Bob does an excellent job keeping pressure on it as he reels as fasts as he can. I grab the net as Bob continues to keep the hooks buried in the fish. After a good fight, the fish finally surfaces and Bob guides it right into the net! Finally… we did it! We had a fish in the net! This was another good looking fish and after some quick photos and a measurement of 40 inches, we set it free once again.

We were finally on the board and there was still a lot of daylight left! As we worked our way around the weed edge, I encountered another good hit but did not get a hook up. We were at the end of our spot and once again motored up 200 yards and started the process again. The wind was blowing pretty good from the west and we suspected the baitfish and other fish were piling up against the deep weed edge and these muskies were following suit.

About 30 minutes went by and we were in our hot zone once again. Bob hucks his bait and gets it about half way back to the boat when he yells, “Fish on”! Bob had another hook up and it was a good one. He yells “this is a big fish” as I once again dive for the net. The fish stays down pretty good and then finally surfaces. The hook up is again not the best and Bob tells me we need to get this fish in the net as soon as possible. Bob decides to turn her and here she comes. I get ready and on cue we work together to get the fish in the net! The big girl shakes her head and out pops the hooks. Just in time! This fish is bigger than the last one and we are ecstatic! She measured out at 44 inches! After a few quick photos we release her for someone else to catch!

We sat down for a moment and kind of reminisced what we had just experienced. We had five big fish on (40, 44, 46, 48 and a 50) within two hours, all caught within 150 yards from each other. I asked Bob, “is it always like this?” He brought me down to earth and said this day ranks up there with some of his best!

We continued to huck our baits until dark and saw another musky on the surface and had two other follows. What a night! There were other boats in the area musky fishing and we did not see anyone else catch a fish. I believe the reasons for our success was that Bob knew exactly how the weed edge laid out below and he positioned the boat in the exact position where we could cast out to the weed edge and then work our baits down the seam. The other reason was our choice of baits. These DunWright "lifelike" series soft plastic swim baits are truly remarkable. The action they give off is incredible and the soft plastic (patented as Formula X) suspends in the water. This material will stretch many times over its original length so it’s much more difficult to cut. The other amazing thing is their durability. I had two fish on and another hit but yet the bait looked brand new. Bob had the big 50 incher on, caught two other fish and you couldn’t even tell. There wasn’t any marks at all.

If you are interested in looking at these baits, you can check out their website:

http://www.dunwrighttackle.com/index.shtml

You can find these lures at many sporting good stores such as Sportsman’s Warehouse, Gander Mountain, Thorne Bros., Reeds, Scheels and many others listed on their site.

As I drove home that night I thought about what I had just encountered. I met Bob here on IDO and he actually reached out to me and sent me a PM about a musky post where I had asked some basic questions relating to musky gear. Bob’s wealth of knowledge about muskies is unreal. I had no idea what goes into all the preparation and strategy when it comes to hunting these big fish. What I have learned from Bob in just two short trips is priceless. And lord knows, I have a lot more to learn. However, what is more sacred to me than the knowledge I have gained from Bob, is the friendship that we have built. I guess you could say that we are cut from the same type of cloth. We talk about our family, our work and our life probably more than fishing and to me that’s what it’s all about. Fishing brought us together but our friendship will keep us together.

Good luck out there on your pursuit of the big one! Make a friend first and just maybe that friend is a musky guru like Bob!