Musky Fishing has been great on the Chippewa flowage the last week or so. Getting alot of fish on bucktails, seems like smaller bucktails like Rabid Squirrels during the day, and cowgirls when there’s weather moving in. Other top baits are River 2 Sea Kong swimbaits, and suicks and slammers, topwater bite has been pretty slow lately.
Fish are all over the lake right now, both east and west sides are going great! anywhere you find weeds has active muskies on it now. On the main lake weeds seems like its real important to fish the edges, make sure you cover every spot thouroughly.
It also seems like all the fish feed in one window a day, and when you get action from one fish, the next couple of spots will all hold active fish, so be ready!
Alot of our bucktail fish are coming on figure 8’s so make sure you are paying attention at all times. and all the fish that are bitting on figure 8’s are just barely nipping at it, so make sure your on your A game!
Good luck,
Tanner Wildes
Great job on the Musky’s
Four dandy photos!
Tanner
I’m a musky novice in comparison to many of the guys that frequent the site so maybe you can give us some tips here on how you close the deal on a tentative fish that comes in with some interest in an 8? I know I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on the topic.
“and all the fish that are bitting on figure 8’s are just barely nipping at it, so make sure your on your A game! “
yeah when doing a figure 8 you want to reel you leader about 1 inch from the tip of your rod, this way you will have the best control of your bait. Then what I do is do an L turn at the boat, bring your bait to the boat and make a sharp 90 degree turn to your right, now your bait is along side the boat, and then I make my first turn in a figure 8 which will be out and away from the boat, then bring the lure back towards you, and along side the boat again so your turn on the left side of you can again be away from the boat, I find this is the best way to do a figure 8 to take your lure along side the boat and away on the outside of your 8’s. The biggest thing you want to do is make sure you bait keeps moving.
When you do get a fish to bite, you have to watch, because most times you will never feel it, and what you want to do when the fish bites, is set the hook, point your rod down and behind the fish, if you set the hook up, or any other direction you will pull the hooks out of the bait, with pointing your rod behind the fish, you are setting the hook back into the fish. Then you are going to want the fish to be able to get away from the boat, if you don’t do this the hooks will pull out of the fish, because there is no give in your rod, line or hooks, so the fish will tear the hooks out of it, so I like to free spool my reel and keep tension on it with my thumb, some people will back off there drags too.
Hope this helps,
Tanner Wildes
Tanner:
Awesome description of the figure 8 to us neophytes of the muskie world. Especially the tips about keeping the bait constantly moving and what to do on the hookset.
I’m not sure about you guys, but I’d like to see a video demonstration of the figure-8 just to drive it home a bit more!
Joel
I’ll be fishing with Tanner on the 7th and 8th of July. I’ll have him do that… if he’s willing. You up for it Tanner?
Nice Muskys guys
yeah you bet! Lets do it James!
Tanner
Nice Fish Tanner