Falling leaves, cool nights, and shorter days are all a sign that fall is upon us and a time for a true trophy is RIGHT NOW! Fall is my favorite time of year to musky fish as you never know what will be waiting around the corner of the next island. Each and every fall excursion on lake vermilion gives me goose bumps up and down my body. It gives me so much confidence on a frigid fall morning to get out of bed knowing that I have a shot at a 50 pound class fish with every cast or trolling pass. Lake vermilion has so much potential with its vast basins and endless numbers of structure filled rock piles. I truly believe there is a few record size fish on this water and I have this gut feeling I better be ready when it comes my turn.
Lately the bite has been focused around the turnover stage making it harder to produce fish consistently. This does not mean we are not catching fish though. The key has been finding the window when fish are biting and camping on a known fish during that window. The past week we have seen a few fish during the daylight hours but the only ones to open their mouth have been at first darkness. Knowing this and finding a quality fish to cast during prime time is the key to this tough bite and has produced some good results.
Lure selection has changed dramatically in the past week with the changing of the season. If you were to follow me around at the end of September you would only see me casting a bucktail. Well that bite has come and gone but the fish are still chasing different presentations. The key has been casting slow and life like profiles such as bulldogs and cranks.
In the next week or so I can see the bite taking off once the lake gets past this prolonged turnover stage. Once the lake turns over in my part of the state the next stage of the bite is dictated by the cisco and whitefish spawn. These baitfish species spawn at a temp. around 42-44 degrees. With predictable movements from forage comes predictable movements from muskies! This means once these bait fish spawn the BIGGEST, MEANEST, GREASY CHEESE BURGER EATING blonde muskies will be hot on their tail. A lot of these fish targeted this time of year are open water fish most of their lives and don’t see lures like the structure fish do. Needless to say they go crazy for bulldogs and it creates my favorite pattern of the season.
I have a few open dates for the rest of the season but they are filling up fast. If you are interested in filling a date get a hold of me and I’d love to share my knowledge of beautiful lake vermilion.