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Posts: 1828
| What are some experiences you've had that changed the way you think about [catching] muskies? Like an epiphany that has lead to catching more muskies. |
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Posts: 1828
| Here's one thing I heard, here, I believe, that opened the door to more fish for me:
A fish that followed but made a hard turn and darted away is usually a very catchable fish. It was just a couple years ago that I heard that, and when I altered my tactics with that in mind, I caught a bunch of those fish. I still almost never catch a fish that follows slow and then slowly sinks away. |
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Posts: 785
| Some of these may sound painfully obvious but most of my upbringing was fishing shorelines of 300 acre or less bass lakes so musky fishing big lakes was hard at first.
-Reading a map to identify flats/feeding shelves. Once I started learning how to read lake maps fishing became a lot easier. I started printing maps and shading in the areas less then 15 feet and the good spots started jumping out at me.
-Realizing numbers lakes aren't the ticket. Sure numbers lakes are still fun but I avoided trophy waters a long time thinking it'd be too hard to catch fish. Now I realize a 3+ fish day is still very possible on most trophy waters and in the end upper 40" and 50" fish make for a lot longer lasting memories then 33" fish.
-Lures are tools. I was the glider guy but I finally got tired of losing so many fish. After awhile I realized one fish in the boat is better then 8 follows and two lost fish. I still use gliders when conditions are right but I'm way less concerned with seeing fish all the time and more focused on using a lure that has the best hooking percentage and the chance of putting a fish in the boat.
-Finally confidence. Probably the hardest one for me was getting to the point of being focused all day every day. Knowing even after a 6 hour lull that the bite can happen at any moment. If things aren't working switch it up and if nothing seems to work just keep grinding till it happens... and it always happens eventually. It took a few 2pm fish on a bluebird day to fully realize this. Anymore I've become an eternal optimist on the water and I believe it's put more fish in the boat. |
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Posts: 230
Location: St Paul, Minnesota | Went on a guided trip with Gregg Thomas. Caught some fish but the real value came from all the information I sponged up.
I highly recommend getting a guide and trying some new gear/tactics/water.
-C7 |
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| Go fishing when you can but make an effort to go when it feels fishy. |
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Posts: 1969
| Seen this on dozens of bodies of water...Muskie are lazy!!! Fish laying on rocks or sand, and in weed bed and wont even acknowledge 3 baits cast over their heads 10 times....They are not ready. (and often these are very big fish) Think about this! There are not magic lures and hitting 100 spots in a day with your trolling motor on high is not the answer..especially for big fish. |
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Posts: 8717
| You guys are gonna think I'm nuts.
But I finally learned to trust my "instincts"...
How many times have you pulled into a spot and before you even throw a cast you're "just not feeling it"? How many times have you pulled into a spot and it just feels "fishy"? Fish a spot for 5 casts and leave without a reason? Run through it again and catch a fish that you "knew" had to be there? Ever throw a cast and think "Yep. Right here." and then catch a fish? 6 hours of fishing with that feeling of "nope. Nobody home." and then on the very next spot it feels like you just drank a pot of coffee. Sure enough, multiple fish.
It never really sunk in until I guide who I was fishing with said "Man, Jeff. You just called that fish. You called it on every place we saw fish this week. You're one of THOSE guys, aren't you? You ought to come up here and guide!" Laughed pretty hard at that one. ME guide? LOL. But it got me thinking.
Your brain is an amazing thing. It logs stuff unconsciously, the whole time you are fishing. While you might not be actively trying to keep track of every detail of wind current water clarity, etc. that mush between your ears is doing it for you. If you fish long enough, all those experiences add up to some unconscious abilities. Call it instinct, intuition, collective experience, whatever. This year, I'm going to pay much more attention to that and not waste my time fishing a spot that doesn't feel right, and spend a lot more time picking apart the ones that do. Too many hours lost fishing the dead sea when my gut was telling me to go fish somewhere else, and not enough hours spent sticking around the places that just felt right. Not no more.
Edited by esoxaddict 2/10/2016 11:24 AM
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Posts: 1220
| I was casting a buck tail to a favorite shore line while watching Tom Gelb row trolling pretty near-by. Both of us were alone, had the lake to ourselves, and we had already waved a hello. I know he saw me net a pretty chubby 45, but never shouted or angled in for a closer look. When I saw him cranking his modified sailboat on at the ramp, I swung by and said, "Hey Tom, I thought you might have shouted something like nice fish" or some small thing....cuz (you know) I don't get a 45 every day.With the broadest smile possible, Tom replied, "I was waiting for you to catch a big one!" It was the second time he got me like that. I had once showed a photo of a previous day's fish to a table full of guys he eats breakfast with (not knowing at the time) and was nearly laughed out of Leif's Restaurant when Tom walked in and they all agreed, "That's not really very big, is it?" Sure, he was joshing me, but the "Game changing" part is there's a whole nuther level of musky fishing out there somewhere across the water from me than the one I'm fishing. It's why it's still worth learning more. I've read his book twice already and still have it out! |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | My epiphany was when I realized that muskies are influenced by more than just food. They eat and recover from eating. Yah, they procreate as well... but only for a limited time. Then its back to eating and recovering from eating. Once I started to understand their metabolic needs and need for "comfort".... it opened up a gazillion more opportunities (locations) to contact and catch these fine critters. And even better yet.... many of those locations are still off the radar screen of most musky hunters. No need to fight for popular spots anymore.... |
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Posts: 1828
| esoxaddict - 2/10/2016 11:22 AM
You guys are gonna think I'm nuts.
But I finally learned to trust my "instincts"...
How many times have you pulled into a spot and before you even throw a cast you're "just not feeling it"? How many times have you pulled into a spot and it just feels "fishy"? Fish a spot for 5 casts and leave without a reason? Run through it again and catch a fish that you "knew" had to be there? Ever throw a cast and think "Yep. Right here." and then catch a fish? 6 hours of fishing with that feeling of "nope. Nobody home." and then on the very next spot it feels like you just drank a pot of coffee. Sure enough, multiple fish.
It never really sunk in until I guide who I was fishing with said "Man, Jeff. You just called that fish. You called it on every place we saw fish this week. You're one of THOSE guys, aren't you? You ought to come up here and guide!" Laughed pretty hard at that one. ME guide? LOL. But it got me thinking.
Your brain is an amazing thing. It logs stuff unconsciously, the whole time you are fishing. While you might not be actively trying to keep track of every detail of wind current water clarity, etc. that mush between your ears is doing it for you. If you fish long enough, all those experiences add up to some unconscious abilities. Call it instinct, intuition, collective experience, whatever. This year, I'm going to pay much more attention to that and not waste my time fishing a spot that doesn't feel right, and spend a lot more time picking apart the ones that do. Too many hours lost fishing the dead sea when my gut was telling me to go fish somewhere else, and not enough hours spent sticking around the places that just felt right. Not no more.
I really like this. Not that I have this degree of confidence in my intuition yet, BUT there are times when I just "feel" what to do, don't really know why, but I go with it, and things start clicking.
There are some things that can't be easily explained - it's like you said, you've subconsciously learned what to do, when, where.
One fish in particular prompted me to start this thread. Followed my glide bait. It was by no means red hot, but came out twice in a row, each time a few feet back and slow moving. Without really thinking about it, I was like "I need to throw a bucktail at that fish". My buddy disagreed. "How are you going to make a neutral fish - one that won't even swipe an in-your-face PHANTOM - eat a fast-moving bucktail?"
Caught it after 5 - 6 figure 8s, even though it disappeared a couple times. Fish went from neutral to squirrelly to suicidal in about 20 seconds.
You could chalk that up to "speed is a trigger", or simply changing baits, or something else. Obviously it's a combination of things, but what stands out to me is that I actually KNEW what to do. I don't care so much about what the main factor was in getting that fish to eat, because chances are I'd try to apply that one factorial change next time I see a fish act like that one, and it won't work. The better choice is to go with your gut. Trust your instincts. Whatever. |
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Posts: 609
Location: Seymour, WI | There is a small lake that I fish early in the season with a very small bucktail and my partner and I will catch double digit numbers of muskies. The lake gets lots of fishing pressure and no one else really catches the number of fish that we do. But so far I've only seen this pattern hold up on this one lake and only during the very early part of the season. But it makes me think that if the right bait is presented at the right time you could really pile up numbers of fish. ... still searching for the right bait, time, place for the other times and lakes that I fish. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | muskies are NOT very hard to catch, they have more control over us catching them than we do. once you realize that you will catch more fish. oh and muskies don't read magazines or forums... 
EA a guide? I about spit my coffee out and I don't drink coffee! lol
Edited by BNelson 2/10/2016 1:20 PM
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Posts: 114
| I muskie fished for 10 years before I boated my first 50 in my own boat. Netted several on charters and friend's boats, but that first 50 on our own meant a lot to me. My wife reeled it in to boot (trolling).
After that first 50, fast forward three months and I am taking out two friends on LSC who don't muskie fish. One is a steelhead buddy and the other a walleye guy. We end up catching a 52.5", then 40 minutes later a 56" showstopper. It was a very strange feeling to be honest.....after years of chasing big fish to have two of them fall in my lap, with two noobs to boot. I learned that big fish are just that.....fish. Not sure what I was expecting to change, nothing changes, the game stays the same, I'm still just as excited every time the rod goes off.
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Posts: 523
| Keep a journal or log of each trip on the water. The more detailed the better. I've been doing this since I started fishing bass tournaments years ago and have carried it over to musky fishing since I caught the sickness a few years ago. It has already began to pay dividends as my yearly catch rates and fish caliber have gone up significantly in just a few years.
Some of the things I record daily: air temp, wind speed and direction, water temp, barometric pressure, depth of fish contacted or caught, cover, bottom content to the best of my knowledge, lures used, retrieve speed, time of day, major and minor moon phases, sunrise, sunset, cloud cover/ type of clouds, obviously the lake I'm on, I also make note of fish that other people in my boat have follow or catch. |
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Posts: 150
Location: Appleton, WI | I have had the great pleasure to learn from some of the best musky guys out there and be in there boat and watch them dissect the situation around them even on new structure that they do not know well. The three biggest things I have taken from them is to have razor sharp hooks. If you even think that a hook is not sharp run a file over it. Two is boat position. you must have your boat in the right spot and not get blown over the piece of structure that you want to fish. And I think the third and most important thing I have learned is that you need to be a deadeye caster. You should be able to put your bait right where you need to. |
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Posts: 6
| Had 3 fish bite on a glider in 2 minutes in a spot thats scoffed at by locals, all of which were big fish for the river. Had originally been fishing the thing like a spook but started messing with different pulls and pops at the end of the pulls and it paid off big time. Realized these fish arent hard to catch and that speed and disturbance with classic "subtle" presentations can pay off big time. That and fishing the river when gin clear; when you see the fish move and watch them feed it really brings a whole new train of thought. |
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Posts: 470
| Simplify the presentation and stop switching lures constantly, learned this from guide trips. Instead of fishing 10-15 lures in a day I throw 1 or two and see what the response is. I used to be so bad I've switched to a small tackle box with 6 lures in it to keep me from switching all the time..
RandalB |
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Posts: 2275
Location: Chisholm, MN | That instict thing is the main one I finally tuned in to a while back. Learning to make the right cast at the right time at the right place, and make sure a fish likes what you're throwing.
After that, my game changer has switched to seeing other people catch bigguns! |
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Posts: 20179
Location: oswego, il | This one came as a young teenager while fishing around the bank of big lake in silver springs state park. I.wasn't catching anything and happened to spot a decent(for the lake) bass just off shore. I casted quite a few different lures trying to get it to hit and the bass was not at all interested. I walked down the bank kept fishing and spotted a crayfish in the water that I was able to catch by hand. Not being too far from that bass I walked back down and tossed the crayfish in front of it. The bass ate the crayfish before it ever hit the bottom. It occurred to me right then just how much fish understand their environment and vulnerability within it. |
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Posts: 8717
| ToddM - 2/10/2016 4:02 PM
This one came as a young teenager while fishing around the bank of big lake in silver springs state park. I.wasn't catching anything and happened to spot a decent(for the lake) bass just off shore. I casted quite a few different lures trying to get it to hit and the bass was not at all interested. I walked down the bank kept fishing and spotted a crayfish in the water that I was able to catch by hand. Not being too far from that bass I walked back down and tossed the crayfish in front of it. The bass ate the crayfish before it ever hit the bottom. It occurred to me right then just how much fish understand their environment and vulnerability within it.
LMAO!! We used to dig buckets of them out from under the rocks, and then sit on the pier tossing them back in the water to see how many made it vs how many got eaten.
Funny thing was the ones that just sat there often made it to the bottom and crawled back into the rocks. Most of the ones that tried to swim right away got clobbered.
Pretty cruel when you think about it. Used to do the same thing with frogs. Amazing how many of them actually made it back to shore.
Edited by esoxaddict 2/10/2016 4:43 PM
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Posts: 46
| jlong - 2/10/2016 11:44 AM
My epiphany was when I realized that muskies are influenced by more than just food. They eat and recover from eating. Yah, they procreate as well... but only for a limited time. Then its back to eating and recovering from eating. Once I started to understand their metabolic needs and need for "comfort".... it opened up a gazillion more opportunities (locations) to contact and catch these fine critters. And even better yet.... many of those locations are still off the radar screen of most musky hunters. No need to fight for popular spots anymore....
I'd love to read your more details thoughts on this, Jason. |
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Posts: 1937
Location: Black Creek, WI | John23.... check out the thread entitled THERMAL CONSIDERATIONS in the Biology Forum. |
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Posts: 239
Location: Madison, WI | jlong - 2/15/2016 7:13 AM
John23.... check out the thread entitled THERMAL CONSIDERATIONS in the Biology Forum.
THank you for sharing jlong. I can't wait to put this to work this coming season!
Tons of great information here. |
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Posts: 2752
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | On a flyin with my daughter who was 15 at the time -> fishing in 60FOW with multiple active muskies while throwing baits in the top 6' of the water column, including a real beast who came up from the abyss to inspect her tiny heddon crawdad (2") smallie lure. Unbelievable, I wonder if she would have come up for ice jig and waxie?
Why were we in 60FOW? Felicia heard a splash behind us as we were working deep cabbage weed edge in 25FOW, she wanted to check it out!
Game changer 1 - there is no lure thats to small or one that's to large...Felicia: "Dad that fish could have eaten the 40" muskie we saw this morning"!
Game changer 2 - you can't take a lure away from a muskie that wants it. speed works...The steady walk the dog type cadences may work, but speed changes will get you more hits..
Game changer 3 - maybe the biggest (thanks Herbie), boat control and working the wind!
Have fun!
Al |
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Posts: 1023
| I was a young kid. 10 years old or so. Mom used to take me to Aqualand up in Vilas County. I'm sure many of you remember the place. We always did the whole tour, but I loved the musky pond. I remember saving money from my allowance to buy minnows to throw into the pond. Imagine my disappointment when the minnows swam quickly away and the muskies did nothing.
Then I learned that frogs on the property were free if I caught them and threw them in. Darned near a feeding frenzy when frogs hit the water and took a few kicks.
Then I learned that snakes were free if captured as well. Man, those things got smoked!
I literally watched a couple hundred strikes when I was really young. Learned what a musky looked like before it ate.
To this day it helps me convert followers into eaters. |
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Posts: 255
| Vegas got me thinking about follows. My buddy always got hooked at the end of casts and I was always getting surprised with follows and strikes at the boat. Out of frustration I learned to slap the lure back in the fish's general direction, thumbing the line with a hard cast. Turned lazy follows into strikes. Also learned that my boatside calmness allowed more fish to hang around and get hooked vs. a quick movement and yelling "there's one!" and watching them dart off. Don't watch the fish, focus on your lure speed and movement with follows.
Spring is around the corner. |
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Posts: 1126
Location: Minnesota. | vegas492 - 2/16/2016 9:25 AM
I was a young kid. 10 years old or so. Mom used to take me to Aqualand up in Vilas County. I'm sure many of you remember the place. We always did the whole tour, but I loved the musky pond. I remember saving money from my allowance to buy minnows to throw into the pond. Imagine my disappointment when the minnows swam quickly away and the muskies did nothing.
Then I learned that frogs on the property were free if I caught them and threw them in. Darned near a feeding frenzy when frogs hit the water and took a few kicks.
Then I learned that snakes were free if captured as well. Man, those things got smoked!
I literally watched a couple hundred strikes when I was really young. Learned what a musky looked like before it ate.
To this day it helps me convert followers into eaters.
Awesome...just like an adventurous kid! Yer only young once...fun, wasn't it! :-))
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Posts: 1023
| Jeremy - 2/16/2016 1:46 PM
vegas492 - 2/16/2016 9:25 AM
I was a young kid. 10 years old or so. Mom used to take me to Aqualand up in Vilas County. I'm sure many of you remember the place. We always did the whole tour, but I loved the musky pond. I remember saving money from my allowance to buy minnows to throw into the pond. Imagine my disappointment when the minnows swam quickly away and the muskies did nothing.
Then I learned that frogs on the property were free if I caught them and threw them in. Darned near a feeding frenzy when frogs hit the water and took a few kicks.
Then I learned that snakes were free if captured as well. Man, those things got smoked!
I literally watched a couple hundred strikes when I was really young. Learned what a musky looked like before it ate.
To this day it helps me convert followers into eaters.
Awesome...just like an adventurous kid! Yer only young once...fun, wasn't it! :- ) )
Just typing it up made me want to go back there again!
Years after that experience I learned about the Dancin' Raider. Picked one up, black with green. Looked like a frog, acted like a frog, got eaten like a frog. Especially when pitched close to shorelines. Still love that bait. Heard they weren't making anymore, so I stockpiled them a summer or two ago. I'll never run out! |
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Posts: 3136
| Game Changer
Minnesota guys should volunteer to help the dnr when they do lake surveys and netting the dnr guys love volunteers because they lift the nets.
You will REALLY see what a difference wind makes when on each day the net that was in the wind ALWAYs has the most fish in it.
If you do it on a lake you fish alot
Find out how stunted our panfish population is.
How nice a sucker population lakes have that you never would have expected especially in the metro.
And all the info the dnr rep shares with you that you never get in seminars or articles.
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Posts: 79
| Was out fishing afterdark one night before moon rise. Was at or near full moon. Anyway was 2 hours between sunset and moonrise. That 1.5 hours of darkness before the moon rose above the trees was crazy. Could literally hear ever critter in the lake and on land moving around and chasing. Boated 2 fish and had 2 more up. As soon as the moon cleared the trees and the light hit the water everything died down and the night was silent. Didn't move a fish after that. Was night and day difference, was crazy.
Watch your moon phases and for me anyway moon light on the water kills the fishing. |
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