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Posts: 94
| Got absolutely smoked at this lake. I marked a single musky the entire trip and didn't raise one. I attempted to use trolling to cover water and zero in on them, but I have to admit: it has been a long time since I've spent 12 hours on the water and marked a single fish. I guess I have several questions:
1) I was trolling at around 15 feet, as the submergent vegetation came up to about 7 feet below surface and this put my lures near the top of that weedline and near the edge of the shore's. Does this make sense as a strategy to you? I know the lake's layout and structure, but did not know where they tended to congregate.
2) We did find the perch and marked some schooling ciscos in slightly deeper water, but couldn't track down the big girls.
3) The windows had us moving tighter to weed edges to fan cast along them. We got nailed by one 30 inch pike, and that was about it for toothy predators.
My confidence is kinda shot. It's been a bad year for musky. I haven't caught a fish, and have raised maybe 3 all year while fishing weekly. What the hell do I do here? Living in South Dakota is tough for musky, and it's getting more and more hard for me because I don't know who to seek out for learning and the state doesn't care about the species. When I go with guides in MN, I typically land fish, but I have not been worth a #*^@ at putting what they do into practice. I know the book answers and understand the basics, but just cannot seem to make it work. I really want to catch these fish, but going an entire summer with regular fishing and not catching a single one and seeing three is god#*^@ ridiculous and indicates that I MUST be screwing something up. |
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Posts: 1197
| There are times when everything falls in place, catching multiple fish in the boat everyday with a good average size life is good.
Then the next trip you see nothing and if you catch one its 27 incher and you think a Muskie is something the Chamber Of Commerce dreamed up along with the Unicorn seen drinking from the lake. Or maybe you spend too much time in the Resort Bar debating if there's such a thing as a hundred pound Muskie. |
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Posts: 771
Location: Delavan, WI | I am not familiar with this particular lake, but if its not showing you many fish I would consider going to another lake, perhaps the musky population is down or near non existent, cant catch em if they are not there, typically the fish are rather shallow with the cooling waters this time of year with windows early in the morning as the sun is coming up and later in the evening as the sun is going down or even after dark, try surface baits near rocks or vegetation during those low light hrs then fish bucktails fast a little deeper along drop offs if you dont see any signs of musky after putting in a full day they are either deep or just the numbers are very low in this particular body of water |
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Posts: 94
| As with all things, the word of mouth can be tough to trust, but this lake has a solid reputation. I just think I need to rethink how I am approaching things, because it ain't working. |
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Posts: 2280
Location: Chisholm, MN | I call it the Itasca county curse. There are Muskies, but they don’t bite like other Muskies around the state. Anyone who grows up fishing there, like myself, can’t wait to go elsewhere. |
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Posts: 1671
| Add in lower expectations and fish more for fun than success. You aren't fishing to eat and survive, you should be enjoying it. If you are becoming this frustrated consider taking up golf. |
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| Golf. Now there is an activity with a low frustration factor. |
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Posts: 94
| Brian Hoffies - 8/31/2023 6:46 AM
Add in lower expectations and fish more for fun than success. You aren't fishing to eat and survive, you should be enjoying it. If you are becoming this frustrated consider taking up golf.
Golf is much worse than fishing, lol. I'm not necessarily frustrated with the lack of fish, but my lack of ability to determine why. |
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Posts: 408
Location: MN | https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=31065300
Check targeted survey 2022-05-10. Looks like ~245 adults in the 830 acre lake, above average density for MN.
No experience on this specific lake, but generally there is likely something wrong with your location, timing, or presentation if you go 12 hours without any sign of life. I'd choose a general area that looks good (some combination of high traffic, major structures, main lake, bait) then fish it at all depths and times of day until something moves. If you're fishing a clear MN lake during a warm Aug period, I'd lean heavily toward twilight and darkness for timing and outside weed edge, open water, or humps for location. |
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Posts: 2280
Location: Chisholm, MN | Brian Hoffies - 8/31/2023 6:46 AM
Add in lower expectations and fish more for fun than success. You aren't fishing to eat and survive, you should be enjoying it. If you are becoming this frustrated consider taking up golf.
Muskie fishing isn’t fun! It’s work! Who has fun beating yourself up for hours to maybe catch one fish? I do it because I’m obsessed with figuring them out but I will say that I smile a lot more when I’m walleye fishing. |
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Posts: 94
| Kirby Budrow - 8/31/2023 4:45 PM
Brian Hoffies - 8/31/2023 6:46 AM
Add in lower expectations and fish more for fun than success. You aren't fishing to eat and survive, you should be enjoying it. If you are becoming this frustrated consider taking up golf.
Muskie fishing isn’t fun! It’s work! Who has fun beating yourself up for hours to maybe catch one fish? I do it because I’m obsessed with figuring them out but I will say that I smile a lot more when I’m walleye fishing.
See, you get me. |
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Posts: 94
| nar160 - 8/31/2023 1:13 PM
https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=31065300
Check targeted survey 2022-05-10. Looks like ~245 adults in the 830 acre lake, above average density for MN.
No experience on this specific lake, but generally there is likely something wrong with your location, timing, or presentation if you go 12 hours without any sign of life. I'd choose a general area that looks good (some combination of high traffic, major structures, main lake, bait ) then fish it at all depths and times of day until something moves. If you're fishing a clear MN lake during a warm Aug period, I'd lean heavily toward twilight and darkness for timing and outside weed edge, open water, or humps for location.
Yeah, we made sure we were one them. The South bay has a lot of productive weedline and some active sunken islands where we saw a lot of activity, just not the type we wanted. I did neglect going after suspended fish too much just because the drop offs from littoral are steep and I wasn't really sure how to track them down. |
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Posts: 1197
| My mom was born in Bena on the shores of Lake Winnibigoshish and lived in Deer River in till they moved in the late 1940's (a lot of my family is still there) I've caught Muskies and other fish up there and also been hit by the "Itasca Curse". My dad's family is from Southern Wisconsin and have been going up North since a least 1936. Both my grandparents had cabins on Lakes. A lot of us gone to nameless Lakes over the years. These Lakes started off with a few ruff cabins and Resorts maybe a little public land on part of the Lake, a boat landing for your small wooden boat or Canoe. If it rained it took forever to made the trip on the old dirt roads. WWII had gas rationing but after the war more and more folks found there way to the Northwoods. The cabins and boats got bigger and four season homes now dot the shorelines a lot of Resorts turned into Condos. We deal with Jet Ski's , Water Skier's, Wake Boats and Live Imaging and native spearing and fish hogs. I've made many of cross country drives or flown into Rhinelander and spent summers on Lakes in the Eagle River area in my youth. Fishing has had many peaks and valleys over the years. We caught multiple Muskies in a day and also gone years without catching a decent one. The bottom line get up North, enjoy your time on the water or in the woods, Eat at a restaurant, go to a Resort Bar and have a Beer, Enjoy your family and old friends and we make new friends too. Then come here and talk about it. |
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Posts: 94
| chuckski - 9/1/2023 8:45 AM
My mom was born in Bena on the shores of Lake Winnibigoshish and lived in Deer River in till they moved in the late 1940's (a lot of my family is still there) I've caught Muskies and other fish up there and also been hit by the "Itasca Curse". My dad's family is from Southern Wisconsin and have been going up North since a least 1936. Both my grandparents had cabins on Lakes. A lot of us gone to nameless Lakes over the years. These Lakes started off with a few ruff cabins and Resorts maybe a little public land on part of the Lake, a boat landing for your small wooden boat or Canoe. If it rained it took forever to made the trip on the old dirt roads. WWII had gas rationing but after the war more and more folks found there way to the Northwoods. The cabins and boats got bigger and four season homes now dot the shorelines a lot of Resorts turned into Condos. We deal with Jet Ski's , Water Skier's, Wake Boats and Live Imaging and native spearing and fish hogs. I've made many of cross country drives or flown into Rhinelander and spent summers on Lakes in the Eagle River area in my youth. Fishing has had many peaks and valleys over the years. We caught multiple Muskies in a day and also gone years without catching a decent one. The bottom line get up North, enjoy your time on the water or in the woods, Eat at a restaurant, go to a Resort Bar and have a Beer, Enjoy your family and old friends and we make new friends too. Then come here and talk about it.
Fair points, all. Thanks, Chuck. |
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Posts: 1204
Location: Walker, MN | Well I don't have much experience on that lake but here's my take (I would consider Kirby the true expert in that area). That lake is clear, and has received a fair amount of pressure over the years. It's not too big, and has a state forest campground on it. The main thing I've learned about fishing pressure is that the windows just get smaller and smaller. Metro guys fish at night, very early and late in the day, before and during fronts, and late in the fall to catch fish. |
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