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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | This is sort of going to be all over but I'll do my best to make it into a only few questions.
What is the deepest pike you've caught? (I'm focusing on pike but muskie most likely have similar behavior so I'll take deepest musky too)
Here's the story. I have a private lake I fish (mostly bass) and the last few years I've only fished shallow for the bass with jigs and topwater. But last year I tried fishing deeper with deep cranks like the dt10 (that's deep for me). I also think its important to mention this is a strip mine lake with the deepest point I marked being 70 ft. I know there's pike in there because I had caught them before but very rarely (less than 1 a year) but since I started using this rapala dt 10 I caught 9 between 14 and 32 inches. This is only about 5 days of fishing since I only fish this place on the weekends. So do you think that using a strike king 10xd to get down to 25' could put more fish in the boat or does it sound like a lost cause? Also do you think it could put bigger fish in the boat? I believe I heard somewhere that large pike 30 inch plus will hang out in the coolest water, wherever that may be.
Thoughts and suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thanks! |
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Posts: 770
| Although the "they sayers" say big pike stay deep my 2nd biggest pike 38" was in 4 FOW in July in southern mn |
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Posts: 682
Location: Sycamore, IL | Musky Mo16- Pike can and will go very deep. I tend to target them on the 20-40ft breaklines once the thermocline sets up... Muskies go deep too;)
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | Thanks for the replies. There's no doubt that sometimes the big girls will come shallow in warm water because I've had a near 40" attack a bluegill I caught in less than 2 ft. I'm just curious where they all go. I see a ton of them in the spring but after mid May they all seem to disappear. |
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Posts: 483
| a friend caught a 15 pds pike trolling for lakers in more than 75 feet of water in the summertime . |
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Posts: 719
| I have a client from the UK who says in the heat of the summer over there on lakes, not rivers, the pike get lethargic and go real deep and lay flat on the bottom in 40-50 ft. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | Bondy - 2/26/2017 10:52 AM
I have a client from the UK who says in the heat of the summer over there on lakes, not rivers, the pike get lethargic and go real deep and lay flat on the bottom in 40-50 ft.
Did he mention anything about these fish being catchable? I could get down there with your baits or even some lake trout swim bait/ jigs I have. If they are lathargic they may not chase cranks. |
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Posts: 390
| I have fish the Great Lakes (very clear and meso-oligotrophic) for pike and musky a lot and from what I have seen my biggest pike come in deep water or deep weed edges adjacent to deep water. I have caught large pike (40+) pike trolling over 50-60 ft 45 ft down in mid summer. Don't bother trying deep until the water warms.
Since you are fishing a small lake I do not know the the stratification tendencies of you lake. I suggest getting a thermometer on a line and drop it down. If you see a large drop in temp on the way down avoid fishing any deeper than that. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | bbeaupre - 2/26/2017 10:58 AM
Since you are fishing a small lake I do not know the the stratification tendencies of you lake. I suggest getting a thermometer on a line and drop it down. If you see a large drop in temp on the way down avoid fishing any deeper than that.
Correct me if I'm wrong but, I want to be fishing right on the thermocline correct? Not below it in the cooler water. |
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Posts: 425
Location: MN | I have caught and seen caught a few in the 35-45 ft range when walleye fishing. I didn't see it first hand, but some of my relatives once ran into a spot about 70 ft deep that they pulled a handful of big pike out of. They were walleye fishing reefs - not really sure why they were inspired to fish something that deep but once they caught one they kept fishing and pulled several off the spot. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | I guess if they are there they are catchable. Surprisingly I'm just realizing how deep fish actually go, lol. Below 30ft I didn't think there was anything but trout and baitfish but apparently I was very wrong. That's good though, this summer when the surface temp is around 85 I'll jig some bondy's and cast some deep cranks. Who knows, maybe I'll get the next state record (: |
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Posts: 391
| I would think pulling them out of the colder water into 85 surface temps would be MORE detrimental than fish hanging around in the bath water. It also seems like most of the warm water species don't do so great when they are pulled out of deep water, even in winter when the water temp is pretty consistent throughout the water column. The lakers and other fish that spend a majority of their time at those depths seem to be the ones that can handle that change in pressure. I don't have much experience with this though so if others with more experience or knowledge would like to chime in that'd be cool. |
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Posts: 2383
Location: Chisholm, MN | Yep, pIke go super deep in summer and almost go dormant on the bottom when the water gets hot. They can be caught though. The big ones are especially deep and will eat something that is right in their face like a dead minnow floating down. |
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Posts: 719
| Yeah the guys in the UK try and dead bait them |
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | The deepest pike I've caught was over 75 fow 40' down on a small 700 acre lake in SE Michigan. It was late May & I noticed a lot of bait balls on the sonar. Figuring they were lake trout I dropped a blade bait down & to my surprise I pulled in a 27" pike they followed those up with a few more up to 34". I went back to the same lake a couple weeks later & jigged Jr. Bondy baits & caught several up to 38". |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | Zib, that is a extremely similar situation to mine except my lake isn't quite as big. I'm defiantly going to give the bondy's a shot. |
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | Musky_Mo16 - 2/26/2017 9:12 PMZib, that is a extremely similar situation to mine except my lake isn't quite as big. I'm defiantly going to give the bondy's a shot. The regular Bondys will catch them but going with the smaller Bondy mini Wobbler will get you more hook-ups, especially with the smaller pike. The Jr. Bondy is no longer made but if you can find some used ones I'd pick some up. The Bondy Swim jig is also another option. Various jigging spoons & blade baits have their days as well. I jig next to my transducer so that I can see where my jig is at in relation to the bait balls & the fish feeding on them. |
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Posts: 1100
| My deepest pike came from 92 feet, over 115 FOW, it wasn't that big though :P |
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Posts: 815
Location: Waukee, IA | My old man and I always wondered what the big fish near bait was in deep open water in Canada. Sent a big storm wild eye shad jig down to investigate, big pike eating ciscos and Whitefish |
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Posts: 2383
Location: Chisholm, MN | tkuntz - 2/27/2017 11:21 AM
My old man and I always wondered what the big fish near bait was in deep open water in Canada. Sent a big storm wild eye shad jig down to investigate, big pike eating ciscos and Whitefish
Exactly. I'll mark a lot of long arcs down in 60 or 70 feet on the lakes I fish. Could be a lot of different fish from walleyes to suckers or even white fish but I think most are the bigger pike hanging out during the heat of summer. Might be a muskie or two mixed in as well. |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | There seems to be a misunderstanding about the thermocline. There can be one and the fish can be below it. Many deep lakes have a thermocline in the summer and have fish living below like trout, cisco, whitefish, etc. Its the lakes that have a lot of bio activity that depletes the oxygen that prevents fish from using the deeper water. As the oxygen gets eaten up by decaying organic matter and cant be replaced until the turnover. It depends on the lake. Please keep that in mind when trying to explain how the thermocline effects the fish and where they can hold.
In one case I know a guide that fishes for open water muskies in Vilas but does not fish the famed Trout Lake, due to the fact that he said "those muskies could be anywhere".
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Posts: 494
Location: midwest | Lake trout and Whitefish are the only species I would attempt to target deeper than 40' (no matter what the temperature) unless I planned on keeping everything I caught. At 85 degrees in a strip mine lake, I think any species caught at 20' or greater would have high mortality rates. If you are keeping pike for eating fine but releasing those fish would be a lost cause. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | What causes the mortality rates to rise after 20'? Is it the temp change? Because I've caught bass and perch deeper than that on the lake I am talking about and they all seem to go back fine. No enlarged or expanded swim bladders. |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | One part is the temp, the 2nd is the air bladder increases in size the can cause damage to organ and I have also seen the bladder sticking out of a perch's mouth, making it very difficult to swim away. Not good.
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Posts: 682
Location: Sycamore, IL | MuskyMo16-
Look up the term "barotrauma" ...I think Marc Thorpe has done some research on this topic in relation to muskie.
Like others have stated I catch pike on my dipsy divers going after lake trout. Most seem to release ok, but I did have a couple fish two seasons ago that would not go back down and died. They were down about 60ft and were my boats only double of the season. Sucked because they were sub-legal and I had to leave them floating:( |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | I am familier with barotrauma, but I didn't know it could happen as shallow as 20'. I'm not to concerned becaus I don't plan on catching them below 40' |
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Location: Around | Barotrauma seemed to be pretty frequent when I targeted the 30' range in the past. I had two pike die that ate a crank running at roughly 22' over 65' so who know what depth they swam out of to eat it.
I think (i could be wrong) pike and musky are able to regulate their swim bladder to a certain degree meaning they can release air to compensate the pressure change unlike walleye. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | All fish can regulate their swim bladder, some just better than others (trout/salmon) |
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Posts: 612
| The biggest musky we've gotten 50" (not me) was in 60 FOW feeding on deep water perch. Caught big pike from 12 to 40 FOW in summer unpredictable buggers. I do however think the 10 pound + fish only come in to feed off the weedlines then return to the deeper water once the water gets warm. |
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Posts: 1086
| joshm3357 - 2/28/2017 1:08 PM
Barotrauma seemed to be pretty frequent when I targeted the 30' range in the past. I had two pike die that ate a crank running at roughly 22' over 65' so who know what depth they swam out of to eat it.
I think (i could be wrong) pike and musky are able to regulate their swim bladder to a certain degree meaning they can release air to compensate the pressure change unlike walleye.
Musky_Mo16 - 2/28/2017 2:27 PM
All fish can regulate their swim bladder, some just better than others (trout/salmon)
Yes...all fish have the abilities to regulate their swim bladder. This is clearly evident by the existence of those fish living both in the depths as well as in the shallows....as they obviously swim back and forth between the depths and shallows at different times. The issue is...the speed at which they are brought up from the depths, to the surface. If you bring a fish up from the depths, too fast, they'll likely suffer barotrauma and could potentially have their swim bladder belching out the their mouths...or at the very least, an incredibly expanded air bladder, giving that fish the "bloated" look. If a fish is brought up slower, allowing it some time to adjust...there may be a chance for that fish to survive. This same philosophy is exactly what we humans, must do, when scuba diving in the depths. The scuba diver must come up to the surface slowly, stopping along the way at different depths for periods of time, to help decompress at a certain rate, or else risk "The Bends."
Musky anglers that subscribe to C.P.R. are of course going to try to minimize the length of time that the fight with the fish takes place, to the best of the anglers ability, to increase the odds of a good, healthy release. Fishing for fish at the depths discussed here, and taking a longer time to bring that fish up from the depths, ultimately prolonging the fight with the fish on the line, to try and allow for it to try and regulate it's swim bladder, contradicts the idea of minimizing the length of time the fight with the fish takes place. So in that case, targeting fish, for sport, with the idea of releasing the fish, from the depths, is not a good idea. If targeting salmon, lake trout, pike, walleye, whitefish, etc, from the depths as table fare...well then...have at it. Barotrauma or not. |
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Posts: 735
Location: Apparently where the Muskie aren't | Can't trout (I think salmon too) burp up the gas in there swim bladder? That's why you can catch them deep without issue. I know rainbows can do it because I've caught and releases them in over 50'. They never have a problem, they always just shoot straight back down. I also never remove trout from the water if I plan to release them. |
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Location: Around | Musky_Mo16 - 2/28/2017 3:27 PM
All fish can regulate their swim bladder, some just better than others (trout/salmon)
I should have used to term "burp". |
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Deep Pike