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Posts: 8
| im thinking about fishing with suckers for the fisrt time for muskie and just wondering how you guys normally rig them and fish with them, still fish or troll ?
also how big of a sucker do you fish at this time of year..... around here i shouldnt have a problem to find 8 maybe even 10 inchers , is that too small ?
any advice is appreciated
thanks in advance | |
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Posts: 663
| Best action in my area lately has been with suckers in the 12-14 inch range. We can't troll them here legally unless you are rowing. Best technique is to fish them vertically for better control. Move in and out of "fishy areas". A controlled drift will sometimes bring a fish up. There are a number of good quick strike rigs available and most of them will do the job. One of the easier rigs to master is the Smity rig. They're usually readily available and not too expensive. If you can find someone who has experience sucker fishing it's worth the time to go out with him and learn the ropes. | |
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Posts: 3242
Location: Racine, Wi | There are a few posts on here and I'm sure there are as many different rigs as fisherman out there, but definitely use a quick set rig, where you put a small hook, snap, or rubber band in the nose of the sucker, followed by a treble (or two) which get hooked on each side of the sucker (see the Mainia lift off rig for an example). Then when you set the hook, the rig breaks free from the sucker so you have a clean hook into the fish with no sucker flying around for leverage.
As far as sizes, this time of the year I tend to use 12-14" suckers. You can use 8-10"ers if that's all you can find, but you'll find you get more pike grabbing them. I suppose it's nice for action, but I like having bigger ones to lessen the pike hits. I don't like to go tooooo big either, as I feel my hooking % decrease with a bigger sucker.
Oh yeah, and down here, we can troll on our lakes (SE Wisconsin), so I run 3-4 suckers while casting (assuming we have enough guys in the boat to run that many). I like to keep one on the bottom, one half way down, one near the boat and high for followers, and one way back on a bobber for followers as well. As the water drops, I tend to keep a couple close to the bottom and one up high. Then cast away.
Hopefully that gets ya started. I'm sure others will chime in as well.
Edited by tuffy1 10/20/2010 7:51 AM
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | If the suckers are smaller, like 10-12", I usually a rig a quick strike with one treble in the side behind the dorsal fin run off a rubber band connection in the nose. If they are larger, like 16-20" I run two trebles, one on each side, one between the gills and dorsal and the other between the dorsal and tail. Figure the musky will make it's preferred attack by coming up from underneath the sucker grabbing it by the belly. Try to get at least one hook close enought to the center of the bait that you can set quickly and have a good chance the hook is inside the fish's mouth. I try to keep the hooks lower on the sucker but not on the belly, unless there is a lot of snaggy debris on the bottom. Then I'll run the hooks higher on the bait's sides.
Sometimes the fish won't touch smaller suckers but will jump all over larger ones. Sometimes they won't touch larger suckers but will slurp up smaller ones. Who knows? Sometimes it doesn't matter at all what size they are. No rules, just experiment and see what works best.
I like to fish suckers like I'd Lindy Rig walleyes, holding the rod, tapping the bottom ocassionally with the sinker, then sweeping the rod slowly upwards about six feet and keeping the boat from moving so fast it drags the suckers. I like to let the suckers swim as freely as possible so they advertise with max vibration. If I fish suckers, they are my primary presentation and I don't worry about casting. I will cast once in a while if the weather allows the boat to sit fairly still so I can put the sucker rod in a holder but still have the sucker freely swimming. But you have to put this in perspective as I fish a deeper flowage with lots of deep rocky structure. If I was on a shallower natural lake I'd probably modify the method to use at least one sucker on a bobber to cover higher weedy cover when it was an obvious choice, have one tight to the boat and mix in more casting especially if there were a couple other guys in the boat. | |
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Posts: 202
| As everyone already mentioned the most effective size for this time of year is the 12-14 inchers. Also make sure you have reels with clickers on them because the reel needs to remain in free spool with the clicker on. This will allow the musky to grab the sucker and take out line freely.
For quick strike rigs I would contact http://www.smokeysmuskieshop.com and ask for the rigs that are made my Leaders and Lures. In my opinion they make the best quality equipment on the market.
Good Luck
Captain Doug Kloet
http://www.dougkloet.com
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question about fishing with suckers