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| There are all sorts of different lakes out there from the ones in Canada to the ones all the way down to Kentucky. Do you think that are some lakes that certain lures just wont work? Lets take a bulldawg for example. It seems like the bulldawg does great up in Minnesota or Canada. But does the bulldawg work just as well in Kentucky or Illinois? Im talking about any lure not just bulldawgs. And obviously you have to have confidence in a lure to do well with it. So are those lures that have been proven lures in history, but for some reason we do not well with them because they just dont work as well on the body of water we are fishing? or is it just because we lack the confidence in the lure and if we stuck with it long enough eventually we would see results? what do you think? | |
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| Haha I have seen that video. But where are those guys? I am sure they fishing up north on some lake with no fishing pressure and those fish with come investigate anything. What about the fish that are more finicky? | |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Location and timing are far more imporntant than lure. I have caught many fish on a surface lure the instant it hit the water that fish didn't know if it was a surface lure or a socket wrench or what colour it was. It was right place right time. I do 80% of my casting with a firetiger suick or a Rob Dey spinnerbait two lures I have a lot of confidence in. I have yet to fish anywhere they won't work. Why then do I have hundreds of lures I guess I have 2 hobbies musky fishing and lure collecting.
Edited by horsehunter 4/5/2012 8:37 AM
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Posts: 470
Location: Blaine, MN | Curious George - 4/5/2012 8:26 AM
Haha I have seen that video. But where are those guys? I am sure they fishing up north on some lake with no fishing pressure and those fish with come investigate anything. What about the fish that are more finicky?
If I remember correctly, it's been a while since I've seen the video, they are on Leech Lake... it looked like they were having an enjoyable day. | |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | I think there are absolutely lures that aren’t as productive on some waters as they are on others. Two lakes I fish are virtually across the road from each other, but the fish act totally different. One lake the fish will eat any size bait, and love rubber. On the other I have yet to get a fish on a crank over 8” long, and have yet to catch one on rubber. Not saying it hasn’t happen for someone else, or won’t happen for me but some lures just cater to certain lakes. A lot of it comes down to the forage base of a lake. Take for example lakes with small shad in the south. Rattle traps are killers in those lakes. While you can catch fish in northern WI on rattletraps, they just don’t seem to be as productive as they are in the south. | |
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Location: West Metro, MN | I think most lures will catch a fish just about anywhere, it is more of a question of if they are the right choice for the lake you are fishing. It takes enought effort to catch a muskie so I figure try and do what you can to put the odds in your favor. | |
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Posts: 433
Location: Cedarburg, Wisconsin | Conditions dictate the effectiveness of lures I think, moreso than geographical location of the lake.
For instance, one spring we were fishing Lac Seul for pike. We found a shallow weedbed in an out of the way bay and it was absolutely infested with pike. We were pounding them with spoons. For kicks I switched to a spinnerbait, one I had caught lots of pike on here in S. Wis. I couldn't get that thing bit to save my life. Later that year I was back up fishing Lac Seul again and the pike hit the same spinnerbait better than the spoons.
If I only had gone to the lake one time I'd have sworn that spinnerbaits were the most useless lures ever invented for pike. So, I always figure that before I condemn the bait as no good on the lake, give it another chance under different conditions. Then if it fails again while other lures are working, I'll probably not bother with it again on that water. | |
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Location: Lake "y" cause lake"x" got over fished | I feel that I have a condition that I like to call OCLCD, obsessive compulsive lure changing disorder. Sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes its not
That being said I throw DC10s and 13s most of the time. However I will give each lure (not just blades) 20-30 casts each... if nothing hits I switch and repeat the process until I figure out what the fish wants. Once I get to that point. I will usually stick with that style or color for the rest of the day.
But as far as knowing what works and doesn't work on a particular body of water... I guess I change to much to truly know. | |
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Location: 31 | Curious George - 4/5/2012 8:17 AM There are all sorts of different lakes out there from the ones in Canada to the ones all the way down to Kentucky. Lets take a bulldawg for example. It seems like the bulldawg does great up in Minnesota or Canada. But does the bulldawg work just as well in Kentucky or Illinois? Im talking about any lure not just bulldawgs. And obviously you have to have confidence in a lure to do well with it. So are those lures that have been proven lures in history, but for some reason we do not well with them because they just dont work as well on the body of water we are fishing? or is it just because we lack the confidence in the lure and if we stuck with it long enough eventually we would see results? what do you think? What we think really doesn't matter, it's what the fish “thinks”… or more specifically would react positively to that really matters. Do you think that are some lakes that certain lures just wont work? My opinion is that every lure that's reasonably geared toward muskie will eventually catch one on every body of water… obviously some will work better than others. I like to visualize my lures as tools, and try to select the right tool for the right job. We've all hammered with wrenches and pried with screwdrivers, probably the muskie lure equivalent of throwing a buzz bait in Wisconsin in November. But does the bulldawg work just as well in Kentucky or Illinois? I would say generally speaking no. This question is actually a little off-base because you should be comparing the lures effectiveness to other lakes types, water temperature, ect. It's not the geographical range, if you compare the lakes fairly, then I would say the answer is yes, the lures are for the most part pretty universal. For instance a 13 inch grandma might be your number one trolling lure on a deep clear lake on Minnesota in the fall, but the equivalent of prying with a screwdriver on a shallow weed choked lake containing only smallish fish in June in Wisconsin. And obviously you have to have confidence in a lure to do well with it. I think this is a key statement because if you have been using a lure you have confidence in under certain conditions, you should be able to have the same confidence in it a 1000 miles away, in my twisted brain it should work almost identically, the same as a hammer and nail would. Case in point, when the grandma 9” first came out (I'm talking the eyes were being glued in) I was all over it as a jerk bait because I drooled on the way it had a big flash, and the outstanding hookups you get with three 5/0s on a thinner plastic bait. I would typically go to Lake of the Woods with 10 of these baits and come back with four or five missing lips. Then, when I first went to the Ottawa some 15+ years ago, conditions were very similar and crushed them on that lure there too. In some of lower 48 lakes I fish, its effectiveness is still just as good for me now as it was 20 years ago. Are there better choices available? Maybe… but I know that tool will get the job done for me still. | |
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Location: 31 | Almost-B-Good - 4/5/2012 12:25 PM Conditions dictate the effectiveness of lures I think, more so than geographical location of the lake. It's pretty funny that we were both thinking and writing the same thing at the same time. In my mind geographical location is "almost" as much of a non-issue as color, but that's a whole other discussion. 
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Two brothers I know went fishing with a big name Quebec guide. He gave them each a very different looking bucktail and they both fished with that bucktail all day. They each caught a number of good fish and they each caught a 50 inch plus fish.
I Repeat location and timing. I would rather use the worst lure in the best location than the best lure in the worst location. | |
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Location: minocqua, wi. | horsehunter - 4/5/2012 2:25 PM
I would rather use the worst lure in the best location than the best lure in the worst location.
Ibidah!!! | |
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| horsehunter - 4/5/2012 2:25 PM
Two brothers I know went fishing with a big name Quebec guide. He gave them each a very different looking bucktail and they both fished with that bucktail all day. They each caught a number of good fish and they each caught a 50 inch plus fish.
I Repeat location and timing. I would rather use the worst lure in the best location than the best lure in the worst location.
Well, you can't catch em where they aint, but........some lures ARE better than others. | |
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Location: 31 | horsehunter - 4/5/2012 2:25 PM Two brothers I know went fishing with a big name Quebec guide. He gave them each a very different looking bucktail and they both fished with that bucktail all day. They each caught a number of good fish and they each caught a 50 inch plus fish. I Repeat location and timing. I would rather use the worst lure in the best location than the best lure in the worst location. I think that different looking bucktails example is right there with irrelevant in proving a point, but I think everyone can agree with location having far and away the most relevance on any system. I say this because obviously the big-name guide had them properly positioned on the best locations, and even in the most extreme examples it can never be proven that a muskie had a preference for one color over another (assuming that's the difference). When I hear someone say that a muskie wanted the red one and not the green one that day just because the green one was the first lure through (or something to that effect), I kind of chuckle because it conjures up a vision of a muskie watching one go by with disinterest, and then slamming the other one based solely on a this perceived color preference. There's just way too many variables to consider to just lock in on the most obvious difference to us, color.
I know some of you guys are firm believers in trying to find the right color for that particular day, and I don't have a problem with that (it's certainly plausible) except that if/when a fish is contacted, assumptions have to be made that the color was the reason. Countless times I've witnessed this color was the reason scenario in my boat, and then another fish gets caught on the same color, confirming this is the reason to the other guy, but in my mind this proves little or nothing because we catch so few muskies to begin with. Do I keep that lure in the water - of course!
My thinking is that sometimes this perceived color preference just might happen to "match the hatch", (for lack of better terminology), and that's a different argument in my opinion... especially on an over-pressured fishery. I was kind of rambling here but, what can I say... I'm not fishing today and this stuff interests me.
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Location: Sycamore, IL | Here's a story: My buddy and I went down to Cave Run for the first time this year and did a lot of trolling for 4 days. After talking with Tony and Mike at the MML we decided that we would troll all rattle traps in our spread of 5 lines. We put out a firetiger, chrome clown, redhead, orange and black spots and a Chartreuse with black spots. The first 6 hits came on the chartreuse with black spots...we snagged into a fish crib with the chartreuse lure and after much wrangling were able to pull the crib out of the water...attatched to the crib was another chartreuse and black spot rattle trap. We made the decision to add this to our spread and take out the orange and black spot. The next two hits came on the new chartreuse and black spot trap. We then caught one fish on the clown and then two more on the chartreuse with black spots. We had fish hit this lure in every rod position that we were trolling-out, down and prop. My point...sometimes color matters!
Matt | |
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Location: Muskegon Michigan | In many years of Muskie fishing I have noticed at least a couple of trends I see in trolling lures for one. I live about halfway up the lower pen. of Michigan on the West side. I find bigger baits work better on bigger water. I find longer profile baits seem to work better in areas north of Indiana while Shad profiles seem to work better south of the Michigan Border. It seems the further north I go the Better the Jake style seems to work and the further south I go the better small Shad baits seem to work. I have NEVER caught a Musky on a Loke or a Slasher south of Michigan but have caught hundreds of them on Lake St. Clair and other northern Michigan and Wisconsin lakes/ Ontario lakes. I dont catch many fish in Michigan and North on Shad profiles until I get over 7 inches in length.
What I have decided on this issue is forage types change from southern states to northern states and Canada. Muskies in Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio eat lots of Shad while Suckers, Whitefish, Cisco Perch etc seem to be the foods of choice in northern areas. To me this is a profile thing. Longer more slender types versus shorter drop belly shad types. However Casting is a bit different. Top water for instance the Weagle seems to get bit anywhere for me. I do a lot better though with smaller bucktails on southern lakes then I do with double 10's and such.
I really think bigger water generally allows us to fish bigger baits due to more available bigger forage. For this reason on smaller inland Lakes in Michigan 90% of my fish caught casting and trolling are caught on baits from 5 to 7 inches all year long. I did notice an increase in strikes on 10 inch lures on several Inland Lakes in Michigan during late fall as well. I do throw bigger baits but the contact ratio is way less with big lures on small lakes. Now on Bigger water I have good luck with bigger baits. I will be casting St. Clair for the first time this season and believe me Ill be tossing some big stuff. So in short yes. I think there are certain patterns that are detectable in different areas of the muskie range. There are however certain baits that just catch fish everywhere. Crane baits are one, My Little Claw twitch versions, Mepps Musky Killers, Smaller bull dawgs, Top water. I can also see a real pattern in sales of what I sell in the south and what I sell north. Mike
Edited by Kingfisher 4/7/2012 2:48 PM
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Location: 31 | Hey Matt, great story…. I think there was something definitely going on with the chartreuse and black baits that I could never explain away. Was it the color… sure sounds like it to me… Surprised? I really work hard to stay open minded, learn new things, and not be afraid to be proven wrong. I think it's consequential that you even tried the bait at different stations, because most guys put it right back in the same holder. How ironic is it that you snagged a winner, and then caught a couple fish on it. FYI, if I'm in the boat with you guys, I make the same call to put that second one out. Just so everyone's clear, I don't profess to be right about the color debate (it's just what I think and do), and I even believe there almost has to be times that the more logical reason for success is color like with Matt. I honestly just don't know when and if I have seen it enough of it myself to be a firm believer.
But like I said, most of us catch so few of these fish that color becomes a very subjective variable anyway, and there's a couple things I could throw out there regarding Matt's story... but let's just assume it was the color even though it was only a four-day trip. I would be very interested to hear if somebody has a similar experience that encompasses years.
One explanation is that the chartreuse and black color may have just looked more like the forage than the other colors? I think that's plausible, and even though it's certainly a color, and chartreuse and black doesn't look like forage to us… we are not fish. Let me try to explain...
I'm confident that “matching the hatch” color on a bait has helped to put more fish in my boat several times. Something that comes to mind is once we were really having a particularly hard time on a heavily pressured system. Nothing was working, then we noticed a school of shad and decided to snap on a couple shimr’n shad Bucher jointed Shallowraiders. It was kind of trippy how much it looked like one of those a real shads swimming, the color and action looked dead on to me. In sum, we started catching a couple fish and have consistently caught more on that “color” there since then too. Using this example, I contend that this is not is not a fair argument regarding color making a difference. I want to see some off the wall stupid color make a difference. It's kind of hard to explain but basically I would like to hear about something similar to what happened to Matt, only over a longer course of time. If I hear it enough, I might change my mind. I consider Kingfisher's post is pretty much just matching the hatch.
Here's a story: A good while back I was introduced to a really different style trolling jointed crank bait, this lure piqued my interest because it had recently taken a giant, and was radically different than anything else I had in my tackle box.
Like any good “lure buying” fishermen I bought a gross of them in different colors and almost immediately started catching fish on 2 different ones that were the same color… they were getting pounded even though they were running right alongside the others. These 2 studs quickly became my go to baits whenever the conditions were right, and they continued to vastly out produce the others. I distinctly remember thinking, maybe color does matter with this bait??? GASP!
Then one calm sunny afternoon I was tuning lures and noticed that the studs were definitely “wandering” better than the others, so I started switching tails sections around and putting different weight hooks here and there to try to get the non-wanderers to wander like the studs (didn’t even care if they had different colored front and back bodies). Long story longer, I managed to get few of those odd ball colored ones to wander the same, and they started catching fish like the studs. What does this prove? Well I'm pretty well convinced that the fish had a distinct preference for the wanderers, and this little experiment spanned many fish for well over a decade.
Now you want to hear something weird? I only have one of those studs left and it's always the first in the water… probably because there's this little devil on my shoulder telling me that it might be partially the color. I can't explain it, but I think it's just the most obvious outward thing I see, even those I know some of the others wander just as good. | |
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Different Lures on Different Lakes