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Posts: 11
| Hey guys I'm sure it's been disused many times but I could not find any posts which clearly explained on how to do do a proper 8. I'm a newbie to the sport. Started last summer when without knowledge of muskie fishing my family went for a vacation at Presque Isle lake. Until then Ive caught some nice fish but nothing from esox family. We caught 7 pike during 3 hours of fishing but the biggest one was 24 inches. And we had some follows and I mean some monster fish and that's what got me hooked. Since then I spent At least 600 bucks on lures, bought rods, one of then ti 8xh split grip and reels garcia nacl 541 (which to be honest suck). We've just came back form a trip in vilas county on ballard lake but was nothing that I expected (reading all the reviews about it being an action lake). My father caught one fisf 37". Lets get to my question. I am from Chicago area and I usually fish mallard lake in dupage county. They've stocked it in 2006 and in last survey they did this April they've caught 26 fish largest one being 40". Last year I bought a boat and fished it since October til December and I only had one follow. Winter I spent on research, especially on this site and I bought most of the lures that I Have now. And every time I go out this year I have at least 2 follows but never seem to raise a fish. I know where the fish are but whenever they follow they get spooked after first or second turn of 8. I still get pretty freaked out when I see the fish but last 3 figure 8's I did seemed to me like I did everything right. I usually come with bait close to the boat run it along and then start the 8. And 10 of the fish I was able to bring in were on jr cowgirl black/nickle besides the one that t-boned my storm giant jointed stick(firetiger), about 15 feet from boat on a pause. Please guys give me some pointers what I'm doing wrong cuz Its been well over 10000 casts that I caught one. And why they're not biting before, since about 50 percent are caught on figure 8. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thx |
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Posts: 1638
Location: Minnesota | I would like to help you im in the same boat I have been musky fishing for 15 years I have yet to get one on the 8.i have had them chace it leave and come back but none will bite. im still waiting for that to happen myself just keep trying one of these days it will happen. |
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Posts: 11
| here is a 37 inch musky caught on ballard. Yeah I know looks bigger but my father is kinda small like a mario nintendo hehe |
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Posts: 11
| ballard |
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Location: North Metro, MN | sent u a pm |
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Posts: 2691
Location: Pewaukee, Wisconsin | I teach clients figure 8's and large ovals. Both work great. I believe that a large oval is easier to get them to eat.
When your bring your lure to the boat keep your rod tip in the water and make the bait stay down under the water enough so the fish are not headding at your boat, more like under it.
Then roll into your first turn deep and start bringing it up to the surface and start your outside turn just under the surface. Now speed up your lure and the fish will eat it. If it doesn't, then go into your second part of the oval and start your depth drop again on the turn. Repeat this a few times with bursts of speed after each end of the oval is complete. Don't speed it up too much on the turns. But speed it way up on the straight aways.
Why I like this better than the 8's is because the depth changes, speed changes and direction changes all trigger strikes. Too tight of direction changes can make a big fish lose interest. Big wide, deep, shallow ovals keep them thinking about eating with little effort on chasing baits.
Tight figure 8's at the same depth cause fish to find something easier to eat.
Always bring your bait in to the boat low in the water so they are not looking straight at your boat. More like under it then when your coming out of your first deep turn the bait is up high and the fish can only see your lure and open water. Your next turn is down deep again. This will keep the fish from seeing your bost to some degree.
I will run lures three feet under the surface as I get to the boat and roll into the deep straight with a burst of speed. Roll into the turn and come up high out of the turn and give it a burst. She will eat it most of the time up high.
Just my opinion on the oval vs figure 8.
If you figure 8 do it big and wide with depth changes. My experience is that most do the 8 too small and with little depth change.
Ovals can make it all work.
Remember the speed. That's the trigger.
Pull it away from the muskie and it will trigger its instincts to hammer it.
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Posts: 4343
Location: Smith Creek | Most of the guys I know that fish Northern Wisconsin catch maybe 5-15% on the 8. Canada and Minnesota are a different story. Guys with the best boatside technique on the planet can go a year or 2 without catching one on the 8 (in northern WI).
So it isn't necessarily your technique. |
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Posts: 393
Location: Hopefully on the water | "I still get pretty freaked out when I see the fish but last 3 figure 8's I did seemed to me like I did everything right."
It takes time but just relax when fish are coming in on baits. Sudden movements can scare off fish just as easily as a poor figure 8. You want to make the whole process seem like a well oiled machine from the sight of the fish, into the figure 8 and hopefully into a mouthful of hooks. It is something that takes some time before all goes right. Mike has some real good points as to bringing in the bait and through the turns that helps alot. Out of what he said there are three main points to it... depth, speed and size of figure 8 or oval in my opinion.
You mentioned that some of the fish have been on Junior Cowgirls. A option to try and trigger a strike ahead of the 8 would be to give the reel a couple quick, hard reels with the handle. It can make the "hair woof' that can get a reaction. Depending on the water clarity those can be some close combat stuations that are about as fun as getting them on the 8 if you are picking the fish close to the boat.
Take the fish that you have had come in and think about which way you started your figure 8. Did you start your first turn towards the middle of the boat or out away from your board? now which way did the fish go with that first move. For me I like to make my first turn going away from the the boat. It is just something that has worked for me. Other may have different views or not see any difference.
While it can be frustrating seeing them and not converting them it will happen. Stick with it longer than you think you should be and they will bite. When they do it seems to get a little easier each time and practice watching the fish on how they react to the different , depths, speeds and change of direction. Good luck. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | normally most fish will eat if you speed it up...but from experience 2 years ago on lotw, i can without a doubt tell you sometimes slow is the key.... so it all boils down to reading the fish....let the fish tell you what they want, if you speed up and it doesn't...then slow down.... outside turns should be away from the boat, not into the boat.. the usual 'take it away from them' trick sometimes can turn them off so it comes down to lots of experiences to start to read the fish... quite a few musky hunter articles on proper figure 8s
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Posts: 304
Location: Lino Lakes, MN | Several things have helped me out with hits on figure 8's or ovals at the boat.
1) Long rod- I have a Okuma 9'3" XH
2) double bladed bucktails
3) reel with horsepower- Saltist 20, 30, or any strong reel.
Steps for me
1-keep a fairly fast (daytime) retrieve and at the fist sign of a follow shift into a higher gear- the Saltist 30 let my baits lunge forward like 4 feet and many times that trips a trigger in the fish to close on the bait.
2- as the speed is kicked in I also start to lower the rod tip into the water to get the fish looking at something other than the sky or my ugly face.
3- I try to transition into a smooth curve into the 8-coming in deeper near the boat and high on the outside turn. The trick is to keep the blades moving faster or playing keep away from the fish. Many times if you have a very fast and smooth transition into the turn the hit will come on the high outside corner. Then it is fast on the straight away and slowed a little in the turn. ( This is where the XH rod comes into play- too soft and you get very tired doing good 8's- Too stiff of a rod and you sacrifice some casting ability).
At night the transition into the turns are even more important.
there are some other thing that guy's are doing with wind on leaders that will help with the nice smooth boat side moves.
You also need to fish with confidence at all times. You need to pay attention and in the case of the big MN fish they always come in when you glance at your locator, foot pedal or turn to see where you are. Never fails.
I don't fish as hardcore as many- but these tips have helped me convert many more fish at boat side. 50% of my fish now come at boat side.
Jeremy Johnson from Whispering Winds on Lake Vermilion shared some of these tips with me and they have helped me convert more of those boat side fish. My largest to date came on a boat side strike.
Good Luck
Steve |
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Posts: 64
Location: Crystal Lake, IL | Some lakes just aren't figure 8 lakes. I'm not saying you won't get them on the 8, but there are some lakes that they get a large percentage of fish on the 8 and others a very small percentage. Keep at it though, your time will come. All of the advice above is great. |
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Posts: 8782
| You can drive yourself nuts. It took me years to catch my first fish on a figure 8. That fish was going to eat no matter what, but after that I really started to understand that a figure 8 is not just the period at the end of a cast. It's your chance to change the fish's mind, because if it wanted to eat your lure it would have by then. You can talk and read about changes in depth, and speed, fast here slow there, but it all comes down to a few simple things in my opinion:
1. make sure your figure 8's/ovals are large enough where the fish can turn with the lure
2. keep the lure where the fish can eat it
3. The rest. The rest will come with time. No other way around it. You can read a dictionary on figure 8's, and until you've missed fish, lost fish, scared fish away, and actually caught some fish it's all just a suggestion. Someone told me long ago to "read the fish"... I was never sure what that meant. After some 8 weeks on Eagle Lake? Ahhh. Read the fish. That's good advice right there. The only way to learn that is to DO it.
#1 bit of advice I can give?
You're going to blow it. A LOT. Take those incidents and figure out what went wrong, and do better next time. Don't get angry. Yes, you ****ed it up - but that's how you learn. When you get one to eat? Figure out what went right and try to duplicate that next time. Treat every fish like a lesson. You'll get it eventually, and you will look forward to the figure 8 fish more than the ones that eat on the end of a cast. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | also try to keep your movements fluid and not herky jerky.... you'll scare em pretty quick if you act like you've never seen a big fish before! 
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Posts: 2687
Location: Hayward, WI | I think you have some good tips from everyone else so I won't go into much detail. A few key points for me that have increased my figure 8 percentage:
1.) Longer rods. I caught very few fish in the 8 when I used 8 foot and shorter rods. It seemed like when I went to 8'6" to 9' rods my figure 8 percentage went up. The key is big wide circles in the 8. Think of taking the bait as far away from the boat as possible, rather than figure 8ing along the length of your boat.
2.) Smooth. Just about every fish seems to dart off immediately if the 8 was herky-jerky or if you have sudden body movement. Do a figure 8 every cast. If nothing else the muscle memory will be ingrained to do it properly when a fish follows.
3.) Don't stop the 8 as soon as you lose sight of the fish! The fish I catch in the 8 seem to sink or take off about 75 percent of the time before coming back and hitting the bait. Seems a lot of times they reposition and come back from under the boat/under the bait and hit in the high outside corner. I would keep doing 8's for at least a minute after losing sight of the fish. A lot of them come back.
4.) Set the hook towards the fish's tail to drive the hooks into the mouth rather than pulling them out of a fish's mouth.
For me, longer rods and experience have helped a lot with my success in the 8. Years ago I rarely connected in the 8. Now if I get a solid follow (the lazy, 2 feet down and 6 feet back ones are tough), I'm relatively confident that I can get the fish to bite.
Tucker |
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Posts: 994
Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | When I was guiding on a regular basis I would give clients a light lesson on the 8 at the dock. A reminder on the L turn about an hour later and then wait until I was fairly sure we had one under the boat. Then we would do a full lesson. Sometimes it even worked! All good advice above the only thing I would add is make your 8/Oval part of your mechanics not your thought process. Let it be instinct that presents a good 8 or Oval maneuver. Then the only thoughts you have to process is want is the fish telling you as you go. A stutter in the outside high turns often turns a curious fish into a taste test event! |
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| A couple of things to add:
1. The "freak out" may cause you to make a sudden movement. Instead, you have to tell yourself that there is going to be a follow on every cast, so when you finally have one, you are not surprised and don't freak out.
2. Make sure you are wearing polarized sunglasses so you can spot follows further away from the boat.
3. Watch a video of Bill Sandy doing a figure eight in the Musky Hunter TV show. His technique is darn near perfect.
Brian
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Posts: 1220
| I beleive the more experienced the angler, the higher percentage of fish on the eight. That said, however, you would do well to provide as much opportunity you can to induce a musky to bite prior. Let's face it, bucktails produce a lot of follows all the way to the boat and bucktails are really popular. We fish for what seems to be ALL DAY, and then we see the follow finally appear. We often become frozen with fear that the fish will leave, somehow not be able to keep up with the retreive or some other dumb idea. The plain fact is that we have done nothing yet to really trigger a strike and are likely afraid to do so. My advice...try to take the bait away from the fish when it is just visible. Reel like a SOB, sweep the rod, dip it, lift it, change the direction of your retrieve. Say in your mind, "I'm going to try to take this bait away and see just how fast this fish can swim!" The answer always is, "faster than you can crank!" When that does not work, your figure eight (or oval) has to be the natural end to every cast, a practiced to death move that has no hurky-jerky disgustingly obvious sillowette cartoon that anybody would take notice of (blue shirt or not.) After all that, I'd start to look at stuff like the "hang move" Jim Saric has recently written about, but first...you have to have this a part of every cast, every single time. If you are any kind of a bucktail guy, you will get to 60% or more of your fish on the "eight!" |
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| If you can afford a Gopro camera get one. You can watch your technique when you get home. In your head you may think you are doing it right but the camera never lies. |
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| When you figure eight, pay attention to the lure, not the rod tip. You think your loops are big enough when looking at the rod. However when you look at the lure, you realize how small the loops are.
Make sure to reel the lure right up to the leader. Too much line out makes for small loops.
Brian
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Posts: 11
| Hey guys. Thx for all your help. I'll try to utilize every hint you gave me. Can not get any new equipment; I'm kind of short on cash. To be honest my day is complete when I see the fish; something about them approaching the lure. Again best forum ever and I'll try to post some pics of my dads muskie, some interesting colors on it. Just trying to find a software to resize the image without geting a virus. |
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Posts: 11
| for the 3rd time here is a pic
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Posts: 11
| Mario bros vs musky hehe told u he looks like it. But the question is about the colors. Many pics of musky I've seen but never so dark. |
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Posts: 1455
Location: Kronenwetter, WI | Many fish will not follow into the 8 but turn off and disappear. I like to go deep and large, get on a knee and work that for a while, has paid off big when there was no sign the fish was still around. Just b/c you can't see the fish doesn't mean it's not close by still contemplating the meal.
Edited by Cowboyhannah 7/18/2013 9:56 PM
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Posts: 3868
| Gotta go with the either the "Stevie Wonder" or "There's a Cop Looking at Me Right Now". Two time-proven successful approaches to figure 8's.
Stevie: Plan to be able to do a graceful 8 with your eyes closed. No kidding. Folks miss seeing most follows even in good conditions. Weather, darkness and fatigue means we don't see most of the rest. So be a talented blind dude as you learn to go into and manage your 8's. Gearing up for such is another question.
Cops: There is always a cop looking at me so I better behave accordingly. Apply that value to your bait from when it begins to hit the water until you pull it out. No slop, no downtime, stay right on line all the time. This relates to the point above: you have to do it no matter what, under all circumstances. Application of this thought model that has kept me out of jail for years. Oh, and I caught some fish, too. Gear up as above and make sure all your lights are working on your truck and trailer.
I use a Bucher Super Splitring between the line and the leader, day and night. Once that ring hits the top eye my rod tip is already way under water and I'm starting the sweep into the first turn. If I can see, I look behind the bait first then I look hard for deep follows. Deep follows are almost always much bigger fish. Anyway, I 8 for hot fish, throw back with a slow-sinking jig/creature for deep follows or come back later.
There.
Edited by Ranger 7/18/2013 11:25 PM
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Posts: 11
| Guys thanx for all the help. Theyre still not taking on 8, went deep shallow, wide and oval. I bought some shallow invaders(every color possible),even after reading about very bad hookups. And that bait is crazy. First 2 hours i used it firetiger. I threw close to deeper weeds and boom, never had a hit i deep water so just started reeling in. He/she was atleast forty and right by the boat jumped up at took tail of invader and swallowed it.. Next week first 30min I throw against some submerged trees and one follows but just dint come to eat. Threw other direction and caught 16 inch bass. Not sure what to conclude from this but they(invaders gotta produce fish). i was throwing white fish, sucker and 2 minutes after I changed to firetiger bam. So color has got to have so influence besides action. Bad hook ups but ill take em any day. |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Got a muskie on the 8 day before yesterday. Second fish. Not a monster, but a decent fish for this tiny lake.
Video |
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Posts: 2894
Location: Yahara River Chain | I'll add one more tip. Don't yell "there's one" when you see them. They can hear the sound underwater and spook off. I had a buddy do that for some time, till he realized he was spooking them when he yelled. |
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Posts: 122
| Interesting info I just got my first fish strike on an eight (she missed the hooks) she was hungry around 40 inches followed four times. First eight she left. Second I kept to tight... she couldn't turn sharp enough.... four time she stuck I leaned down deep and made wide figure eights as posted here guessing and she hit and got no hooks. I just told my husband wish I new what I was doing.... guess I figured it out.... adding a question ever worry about the slam knocking you off balance? She nipped is this safe? |
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Posts: 87
| Nell - 8/13/2013 12:17 PM
Interesting info I just got my first fish strike on an eight (she missed the hooks) she was hungry around 40 inches followed four times. First eight she left. Second I kept to tight... she couldn't turn sharp enough.... four time she stuck I leaned down deep and made wide figure eights as posted here guessing and she hit and got no hooks. I just told my husband wish I new what I was doing.... guess I figured it out.... adding a question ever worry about the slam knocking you off balance? She nipped is this safe?
Nell,
no need to worry about the strike knocking you off balance. Atleast in my experience. almost 40% of my fish have come on the 8 and I have never been knocked off balance. I have been handcuffed before meaning I was reaching way out to the left or right and the fish hit where I could not set the hook. That sucks. I find that most fish nip in the 8 and a hookset is the most important part to landing the fish.
Some tips I don't think I read above.
1) Always back set. (set back into the fish this helps get better hooks into the fish) I used to practice my back set from time to time while doing figure 8s with no fish. Practice makes perfect. Make sure you tell your boat partner your are doing that otherwise they will freak out! (most important part to landing a fish!)
2) Make sure when you do your L you put your reel in free spool. If you dont and you have a locked down drag you can not let the fish run if it wants to. Big fish on 12 inches of line will just head shake if they cant go. As a result you will lose them because your rod does not have enough line out to be effective. Practice this on every cast. (second most important part to landing a fish!)
I like figure 8 fish because i think it is a very personal way to catch a fish. You are really in control of everything and see it coming. I do think that the fights tend to suck on the 8 but hey at least you caught the fish rite! If given a choice I would have a big fish eat at the beginning of the cast and not at the 8. The 8 is still fun but not as good! I guess I like catching them anyway they want to eat ha ha!
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Posts: 122
| Free spool I keep reading and never heard that one makes sense!!! Thanks!!! |
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Watch that video I linked. Free spooling every time you hear the 'click' I don't even think about it anymore. Not saying this is something everyone should do, but it works for me. |
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Posts: 371
Location: Dixon, IL | Long rods make better figure 8 is make sense! I never hook one and several by boatside and it escaped! |
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| Hey guys finally stuck one. Not too impressive but a musky anyways. Got very close to a boat but instead of starting figure 8 I just stopped, right after I saw it, and that's when it took it. 30 min before I had a follow from I think the same fish and at the first turn of 8 just freaked out and never came back. Took it on black/nickle cowgirl so again kudos. |
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Posts: 11
| Week before I lost 40 plus by boat on firetiger shallow invader but anyways here is a pic of a musky I caught. |
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Posts: 11
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