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| I have read many different takes on when muskies suspend and some are contradictory. Do muskies suspend less in darker waters than clear or do they suspend closer to cover or structure in these darker waters? In clear lakes I have read that the prefer to suspend in the fall but some say in the summer and other say early spring before any weedgrowth. Sounds like they suspend all year long. Anybody want to share their experiences/thoughts? | |
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| I spend most of my time persuing suspended muskies, and here is my take on the subject. Muskies suspend ALL year long no matter what the water color is. I fish a lot of very clear waters, and I'll target suspendos right from opening day here in WI. Sure it may be easier to contact clear water muskies in the shallows in the spring, sometimes, but I find quite a few out in no mans land. As far as darker water goes, the same thing applies. I find the suspendos are out there from the end of may through November.
Now the great debate. Is fishing some type of structure out in the lake (humps, reefs, long points extending into deep water, etc...) considered suspended fish? I believe so, and fishing these types of areas are great ways for new suspendo hunters to target until they get their confidence built up. Don't limit yourself to a form of structure though. There are a few spots in the middle of nowhere that are great, and I still sometimes wonder what makes them special from the other hundreds of acres of "basin" in the lakes.
Simply put, the fish are out there all year long. I have even seen muskies while icefishing swimming by in over 20 feet of water just a few feet below the hole. | |
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| My experience, mainly w/ rockfish, is that they do like Travis said. Since there are mostly shad here, the bait is often near the main river channels, and that is where the rockfish/musky are...no humps bumps etc, but there are usually at least some shad around nearby. They will relate to structure for sure, but not always. We rarely have any dark water, and in general the weather is warmer. Trolling is the prefered method of fishing the deep, unless the fish have pushed the bait to the surface. | |
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| I also like to chase the suspended fish. But I am a river fisherman first and foremost so I concentrate on mid June through mid July as my favorite time to chase the open water fish. I fish mostly the classic clear stuff, but do have a couple favorite "honey" darker lakes, and like to first look at what their main forage base is. I then look at the main pieces of structure on the lake and look for travel corridors between them. Once I know what the prey is, I can try to minimize the search area. Certain darker lakes are actually easier to open water fish than some of the gin bottles, as I've found the forage to use the same areas all year in relation to structure. Also, alot these lakes are a bit shallower, and you can eliminate alot of area just in depth. I like to find the biggest points and weed flats on these lakes and connect the dots for fish that travel between them, then find areas where suckers or perch for example may be stationed on benthic transition areas within my target travel areas. Often the fish and I see things differently, but once in awhile we connect. | |
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| Thanks for the responses and the details but what exactly is a benthic transition area...is that gaelic? | |
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| When I look for "travel routes" I usually have in mind what I think Reef Hawg has referred to as the Benthic Transition Area.
Call it what you want.... but in its most simple form it is what most of us refer to as the "weedline". The horizontal plane established by the end of the Euphotic Zone (depth at which their is enough light for photosynthesis and survival of plants) and the beginning of the Benthic Zone (not enough light to available to sustain plant life) and the vertical plane where the Littoral (weedline) and Limnetic (open water) zones meet is what I beleive Reef Hawg is talking about. At the very least... it is one of the primary travel routes I consider when trying to learn a new body of water.
If all these technical terms just make this simple phenomena appear too complicated... just check out this link
http://wow.nrri.umn.edu/wow/under/primer/page10.html
that I found at www.esoxresearch.com and it will show you a very nice picture of what I tried to describe. A picture makes it much easier to understand.
In lakes with healthy weed growth... this zone (weedline) is easy to identify and locate. However, many of the best cisco based lakes where suspended muskies seem to be most often targeted.... there usually is a lack of weeds, making this area a little more difficult to pinpoint.
Not something to live and die by... but most certainly something to consider when chasing "suspendos".
jlong
P.S. Reef Hawg... if I am incorrect in your idea of the Benthic Transition definition... please correct me. | |
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| jlong. I'm at handys house so I'm using his logon. I look at it the same way you do, but the transition area I was referring to is sometimes quite difficult to pinpoint, and i think you said that in your post concerning cisco lakes. however, many non cisco lakes without weeds have this transition and is often the key to finding those fish. You sometimes see it on your locator graph when the crystals on the bottom seem to be really rough, then all of a sudden smooth out and the gray line gets thicker. In college, this was the area that we were able to get some of our best Benthic organism(mostly insect) collections. Seems this is also the area on lakes where perch like to stack in the winter to feed on daphnia(sp).
email me that link you referred to at [email protected] as I was not able to get onto it. Thanks,
\Jason Schillinger | |
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| Jason, thanks for the clarification. It sounds to me like you are more referring to the hard-to-soft bottom transition areas. This may or may not have any relationship to light penetration. Benthic organisms perfer muck over sand... but not sure why the areas where these two substrates come together is such a hotspot other than it is yet another type of "edge" for fish to relate too rather than a "barrier" type structure that I favor. Lot's of good sticks taking advantage of hard-to-soft transition areas.... unfortunately I am not one of them. I need some help learning more about it before I can incorporate it into my approach/strategy. Care to provide a little training???[:halo:] [:bigsmile:] This edge is just so darn hard to follow. Heck... I have a hard enough time following a sharp breakline... let alone watching the grayline on my Lowrance.
As for the link... maybe try accessing it through the ERC website? Not sure why it didn't work for you here. I tried it and it worked just fine.
jlong | |
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| Those two areas are often one and the same(sometimes evidenced on lakes where weeds exten to certain point, then stop creating weedline but depth remains the same or suitable for light to reach weeds)so yes the benthic transition area I was refferring to was just that. You are right, the blind ones(ones without weeds or barrier structure) are hard to follow(pain in the butt my partner always says), and I've only been able to key on them in a couple lakes. We have done the marker buoy thing a couple times, but mine keep getting ripped off!!! I'll try thr site again after I simmer from my bad news today(check my size limit post). | |
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Suspendos