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Posts: 1828
| What's your favorite way to catch a muskie?
Call me weird, but with all outdoor sports, there are certain ways I love catching fish or shooting game, and other ways that just don't do it for me. For example, I love duck hunting, and shooting ducks when they're dumping in to the decoys, feet down and wings back-pedaling, is one of my favorite things to do. But setting up a fly-by spot and pass shoot, I'd rather not even go.
My favorite catch scenario in the musky world is hooking one boatside on a bucktail. If I may get even more specific, it adds to the excitement if: it's windy and the boat is really rocking; I see the fish come in, it takes off at the boat, but then comes back several figure-8's later and smashes the bait ferociously; my daughter, dog, or both is (are) with me [always more fun with them]. To me, that's about as fun as it gets. I'll take em any way I can get em, but some other catch scenarios just don't float my boat.
Another new favorite is using a big sucker below the boat with the rod in the rod holder, reel clicker on and bail open. I'll disclose right away I've only personally caught one this way. It's pretty much the opposite side of the musky-catching-spectrum from the boatside scenario, but it's also totally exhilarating. I loved hearing the reel spin on the initial strike, I loved the panic of trying to get the rod out of the rod-holder, I loved ever-so-gently trying to feel for which way the fish was swimming and feeling her gentle sways, and then finally when the moment was right, slamming the hooks home, having no idea the size of the fish until the rod loaded up and the body started rising and resisting.
Catching them trolling isn't as fun to me. I still like it, but for some reason it's not quite as thrilling as any other way.
What is your ideal catch scenario, and why? |
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Posts: 1405
Location: Detroit River | My favorite way to catch a musky is jigging a Bondy Bait. There's just something about feeling that musky slamming the bait & having my arm almost broke off that gives me the most excitement when fishing. |
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Posts: 4342
Location: Smith Creek | When I fish with suckers I always keep one in view. Nothing like watching them come from nowhere and crush them, or shoot 4 feet into the air like a great white after a seal, or just stalk them and play with them, with seemingly no intention of killing and eating them.
Only thing that even comes close for me is getting one on a fly rod or catching a nice one in a tournament. |
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Posts: 176
Location: ON | Any bait when the fish smashes it about 8-10' from the boat. I like dive/rise jerks, and twitching cranks. Both good hooking percentage baits which helps liking your chances. |
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Posts: 63
Location: Minnesota | Watching super hot fish zig zag behind a glider, then hitting right in the 8. |
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Posts: 619
| Topwater wake hits. |
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Posts: 1828
| Slow Rollin - 1/23/2014 9:29 AM
Topwater wake hits.
I love when they suck down a topwater with no splash, hardly even a slurp, after you have watched the wake build. |
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Posts: 638
Location: S.W. WI | so hard to decide but.... an unseen fish coming up sidways slammin a glider near the surface is tough to top. Pretty awesome. I tried a little last fall to get the "Bondy bite feeling" , hopefully next year. Bulldawg bites ROCK when they overtake and all you have is slack line till you wind up and . . POW!
ya, good stuff!!
goes without saying that topwaters rock too.
-Jon
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Posts: 149
Location: Appleton, WI | It has to be a top water bite. There is nothing like a big girl destroying a hawg wobbler right at dusk. i still need someone else to pull the hooks sometimes as i am shaking so bad. What a great time. |
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Posts: 1038
Location: North St. Paul, MN | Gliders...tapping the rod and you go to tap it one more time, can't, and lift into the hook set. That does it for me! Plus, I've noticed that glider fishing the last 20 to 30 feet is almost as visual as topwater fishing...so, I get that bonus too. |
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Posts: 2686
Location: Hayward, WI | They can do lots of cool stuff, but I agree that it's hard to top fish waking up behind a topwater before nailing it. |
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Posts: 143
Location: La Crosse, WI | Anytime you catch a muskie it is rewarding but some are more memorable than others. One of the best hits I had was ripping a 10 inch Grandma between a saddle in 20+ feet of water. I felt a little bit of slack and then hammered the hooks home. It ended up being a very heavy 40 inch fish that t-boned my bait. The neatest thing about catching that fish was it was on a new body of water, blue bird day, at 10:30 in the morning. Totally unexpected.
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Posts: 324
Location: Waukee, IA | I have always loved the hits on WTD lures like jackpot and weagle. However, I have recently put a fish tale on my regular hellhound and the hang that has created in my retrieve is awesome as it allows a fish to just crush it....usually within sight! Totally cool! |
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Posts: 791
Location: WI | For me any visual strike really gets me going. Something about the ferocity in which a musky try's to eat something. Tied for second is ripping a grandma or shallow invader over rocks and getting slammed, or sucker fish. Seeing a musky chase suckers to the surface or the moment you set the hook on a fish you haven't seen. Love it! This thread is giving me bad spring fever! |
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Posts: 176
Location: Tomahawk, WI | Top water explosion at your feet on a calm pitch dark night. Clean your shorts! |
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Posts: 51
| Topwater. When a big girl leaves a wake approaching the bait my pulse doubles. The she hits, rolls over the bait and leaves a hole in the water the size of a Volkswagen. Oh yeah, that's why I fish muskies. |
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Posts: 415
| Slow Rollin - 1/23/2014 9:29 AM
Topwater wake hits.
For sure. Especially WTD topwaters, nothing more exciting to me! |
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Posts: 720
| Jigging deep...mainly because you never know when the bites are coming, and when they do it's pandimonium. |
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Posts: 3511
Location: Elk River, Minnesota | Fishing slop and watching a big fish come right up out of a small pocket and just smash a lure. |
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Posts: 1828
| Man, lots of great mental images here. Maybe this was a bad idea. We're only about 1/4 of the way through the off-season in MN... |
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Posts: 1202
Location: Money, PA | Casting - Jerkbait
Trolling - Shortline speed trolling over/near the weed edges |
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Posts: 1292
Location: Walker, MN | Anytime they come out of nowhere and snatch it boatside...hang on son!
This WAS a bad idea btw.
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Posts: 117
| Night time, blind figure-8 hits. |
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Posts: 20278
Location: oswego, il | Jennifer Lopez wakes me up tells me a musky just grabbed a sucker demonstrating just how with her popciscle. I set the hook, she nets it, were all good.
Edited by ToddM 1/23/2014 12:43 PM
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Posts: 157
Location: Lincoln, NE | As much as I love my crankbaits and jerkbaits in shallow weed areas there's just something about chuckin pounders into the open abyss. You get that awesome creepy epic feeling that something big's about to happen. When they come out of nowhere and hit boatside just as you're entering the 8 is what it's all about. |
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Posts: 463
Location: Sw Pennsylvania | A topraider hit, hands down. My second would be a short line troll with less then 10' of line off the boat in open water. Those reels sound like they are gonna explode.
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Posts: 123
| Super clear water watching them chase the bait for a long time then making them eat in the Figure 8. I find it so rewarding when you know the fish has seen you but they still want to eat and you for them to take a bite. |
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Posts: 149
| I like all glider bites but there is something really special about the death pause bite. Seeing a fish about 6' down circling the bait as it drops, rip it up and watch her circle again, repeat. Hands shaking. Prayers said. Completely awesome when she sucks it in. Pretty cool even when she swims away. |
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| Boat side suick! |
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Posts: 187
Location: West Metro, MN | Topwater for me! A close second is anything in the 8. June can't come soon enough... |
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Posts: 54
Location: Minnesota | Bondy on the drop. Bend the knees lower the shoulders and Kung Pow!! |
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Posts: 720
| Slowly, working a HawgWobbler over a weed bed. Than having the a fish come out of nowhere usually right from underneath the lure like a Triton missile. There is something about a fish smoking a slow moving top water lure. |
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Posts: 956
Location: Home of the 2016 World Series Champion Cubs | TOPWATER!!!!! Watching a topwater get humped is the best. Straight retireves like a top raider with the muskie bulging for several yards before jumping on your bait......awesome. A walk the dog bait like a weagle with a muskie pushing water doing a serpantine stalk on your bait with fins protruding the water's surface and then going kamikaze on the weagle.....priceless.
Second, in my book, already mentioned, is a bomb cast of a bucktail in clear water when you see the the fish turns on as soon as the blades are spinning. You see the fish following "hot" the entire length then into several figure 8's and then she decides enough of this child's play.......whooompf!!!!!!!!!!! For me she went on the 8th fisgure 8 for my current PB. Feels like like it was just yesterday though it's truely time for a new PB.
Edited by KARLOUTDOORS 1/24/2014 2:35 AM
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Posts: 1828
| handlebarz - 1/23/2014 5:13 PM
Super clear water watching them chase the bait for a long time then making them eat in the Figure 8. I find it so rewarding when you know the fish has seen you but they still want to eat and you for them to take a bite.
The ultimate trickery and persuasion. You own the fish. |
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Posts: 1352
Location: E. Tenn | Most definitely topwater, at night.. the ultimate test of one's nerves! |
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Location: Contrarian Island | for pure adrenaline rush it's hard to beat a boatside blow up on a topwater at night... close 2nd is watching a big wide back coming from a ways out on your bucktail and eating in the 1st outside turn.... 3rd might be a topwater hit at night out on the cast that sounds like a bowling ball was dropped from 100 feet up... 4th, setting the hook on a sucker hit especially in MN where the chances it's a biggy are good! 5th to me is getting rocked slow rolling a bucktail at night... to me any hit at night is pretty sweet as your senses are so 'in tune' w the bait/rod... dang now this has me wishing it was July and I was out night fishing! F#@k!  |
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Posts: 108
| For me...it is when you are burning a bucktail and you see a fish coming all hell bent for it...you can see it in their eyes that they are not letting this get away...I start saying..."net...net...net" before the fish even strikes cuz when you get one coming in this hard and fast... you know it is all over on the first turn of the 8. Makes the hair on my neck and arms stand up just thinking about it....it is why I fish muskies!!! |
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Posts: 1169
Location: New Hope MN | Watching my friends and family catch their first has always got me pumped up more than anything.
I did get my first night figure 8 fish this past summer. What a rush! |
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Posts: 7113
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | I might be the only one to say this...but I love catching muskies while trolling. Yes, a topwater hit is crazy exciting, a fish on the 8 is heart pounding...but to be trolling along, time goes by and nothing, then a reel starts screaming! I roll with 6+ lines at a time so it's GO TIME just to figure out with rod is screaming. I'm up and out of the driver's seat like a rocket, hand off the rod then drive and get ready to net a fish, totally fun. Even better is glancing around, seeing a rigger rod bow deeply, then pop up and THEN the reel starts screaming. Is it a snag? Is it a 34"er? Is it another 10lb catfish? Or is it THE ONE? |
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Posts: 455
| Anytime I can get them on spin tackle. ( No I don`t do it during peak summer conditions. ) |
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Posts: 358
| Casting a Jerkbait. |
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Posts: 96
| Topwater, when you see a huge wake following your bait then they smash it! |
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Posts: 396
Location: Northern Illinois | After a hard day of fishing, get back to the cabin, eat dinner, hang out with the family, maybe a bonfire and a couple of two hearted ales. It's pitch black outside, quiet around the lake and most are settled in for the night. I take my Black Lelure creeper or black Hawg Wobbler and start zinging it off the pier. Takes a little bit of nerve to slowly creep those things along in the dark just waiting to be attacked. |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | Without a doubt getting slackline by a fish over open water, and setting hooks into "the wall".
Second is getting slackline with a hardhead on the drop along a deep weededge.
Third has quickly become a WTD topwater in June especially when the muskies are chasing 'gills and crappies.
4th, and one I do not do that often for some reason, is watching a fish inhale a tube in ultra clear water while sight fishing. |
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Posts: 2389
Location: Chisholm, MN | As far as methods go, I prefer a bucktail figure 8 fish so much that I am (almost) disappointed when I catch them another way! Especially fun at night. Other considerations that make it more fun is when it's on a new lake or a spot I've never fished. It is always encouraging to get bit on a new spot cause it means your instincts to fish that spot or method were right. |
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Posts: 24
| My favorite bite is when a fish crushes a bull dawg. A lot of guys talk about feeling little ticks that feel like weeds, but I have experience these fish crushing them. Jerk pause jerk pause Boom. |
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Posts: 1247
Location: On the Niagara River in Buffalo, NY | I'm with Slamr, trolling and the drag clicker sings, but the rod is bent straight back at the handle pumping, saying Jumbino! |
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Posts: 455
| It`s even more fun when a guy falls asleep and then his drag goes off. |
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