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Posts: 16
| I have a dumb question but I can’t seem to reason in my mind…..What’s your thoughts on approaching a specific structure ? Typically, I point the boat straight at a targeted spot and shut the big motor off and approach with the electrical. However there is many times I question if all that is necessary. For instance bass fishing, if I’ve exhausted a structure or shoreline of bass, I will fire up the big motor and run parallel to the structure to purposely push a wake with the idea that the baitfish become active and disoriented. After doing this, quite often I’m able to get a few more fish.
So after a frustrating day, quite often I start getting lazy on my approach and don’t pay too much attention to my wake when I approach an area with the idea that it “probably doesn’t matter”. Am I really screwing things up or am I putting too much thought in the approach? Why wouldn’t this work for muskies vs my originally calm approach. Am I crazy to think that “shaking” up a weed patch will trigger the baitfish and possibly trigger a feeding window?
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Posts: 157
Location: Lincoln, NE | I know some guys that catfish the river here with airboats. It's really wide and shallow, 85% open sand and some wide shallow spots and some deeper narrow spots. Some of them come in and whip it around and it stirs up all the little particles and stuff and activates things. I could see being sneaky making sense but then again they hit propwash baits while trolling so I really think it just depends on their mood. All you can do is try it one way and if it doesn't work, try it the other way. |
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Posts: 149
Location: Appleton, WI | I just run right up to the spot and throw the trolling motor in the water and start fishing usally before we stop coasting from the big motor. There is not enough time in a day to sneak up to every spot. |
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Posts: 16
| Thanks for the replys. Now I dont' feel so bad of roaring in on new spot; particularly on Minnetonka when it's a steady barrage of rollers anyway..... Of course at night I would refrain..... |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I remember reading in a book written when people fished in boats with a 5 hp. motors no trolling motor and no electronics.The author suggested running through the weedbed wide open waiting 5 minutes then fishing the spot.
Edited by horsehunter 2/19/2014 5:42 PM
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Posts: 35
| I ALWAYS sneak up on my spots. I never drive through or even near the areas I'll be fishing. Sure, a fish will hit a bait in the prop wash, but don't you think that same fish would hit a casted bucktail. I have a hard time believing that driving right thru a spot will trigger a fish to bite that wouldn't have bit if you hadn't drove thru the spot. In other words, it may not hurt anything sometimes, but I don't think it ever helps, and it does more harm than good on average. Plus, if you pull up and stop right on the edge or on top of the weedbed, you could be driving the boat right over a muskie, and it's tough to cast under the boat. |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | horsehunter - 2/19/2014 6:41 PM I remember reading in a book written when people fished in boats with a 5 hp. motors no trolling motor and no electronics.The author suggested running through the weedbed wide open waiting 5 minutes then fishing the spot. I think that was Petros that talked about doing that. |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Long before Petros but he may have said it too. |
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Location: Grand Rapids, MI | horsehunter - 2/19/2014 7:41 PM Long before Petros but he may have said it too. Yes, believe he said it as something his father or grandfather employed when fishing pike. |
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Posts: 192
| horsehunter - 2/19/2014 6:41 PM
Long before Petros but he may have said it too.
Long before Petros. Wow when was that? 
Edited by LarryO 2/19/2014 8:26 PM
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Posts: 163
Location: NoDak | i try not to drive thru the area i plan to fish, however i was new to a lake fishing a steep break from 7 feet to 30 at about a 45* angle, and there was several pontoons jetskis and play boat (15-20 crafts, 50+ people swimming) sitting, running, buzzing around about 50 feet away at the "hang out" sand bar on the lake and i got a 30 inch ski at the same time my buddy got a 6 pound eye on a 9 inch shallow bait
boat position shallow about 6 foot, 10 feet from the 1 foot wide weed "stripe" in the 10-11 depth- casting deep 30' target
makes me think that casting a 4 foot diving lure over 30 foot of water and the fish were feeding up that high in the water with all that traffic makes a guy think |
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Posts: 1308
Location: WI | I sneak up on spots. A few times we've boated fish on the way to what we thought were the best spots on a spot or an icon. At times I've been cut off by other anglers while taking my time to get to the good spot, but sometimes you get fish after other people go through as well.
At least twice I've had action or boated fish after a pontoon went over the weed bed I was fishing, or someone drove over a flat I was casting. So don't waste energy getting mad at those people, unless they're also fishing!
Edited by JKahler 2/19/2014 9:18 PM
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Posts: 455
| There is one spot where the jet ski guys like to shred to impress the girlfriends on the dock. If enough of them churn up the water I get brave and troll as close as possible. Not sure why but it works sometimes. Maybe it breaks up the bait balls or something. I`m talking 30' of water not weeds. |
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Posts: 572
| While fishing the Lake of the Woods back in the late 80's, a guide boat carrying 3 or 4 people began going around in a circle several times throwing waves out our way. The boat must have gone around at least 4 times. Then, the motor was shut off and their customers began to cast. I never saw anyone catch a fish, but later I was told it makes the bait fish active, which then makes the northerns go after the bait fish.
Hum, maybe I should experiment more. |
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Posts: 1916
Location: Greenfield, WI | Back a million years ago the Milwaukee Chapter of Muskies Inc sponsored the multiple year Pewaukee Lake Study. Part of the study involved surgically implanting radios into various sized muskies. The radios operated everyday for a year and every other day after that until the power source expired. We had graduate students from Wisconsin Lutheran College Biology Dept performing the tracking studies.
One of the discoveries which was noteworthy was that if a suspended muskie was up in the water column when a motor boat came up on it, the fish would drop lower in the water column until well after the boat was gone, then return to roughly where it was before. Now they weren't able to determine if the fish would have been responsive to fishing during the event, but it did seem to have a direct affect on the fishes positioning. The grad students thought that there may be some affect of electric trolling motors as well, but to a much less degree.
The lesson to me, "old school"- use the wind when possible! |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | Years ago I had one of the original auto pilot trolling motors. The ones that would click when turning. I lost count of the number of times large fish struck that thing and shook the whole boat. |
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Posts: 93
Location: Des Moines IA | Not sure how much this relates. Back in the day on LOTW and Leech we had no trolling motor so just ran the 40 hp all day in controlled drifts. Caught 1/3 to half our muskies at boatside. Running motor at low rpm never seemed to bother the active fish... |
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Posts: 2686
Location: Hayward, WI | Steve Van Lieshout - 2/20/2014 8:47 AM
Back a million years ago the Milwaukee Chapter of Muskies Inc sponsored the multiple year Pewaukee Lake Study. Part of the study involved surgically implanting radios into various sized muskies. The radios operated everyday for a year and every other day after that until the power source expired. We had graduate students from Wisconsin Lutheran College Biology Dept performing the tracking studies.
One of the discoveries which was noteworthy was that if a suspended muskie was up in the water column when a motor boat came up on it, the fish would drop lower in the water column until well after the boat was gone, then return to roughly where it was before. Now they weren't able to determine if the fish would have been responsive to fishing during the event, but it did seem to have a direct affect on the fishes positioning. The grad students thought that there may be some affect of electric trolling motors as well, but to a much less degree.
The lesson to me, "old school"- use the wind when possible!
That's interesting. Do you know what the boat speed was, or if they varied the speed? So many guys like to troll in the prop wash it would make you think that it must not really bother them too much. I wonder if boat speed makes much difference. |
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Posts: 32
Location: Tower, Lake Vermilion | I will typically stop well before the intended spot because many times you will find Muskies holding at the depth of the structure(Reef, Rock pile) however they will be well off the reef over deeper water. Infact I will typically have one angler casting at the reef and the other behind the boat with a deepr running bait. JMHO.
"Ace" |
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Posts: 1220
| I tend to blast right in to a spot. It makes it easier to say to the guys who are fishing there, "Sorry, I didn't see you guys!" If you go in slowly, it's too hard to make that excuse. I wouldn't do it but the spots I find for myself are no good!!! |
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Posts: 358
| When I was a kid I fished with a gentleman who is now in his upper eighties and when we would fish the river we would pole his wooden boat to the spot to be fished and wanted silence ( No talking ) and would not permit standing in the boat even to cast. If someone was in his spot he would wait till they left and silently would drift into the spot with the thought that the fish would know that the previous occupants had left by their motor starting up and moving on. This gentleman has caught a heck of a lot more Muskies than I, so I'm not doubting his theory in any way ...Just saying its different than todays way I fish. |
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Posts: 1916
Location: Greenfield, WI | Curleytail, See my two "rules" after my signature. |
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Posts: 35
| Junkman - 2/20/2014 1:54 PM
I tend to blast right in to a spot. It makes it easier to say to the guys who are fishing there, "Sorry, I didn't see you guys!" If you go in slowly, it's too hard to make that excuse. I wouldn't do it but the spots I find for myself are no good!!!
You are officially "that guy" |
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Posts: 906
Location: Warroad, Mn | Not 100% sure how this would apply to angling, but I've been on a good number of electro-shocking trips with Tennessee biologists. They where running a 20' aluminum john boat that had a large generator running at full blast, and powered by a 115 Merc (not the quietest motor) running at a good clip. It was loud enough so that the operator wore ear muffs, and I would guess that under water the whole thing sounded like a thrash machine running at full speed. Surprisingly (to me at least), the fish didn't all leave the area at the approach of all this noise. We would roar up to an area to be sampled and the biologist would step on the peddle to send juice to the electrodes and the fish would be all around the boat. This would include muskies, but also every other fish that where is the lake. The hardest fish to shock where the catfish family which I suspect lived on the bottom and where out of range of the electricity. Muskies seemed to be quite easy to shock, and didn't seem to move away from all the noise that the boat created. I wonder how much boat noise effects muskies? Bet some are attracted to it, and some are spooked. Doug Johnson |
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| I was with a guide once who did this on the Cisco Chain.
We pulled up normally to a large weed flat where he was confident there were fish. We fished it for a while, but didn't raise anything. He told me to reel in and take a seat, so I assumed we were moving. Instead he started the motor and ran a few circles a nd criss-crosses over and around the weeds, and then we fished it again.
I asked what that was all about, and he just said "eh, sometimes it stirs em up, and gets em moving."
We still didn't raise a fish. |
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Posts: 793
Location: Ames, Iowa | I figure out where the wind is and let it do that work for me. Planned drift into the sweet spot. And I think the trolling motor bothers more fish than the gas motor does cause I've caught and contacted more fish trolling than running the electric. |
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Posts: 619
| Caught a real nice fish on a very busy lake casting right behind a big pleasure boat wake... only action of the day too. |
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Location: Sawyer County, WI | I boat into all of my spots slowly, but I wouldn't necessarily call it "sneaking" in. The only spot I regularly "sneak" up on is a cabbage bed about 20 yards off my dock. Every morning and evening I'll work it without making a sound. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't but it's still good for a few fish every summer. |
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Posts: 994
Location: Minnesota: where it's tough to be a sportsfan! | I remember doing this on hundreds of Canadian lakes with my Grandfather. He would roar around the whole area and then fish it. My Grandfather was there strictly for Catch & Sizzle though so the "meat fish" was smaller in size. "tastes better." I guess I am one that sneaks up on them, especially if I know there is a spot on the spot. How many times have you fished an area with no activity and then catch sight of a monster swimming away or chasing a big sucker. If I know there is weeds especially cabbage I try to not run my trolling motor in it. But the spots on a spot, like a well known to many rockbar in MN. There's about 4 places a big fish will set up on it. Depending on which side you come in from and which end, I want my first cast to hit the first hotspot. I do not want to alert the fish by roaring in, or even making a bunch of casts while heading her way. Nothing is 100%, but I think really big fish use retreat as a survival tactic. |
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Posts: 697
Location: Minnetonka | I usually blast into the spots (not "my" spots) so hastily that I usually don't see the other boat(s) fishing it until I hear the classic murmur, "Are you f%¢king kidding me?" from behind me. Probably a good indicator that I'm not being sneaky enough.
Seriously though... I like you're idea of "shaking" up a weed patch. Chaos theory. |
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Posts: 163
Location: NoDak | i see a good point above, on a calm day i hadnt seen any muskies, but 2 times in the afternoon big wakes were rolling into us and as our lures chaased the waves we had 2 follows, and mid summer walleyes in 4 foot of water would only eat when boat trafic was causing waves, when it was quite there was no fish |
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Posts: 2754
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | On clear water trout lakes sneaking up is important. Longer casts are also important. However, I have seen a couple of instances where a muskie actually came out +100ft from shore cover to investigate the boat, I watched them the entire way. They both did exactly the same thing, they parked themselves directly under the boat. I dropped a spoon over the side in both instances and they followed it as it fluttered to the bottom in ~20 FOW, I could see them become more agressive as I jigged the spoon and circling like a shark, I caught one, a nice fat 36" fish. I have had other instances where follower's parked themselves directly under the boat and came out on a following cast figure 8 to eat the bait.
Noise control in the boat is very important, as they are definitely spooked by sudden boat noises. All we do in my boat is to say quietly say "fish", everyone else is then very careful to not make noises or hit the trolling motor. Only the person with the fish is allowed to even speak, but quietly. Of course if you're in mid-retrieve you may need to finish depending on the lure type, etc.
Have fun!
Al |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | There is a video I think called Muskies Live that videos lures 8 inches behind the downrigger ball that shows how unafraid of the boat these things are. ( on occasion)
Edited by horsehunter 2/26/2014 11:00 AM
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"Sneaking" up on a spot