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Message Subject: Patterns for stained vs clear lakes | |||
Fordjk![]() |
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Posts: 16 | Here is another question from a novice. Can anyone help me understand pattern selection for stained vs. clear water lakes? I am wanting to build up my bait selection but I do not understand how to select patterns for a body of water based on clarity. Can anyone give some pointers? I live in Southern Illinois and will be doing most of my fishing on Lakes Kincaid and Shelbyville. I am new to Muskie fishing and need help buying the correct baits. As many can understand, I have a spouse that monitors my expeditures on fishing equipment like a constipated accoutant -- stingy with an attitude. I also plan on spending my vacation on Cass Lake in MN in June so suggestions there would be greatly appreciated. This message board is a great tool -- I greatly appreciate the assistance and continued education. Jerry (aka "Chief") | ||
MuskieMedic![]() |
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Posts: 2091 Location: Stevens Point, WI | Generally speaking, bright colored and LOUD baits are very good on stained waters. The river here is very stained and those baits are top producers. On clear water more often than not natural colors are best, such as perch, shad, ciscoe colors...match the hatch so to speak. Try to identify what the baitfish are in the body of water and match accordingly. Though these presentations are definately not set in stone, you will find on somedays in clear water is a weird color like pink that triggers the fish. Your selection of baits should include different varieties of topwaters like loud ones (topraiders,pacemakers,topper stoppers etc.) quieter ones (flaptails, creepers). Large and small bucktails and spinnerbaits. You should also have some large and small minnow/twitch baits in both deep diving and shallow diving models. And then there are jerkbaits....some of the easier ones for beginners are Manta's, Zig-Zags, Phantoms. Reef Hawgs and suicks are also very good baits. Don't be afraid to go on E-bay and buy a cache of used baits, will save you a lot of money, also check on the Buy,Sell,Trade thread for really good deals on used baits. Hope all this mumbling helps a little. | ||
lobi![]() |
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Posts: 1137 Location: Holly, MI | Here is how I spent a small fortune on lures without touching the kids allowance or the checkbook.. I scrounged up tons of "junk" from around the house and garage and put then all on eBay. Have the buyers pay you with pay-pal and it will build up a positive balance in your pay-pal account. I sold a bunch of stuff then proceeded to spend all my "free" money on esox stuff. The cool thing about eBay is that (just the opposite of a garage sale) the prices go up instead of down. There is just about anything you could want on ebay for musky fishing available. Good luck. I was told how to make a small fortune by musky fishing..Take a large fortune then buy all the musky gear you will need and then you have a small fortune. You can get by on a few twich batis and a few large and small bucktails until the obsession really kicks in. -lobi | ||
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