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| Question for Chuck, Steve, Scott, Sr.Richard, Jon, Tony, Marc, Capt.Larry, Larry R and Steve W
When is god forsaking hot and its calm with water temps in the 80's and its 2pm in the afternoon on a hot mile high sky day.
What do you do to put a fish in the boat? |
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| If I can, I head to an impoundment or river, and fish the SLOP. Very heavy cover.
If not, I work a creature in 18 to 25 where I see concentrations of baitfish.
Do not overlook the midday sun noon bite if on an impoundment, I do well right in the hottest portion of the day, but absolutely detest being overheated! |
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| These are the tough conditions that I've been dealing with for the last few weeks Jason, and even though fishing for suspended fish is not what most would call heart stopping action it has been with these conditions The best and most effective method I've had for putting fish in the net. In the last 6 days my boat has taken 7 legal fish with the largest being 45 1/2 inches and all but 1 came from over deep water. Fish the deep water thats just adjacent from your normally shallow water hot spots and try and locate schools of suspended bait-fish, crank-baits, deeper diving jerk-baits, swimming your rubber baits(bull-dawg, live action) and deeper running bucktails, and always dragging a live sucker is how I'm putting fish in the boat.
Chuck Altamore
www.altamoreguide.com |
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| First thing I do is put the top up because we need to be able to survive the heat of the day. Sometime it's they only way I can keep the clients interested. Then we open an ice cold coke and go troll the deep.
I like to start trolling the primary dropoffs right around noon time then by 2 pm or soo I will venture in even deeper water if we were not to productive. I am always looking for baitfish and once I find them I like to troll all around them. I also like to step breaks close to shores and weeds.
I caught 7 fish over 44 inches ( 2 over 50 ) doing this my last 10 days out including a 49 incher to win a Muskies Canada outing 2 weekends ago. [:bigsmile:] |
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| Jason,
These can be tough days but they can also be productive. It's all being in the right place at the right time. Being a caster first, I generally will concentrate on deep weeds (12 to 20 feet) that are adjacent to points or bays. These areas have a tendency to hold fish no matter what - but especially during hot (warm) conditions. I have found that 6 inch deep diving crank baits seem to move the most fish. Areas like this that have big patches of weeds that come up high in some areas seem to be the best. It creates an underwater forest so to speak for them to roam and ambush. My next choice would be to troll baits through this same area (12 to 20 feet). Making different passes through it to see what area of the spot the fish might be holding to (shallow or on the break). The best way to do this is to weave back and forth in an 'S' pattern. The speed up and slow down wobble of the baits will trigger fish - just like the figure eight! My third choice would be to find schools of baitfish out deep and troll four different baits at different depths. I will change the speed up to try and find that magic number (1.5 mph to 4 mph). By deep, I mean 20 to 50 feet of water. I will concentrate on areas that are adjacent to structure or bays. If you think about their movement, they aren't going to be far from the areas you would nomally find fish shallow. They will suspend out in the deeper water and come up shallow during their more aggressive feeding times. I will be the first to admit that I can't stand trolling but I certainly know that it can be an effective method to putting fish in the boat at times. If someone were to ask me, "When do you troll?" This would be a good example. My Dad and I were fishing in the conditions you mention a couple of weeks ago on the Madison Chain. We started exactly how I stated to start above. I had a 38" fish nail my bait on a figure eight on the first deep weed patch spot. I knew my Dad wasn't going to be able to stand the heat casting (nor was I for that matter). So we started to troll. We ended up boating four muskies up to 37" and losing several others. It was a great time! Slammer deep divers were the hot ticket - short lined. My Dad had never really trolled before so he couldn't believe it. He must have learned something because he called me last night all excited - he had just caught a 40" on the Madison Chain trolling - same pattern!
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| Well, the first thing I do is wish it was 2 a.m.! Then, when I come back to reality, I go about it in a similar fashion to the other casters here.
Location - very shallow slop or deep suspended just off structure starting with the deep weedline. I will try to locate shaded areas up shallow created either by a heavy mat of weeds, overhanging trees, or just shaded shoreline caused by the angle of the sun. Docks can be good too. If available, I like to fish a shallow water area that also has springs scattered around. I believe the cooler water is sweet relief for the fish.
For suspended fish, I'll look just off structure in contained open water like Chuck A. mentions and keep moving out to the true open water. Very effective. I think one reason that this works but hasn't been mentioned is that the hot weather also brings out pleasure boaters and jet mosquitos who both enjoy rooting through the shallower areas. This commotion helps move fish out into the deep.
Presentation - when it's this hot and I'm fishing shallow, I like to scale down size and slow down the presentation. I believe that the fish are not real active and that a smaller, slower presentation is effective in enticing negative or neutral fish. As the sun goes down, that's different story. I'll go bigger and speed it up some.
For suspenders, I might scale down a bit but only after the big baits aren't moving fish. I want the big profile out there so I can hopefully call fish from a distance. I may fish a little slower but I will always experiment to find what works.
Jono
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| Jason,
Great question! Being that this has been the conditions for way too long I think I''ve tried everything. I''ve had some very interesting success fishing open water structure. 20 - 25 feet using topwater, Jackpots, Awakers and Shadyspins have brougt them up. I friend was fishing not far from me with a homemade "walk the dog" topwater and had a fish sky approx. 3 feet in the air! He also scored a 51'' at 1:30 in the afternoon. I have been using this method for 2-3 weeks and have even begun burning Rad Dog tandem spinner baits and rolling them across the surface. I also have done somewhat like Tony did and hit the local watering hole until the time was right. |
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| Along with that high 80 degree water temprature near the surface and the 90 degree + bluebird sky, most likly will be a very high barometric pressure as well.This will either place me on thick GREEN slop or working very deep structure.For the slop area that I would like to put forth my best effort,I would first choose where a feeder stream enters your main body of water,especialy spring fed with cooler water tempratures,weeds on the down stream approach.Here I would work a Jerko in Black with Silver glitter belly ever so slow,down deep on the edge and in the deeper pocket holes.For the deep water structure area,I would want it to be moving water.In Lakes I would look for neck down areas with water movement.In these area's my choice would be to cast or troll a 10" Jake in Silver Pikie color.In a river system I would work areas of moderate water movement of 2 to 3 mph current,non moving water will be much warmer in temprature,with rock structure and drop off holding area in and around 25 to 30 feet of water depth.Lure of choice in warm water,deep structre trolling,would be a Depthraider Jtd in Sucker color.Presentation would be to crunch bottom moving along slow,working every inch of the holding area or current break deep near bottom,behind the rock dropoff.Using the current and boat placement to move the depthraider into position ,then flutter off and then back into the structure,repeating this method as you work the complete holding area. Capt. Larry |
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| Good question - got to put it to practise last week too!
Seriously, I'll go with one of four tactics:
1) Deep diving baits over and around deep structure like humps and bars. I am looking for water in excess of 25 feet, with a hump that must be a minimum of 6 feet higher than the bottom. Slow the speed down to less than 3 mph. Had some good luck with Ernies in this way.
2) Work the weeds with MONSTER spinnerbaits. (I'm talking custom beasties that are 33% bigger than a Fudally Hawg Spin!) Pick the speed up a little, and run them so that the blade is bulging the surface. Work the edges, and the tops. Multiple passes in multiple directions and at varying angles.
3) Jakes and fire-up the after burners! Run the edges, bars, and points at speeds up to 9 mph! Watch the drag - no more than 10 pounds or something will pop if a big fish hits!
4) Muskie Stalkers on an ultra-short line with 1 to 8 feet of line out plus leader - that's all! Run them about 4 to 5 mph. Run the rods on the corners with the tips in the water 1-2 feet. (This also picks up a lot of those annoying floating weeds.) Again, lighten up the drag! Keep on the edges. Occasionally let the bait rip into the weeds and hang on!
Steve Wickens |
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| I fish daybreak till noon or so, then I go in by the air conditioner, have a cold beer, and take a nap. Then I'll go out out again about 5:00pm or so and fish till dark. The mornings are usually the best.
The way to beat the heat is to not fish in it! The fish don't like it much better than you do.
Doug Johnson |
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| Jason the heat and burning sun is good for the
tan line!Got to agree with Doug on this one.
Some times the heat can surprise you, but for the most part,its prety miserable with no wind.
Got to go back and turn myself around to bake the other side!
marc
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| Jason: While I think the general concensus is no one likes the heat, I'm not sure it bothers the muskies! Have caught MANY of my biggest fish in hot, flat, bright days. Recently found shallow running jerkbaits worked over stump flats or around rock humps to be very effective midday (even though I had to stop one day and get my client to the shade, water him down and get some salted nut bar in him before he keeled over and nearly fell out of the boat!).
If you can stand it, you can catch fish. Drink PLENTY of water, keep your hat and even shirt wet to help keep you cool, and go for it!
Muskie regards,
Larry Ramsell
www.larryramsell.com |
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