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Posts: 8788
| Spent a good 6 hours casting, 90 degree day, humid, flat calm... had one smallish fish blow up on a topraider. Took a break to eat lunch, while we were sitting there eating, I look down and see two muskies swimming by, that were each in the 45" range. Grabbed a rod, made a few casts, not even a look.
Slow day on Eagle, nothing really moving, pull up to the last spot of the day and spot a 50"+ muskie, just laying there. We pretty much came roaring into the spot to make a few hail mary casts where we had seen a fish earlier that day. This fish was right off the side of the boat, down 6 feet in about 10 feet of water, laying in the weeds, and didn't even move when we pulled up. We dropped a few baits over the side and tried to get it to move, doing figure 8's and such but the best we could get was for it to turn and swim off lazily, stopping less than 10 feet later.
There have been many other times where we have just sort of stumbled on some pretty large muskies, basically sitting there doing nothing, that we could not get to respond to lures in any way.
I never used to believe the guys who said "oh they just aren't moving today..." until I spent enough time out there to actually SEE them sitting there ignoring everything we did, sometimes even completely ignoring a sucker.
I've tried soft plastics, fuzzy duzzits, live bait, double 10's, jigging, thinking something would cause that fish ito react.. It's a free meal after all, right in front of its face. It's like when someone says "dude, eat that last piece of pizza" and you don't really want it. Do you ever NOT eat it?
So I get that sometimes they aren;t feeding. I've seen it more often than not. But there has got to be something that triggers them, or at least gets them mad enough to try to kill whatever is bothering them...
Anybody had any luck getting them to eat when they're just laying there?
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| I have had some success w/ negative fish on jigs sight fishing. Pop it off the bottom right in front of their face. |
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Posts: 2753
Location: Mauston, Wisconsin | esoxaddict- Yes, it can be done, However, it requires some extremely fine finess in the presentation. Best bait is a diving/suspending twitch/crank like a Rapala Husky Jerk or a suspending Zam. Put it right in front of their face ~6" away in their front blind spot, let it sit for a few seconds and then give it a very gentile twitch-> be prepared to set the hook! I think their lateral line pores in their face trigger's the eat me instinct. They typically just open their mouth & flair their gills and inhale it!
I have done this with multiple fish that previously ignored everything else, including cranking and ripping lures right in front of them.
Have fun!
Al |
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Posts: 1456
Location: Kronenwetter, WI | We've seen as many as 15-20 fish up on a certain reef less than 3 fow sunning themselves on calm, sunny days. Consensus seems to be these are fish that had previously eaten likely the night before and are now sitting in the sun to increase metabolism and aide in digestion. We've danced jigs in front of their noses, twitched twitchers, burned and slow-rolled tails, etc...best we can do is disturb them to move to another location on the shallow rock structure. I know these fish will be there on any calm sunny day and I've brought pals to look at them. My pals get all excited, start grabbing every lure known to man trying to get one to go. It's fun to watch their excitement, but I don't even try anymore, I just like lookin' at 'em and plan to visit the spot later that night.
The original post talks about fish suspended at 4 feet or so in 10 FOW and I've seen these too. I'll try that suspending crank deal, Al and see if I can get that to work. |
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Posts: 97
Location: Pickering, ON | River run Rainbows are also notorious for this behaviour.
They will sit there while you cast or drift at them for hours. Once in a blue moon they will chase just to mess with you.
Then, magic time happens and they just turn on for an hour. Sometimes it's tied to sun/moon or conditions, and sometimes there is no readily obvious answer.
Mark them, come back at some 'changes' and various times, and hope they are still there and have turned on. |
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Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | This is the circumstance where the "soft touch" i.e. the ability to really work baits comes into play. Ask Sled and Norm, they'll tell you.
Kevin |
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Posts: 1996
Location: Pelican Lake/Three Lakes Chain | MuskyHopeful - 12/16/2009 9:52 PM
This is the circumstance where the "soft touch" i.e. the ability to really work baits comes into play. Ask Sled and Norm, they'll tell you.
Kevin
Where you throw it is still more important than how!
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Posts: 13688
Location: minocqua, wi. | indeed |
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Posts: 462
Location: Syracuse, Indiana | This past spring, on webster, a mid-40's fish suspended above the weeds saw me put 6 different baits right in front of it's nose, and never moved. I finally poked her with my rod tip, and her reaction was to slowly sink down into the weeds and out of sight. She didn't even dart off quickly. That was one lethargic fish! |
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Posts: 2865
Location: Brookfield, WI | I knew I could count on Norm and Sled to support me. LOL. Thanks guys.
Kevin |
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Posts: 1530
| lake st clair. nobodys catching fish. 2 hours later the vhf radio crackles, we got one. 15 miles away. suddenly our rods go off. its a normal musky thing. thats why its fishin,,,,not catchin. . i have been humbled believe me. |
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Location: Contrarian Island | anyone ever try flipping some large shiners or chubs or even small suckers in front of the muskies on vermillion sitting on the rocks???? maybe live bait would trigger them a bit more than lures...just a thought
I've seen groups of very large muskies just sitting in cabbage or on rocks seemingly in a coma...the best we have found to trigger any kind of reaction are walk the dog topwaters or something small and erratic....or SPEED.
Edited by BNelson 12/17/2009 12:53 PM
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Location: Twin Cities | Big and FAAAAAAAAST has worked for me. |
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Posts: 633
| On vacation this year we had a couple muskies sit under the dock at the resort. We threw baits at them, and they wouldn't go. They were there for a couple hours one day. Finally a kid started casting away from them and caught a small bass. His father was watching one of the muskies at the time. He said his son yelled he had a fish, and the dad just saw a cloud of silt where the muskie had been. He looked up, and the muskie had the bass in it's mouth 40 feet from the dock.
Who knew that largemouth was the pattern they were looking for?
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