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Posts: 324
Location: Waukee, IA | Was curious about the successes/failures of you trollers out there during the night. Do any of you do this? How well do you do? What concerns/problems do you run into with multiple lines out in the dark? Am wondering about this tactic for a local lake I fish. |
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Posts: 55
| I am a noob but I read musky are a sight fish and night bites are hard to come by. |
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Posts: 2389
Location: Chisholm, MN | I did it quite a bit last summer. Caught a few fish. Its not much different than during the day. I go pretty slow and run shallow baits way behind the boat. I've caught fish over deep water at night with baits going down no more than 2 feet. I think a guy could even troll topwater and do well. |
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Location: Eastern Ontario | I have had most success the last 2 hours of daylight and the first 2 hours of dark but that's usually as late as I stay out.
I knew a guy that owned a pizza restaurant in Prescot Ont. who would close at 1 a.m. and troll the Larry till daylight then go home and sleep till it was time to open for lunch. His catches were impressive. |
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Posts: 176
Location: ON | I would suggest being familiar with your lake, watching your GPS, and watching for boats without lights/drunnkos in canoes.
I plan to try a bit this year on the full moons. |
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Posts: 1247
Location: On the Niagara River in Buffalo, NY | The waters. of the Niagara River become gin clear in the summer months and with the excessive boat trafic the muskies become night feeders. In the late 90's I caught 98 muskies in one small spot trolling Hi'Fin Ttophy Divers Jtd.The dark side of the moon , the new moon, was always best, followed by the dark period just before the moon rise from behind the tree line after sundown and when the moon went down before sunup.
Slow upstream & cross stream trolling.Muskies using their lateral line pickup sound and water movrment displaced by lute action more so then color blind vision.
Edited by LarryJones 1/16/2014 2:49 PM
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Posts: 426
Location: Perryville, MO | Just thought someone should help CT out a little on this one...
"Muskies using their lateral line pickup sound and water movrment displaced by lu[r]e action more so then color blind vision." ~LarryJones
Keeping reading CT. Muskies use their lateral line more so than any other fresh water fish that I'm aware of (in this regard they are much like many salt water species). Sight for sure, but not nearly as much as their ability to "feel" prey.
Further, I think a whole lot of guys here would absolutely disagree that "night bites are hard to by."
Edited by hawkeye9 1/16/2014 3:14 PM
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Posts: 1168
| Snapping your rod by running it into a floating chunk of milfoil the size of a Buick was not fun. |
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Posts: 717
Location: Grand Rapids, MI | I like to night fish, but only troll at night shortly after it first gets dark when all the mosquitos first come out. (Because I hate putting on bug spray and this is the easiest way to avoid them.) I've had some good success doing this. I mostly troll a cisco based lake where there are plenty of fish suspending, so I don't have to pay really close attention to docks & drop-offs. I usually just watch my GPS. |
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Posts: 427
Location: Planet Meltdown | Get to know your waters very well before you start night trolling. Map out a plan and run it durning the day that way you can just follow the lines on your graph. Things can get hairy really quickly trolling at night especially if you don't have a fishing partner. I would also scale down the # of rods out at night to simplify things. |
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Posts: 2389
Location: Chisholm, MN | Yeah, being a noob, I guess you wouldn't think about muskies feeding at night all that much. CT, take a look at the big fish pictures and see how many of them are night time. I do most of my fishing at night in the summer. |
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Posts: 55
| thanks guys. If I read 10 different articles, they all say 10 different things. Guess that is why they are hard to catch. haha.
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Posts: 1309
Location: WI | Watch out for buoys with no lights. I uh, know this guy who...umm, hit one at night. |
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Posts: 1247
Location: On the Niagara River in Buffalo, NY | Bait fish will come out of the weeds at night , you will mark much more on your fishfinder screen.Best place to start are where feeder streams enter, water temp change.Trolling speed will be much slower at night and in gin clear water dark colored lures like night shinner color show up better again'st the sky on the dark side of the moon, bright lures on full moon nights.Finding food shelves where muskies feed at night on a regular basis will increase your catch rate .Could be as simple as a flat gravel area just behind an area that rises shallower that has warmer creek water above flowing in that is pushed to the edge by main river curent, bait fish stack up late at night and muskies move in on a regular time period to feed.
Once you find one or more food shelves and begin catching muskies at night on s regular basis, you will be sold on night fishing. |
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Posts: 358
| They do real good on the St. Lawrence after dark I here. |
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Posts: 1247
Location: On the Niagara River in Buffalo, NY | Just look at most of the pictures of the Jumbino's,they were caught after dark in the cold months of November & December on the "Larry".Also biggest muskies to visit my boat last year on the Niagara River were at night! |
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Posts: 324
Location: Waukee, IA | Any particular patterns any of you have found in terms of straight models vs jointed, tight wobble vs. wide wobble, bigger baits vs. smaller? Any ideas on the trolling girls from musky mayhem and how effective they might be at night??
Sounds like speed should maybe be on the slower end which makes sense to me. I use to long line rapalas in MN at night for walleyes all the time...never caught a musky doing that though and it was on a muskie lake. |
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Posts: 2389
Location: Chisholm, MN | I haven't done this a ton, so keep that in mind, but I caught all my fish trolling big jointed baits. I would certainly troll a cowgirl but im not set up with keel weights to prevent line twist. I'm sure they would work great though.
Edited by Kirby Budrow 1/17/2014 7:17 PM
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Posts: 106
| I have caught quite a few muskies at night, mostly casting, on every type of bait including quiet baits like gliders and small walleye sized Rapalas.
My advise is get to know the lake or area of the lake that you will be fishing, get a good spot light and a cap light, and keep your boat clean, meaning put away any rods lures or other gear that you aren't using. |
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