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Posts: 152
| Aside from weather and the whole moon thing, what else activates musky or the whole lake for that matter into eating? I've fished at times when all species seem to be very active as if the lake sprung to life and don't recall weather being a part of it. Is there a butterfly effect or trigger that chain reacts? |
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Posts: 2326
Location: Chisholm, MN | Sometimes light changes seem to get them going. Like afternoon sun versus mid day sun. Also, sun warming up cold shallows can fire them up. Water temp is a big one.
Baitfish spawning and tendencies as well. |
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Posts: 1291
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | Hunger! |
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Location: Contrarian Island | reaction strikes, weather coming in, barometer, lots of things seem to...but there are other times there seems to be nothing we can see that gets them going, it's not moon, weather, light etc... sometimes we have no clue what goes on under the surface... |
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Posts: 2269
Location: SE, WI. | WIND !!!!!!!
JD |
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Posts: 41
| At this point in my season I don't even know.... maybe sacrifice a goat or something? Couldn't make things worse |
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Posts: 4269
Location: Ashland WI | schro626 - 8/14/2018 2:57 PM
At this point in my season I don't even know.... maybe sacrifice a goat or something? Couldn't make things worse
Ive tried that.
Didn't work... |
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Posts: 8782
| Seems like any sort of change will do it. Obviously fronts and storm systems, changes in barometer can be good. Other times its as simple as the sun comes out for half an hour on a cloudy day, or it clouds over on a sunny day, wind stops on a windy day or picks up on a flat day. Had a day in Vilas like that a few years back. "perfect" musky day. Dead sea. At 4:00 the sun came out for about 45 minutes. Caught two, saw three others, and the second it clouded up again it was all over. |
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Posts: 2015
| I’ve see a few “odd” bites on shad based lakes over the years, one year a large portion of the adult shad in the 10-15” variety were dying off in the middle of October? Eagles and ospreys surrounded the lake, to grab these silver meals “spinning” o the surface ..for about 2 weeks it made for the best 45-48 degree fall topwater bite you could imagine. Caught a couple dozen all on topwater with 7 between 46-49.5” ... Muskies will key on easy meals when available |
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Posts: 1291
Location: Hayward, Wisconsin | A couple of my fishing partners like to "pay homage" to the Muskie "Gods" and toss a penny, nickel, dime and quarter into the lake each day before fishing. |
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Posts: 8782
| Larry Ramsell - 8/15/2018 8:44 AM
A couple of my fishing partners like to "pay homage" to the Muskie "Gods" and toss a penny, nickel, dime and quarter into the lake each day before fishing.
Nothing could better sum up muskie fishing than "pouring money in the lake"  |
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Location: ontario | Sometimes just throwing something different will activate them. If everyone and their mothers are throwing black n nickle blades n no one is catching then change it up throw a pound of rubber in its face see if they bite that. |
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Posts: 612
| The presence of Bait (perch -alewives, etc) in quantities, water temp and right spot (points, drop-offs, cabbage) at the right time.  |
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Posts: 1636
| Chris Riebe, care to share your secret? Not sure if you ever tried it... but, that was a great idea! |
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Posts: 8782
| Based on my conversations with folks at the landing/lodge, the biggest fish trigger is whatever happened last week. |
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Posts: 612
| esoxaddict - 8/30/2018 5:25 PM
Based on my conversations with folks at the landing/lodge, the biggest fish trigger is whatever happened last week.
Been there heard that, he he. |
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Posts: 166
Location: Alexandria, MN | esoxaddict - 8/14/2018 3:53 PM
Seems like any sort of change will do it. Obviously fronts and storm systems, changes in barometer can be good. Other times its as simple as the sun comes out for half an hour on a cloudy day, or it clouds over on a sunny day, wind stops on a windy day or picks up on a flat day. Had a day in Vilas like that a few years back. "perfect" musky day. Dead sea. At 4:00 the sun came out for about 45 minutes. Caught two, saw three others, and the second it clouded up again it was all over.
^This. Change in the weather often equals change in fish activity - either positive or negative. |
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Posts: 74
| Wind change ! I have seen large fish trigger by wind direction shift. |
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Posts: 164
| Two summers ago myself and buddy were fishing a Minnesota North Metro lake. At the time it was my first time fishing this body of water. We got out early morning just before sunrise. It was early August, some what of a cool morning, mist on the lake, partly cloudy in the morning. Waters temps were low to mid 70s. For a good two or three hours we were noticing a lot of active bass and panfish shallow, we couldnt find any muskies. Ended up catching a really nice northern in deep water on blades. We pretty much chucked blades all day and minus fishing depth we never really changed our fishing approach, just fast moving blades all day. We took a break about noon and made some lunch on shore for about an hour or so. Got back out around 1:00 1:30 in the afternoon. It got hot extremely hot that day, water temps went to the mid to high 70s. High bright blue skies no clouds we decided to continue running blades fast over weeds. At about 2 o clock I looked at my buddy, we were both sweating, hot, fatigued and just ready to give it up. I said to him I feel like we are fishing for a fish that just isnt active today or we missed our window fishing the wrong spots. About 5 casts later we moved 3 really nice fish fishing tight to a S curve type weed line. They came in extremely hot and wanted to eat but did the old Minnesota shuffle once they saw the boat. Now we obviously didnt bag these fish but they were feeding, they were active and they came out of nowhere on the hottest part of the day.
There was no major or minors at that time and the only thing I can contribute to these fish being active was the heat of the day. Speaking for myself this is definitely a period where I dont have a lot of luck is in the hottest part of the day. But for some reason thats what seemed to trigger these fish. Muskie wise we had nothing prior and nothing after. We fished a weed line we had fished three times throughout the day in what I would consider prime conditions. Went back one last time in what I would consider not so prime conditions and found three active fish in a very short span of time.
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Posts: 32886
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Muskies247 - 11/29/2018 7:54 PM
Wind change ! I have seen large fish trigger by wind direction shift.
What's causing that is a change in barometric pressure. Small changes in a trend, like a sudden shift to SE from S and then back to SE in a half hour or so are visible on a barograph as little changes along the trend up and down. I've seen activity that corresponds to those little ripples a lot. |
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| Huh, I am going to go back and see if I can find some NWS barometer data for about two weeks ago. Went out on a slough off of Boom lake and while I caught a couple small panfish in the first hour, not much in the way of biters. Kept marking fish but could not get them to bite. My buddy had drilled a bunch of holes and suggested I move but I decided to stay put because I knew the fish were there. When they started to bite, it was non-stop. Caught and released 35-40 fish in a little over an hour and a half. Kept a half dozen nice gills for a meal. It was sunny the whole time, no real temperature change and again, the fish were there all along but there was a slight change in wind direction. Remember because I changed the side of the hole I was sitting on. Barometer change might well have been the trigger. |
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Posts: 54
| I've always had better luck with chickens over goats, but they have to all black chickens. |
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Posts: 11
| I fish rivers mostly, and water levels and flow rates are a huge activator, for musky and other predatory fish, as well as water clarity/turbidity. In lakes I expect it would be the same, although slightly less apparent. Changes in river flows (which typically, but not always occur alongside weather changes) can effect fish even in lakes, particularly where the rivers dump in. These flows can also change due to generation schedules up river. Our predatory fish almost always feed best with higher flows and turbid water. |
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Posts: 82
| Brian7488 - 1/29/2019 8:30 AM
I've always had better luck with chickens over goats, but they have to all black chickens.
If it’s a funky Chicken then surely a nickel blade to go with it. |
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Posts: 306
| I think just about anything that initiates a change in the water (wind, temp, barometer, gravitational, etc.) gets them going. We even had a native guide once that did a full speed lap around the bay before casting. No, I've never tried it on my own but he swore by it.
Day dreaming sometimes activates them, too. |
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