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mddog81 |
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| Pointerpride102 |
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Posts: 16632 Location: The desert | |||
| sworrall |
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Posts: 32836 Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | |||
| mnmusky |
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| Pointerpride102 |
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Posts: 16632 Location: The desert | |||
| Eagleweagle |
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| muskie-don58 |
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| Lake Of The Woods |
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mddog81 - 7/27/2016 5:04 PM I lived in the Kenora area for many years and am familiar with many bodies of water from Dryden,Kenora,Souix Narrows,Nester Falls,Minaki,English River System,Ear Falls,Whitedog,Grassy Narrows,Lac Seul etc. I am 15 and I have been fishing wabigoon lake on week long trips for the past 2 years with my family and have fished for pike, bass, and walleye... I would love to get into musky for i have bought a musky rod, reel, and various lures. If anyone could help would be greatly appreciated Thanks, Matt The best Muskie fishing I have experienced is on Lake of the Woods probably due to the many days spent learning and fishing that lake.Of course Wabigoon,Eagle and Dinorwic lakes in the Dryden area offer some spectacular Muskie fishing as well as do the other aforementioned bodies of water. If you are going to fish Wabigoon I suggest you focus on using Bucktails in the 8" to 10" range with Colorado and Willow Leaf gold or silver blades.Black with red and white with red colouring have worked well for me.Yellow with brown or red,purple,orange and chartreuse would also be a good choice.In the evening if the water should be flat try 8" to 12" top water baits like the Rambler or Poe's Jackpot with Walleye,Whitefish or Orange colouring.Black or Shad coloured jerk baits like the Suick(weighted & unweighted) in 8" to 10"range can also be a very productive method. When using the above baits focus on shallow rock piles,shoals and points with humps with vegetation that are adjacent to a drop off into deeper water.On windy days with some chop on the water concentrate on points that face into the wind.Muskie love to sit off these points facing into the direction of the wind waiting for some unsuspecting prey to swim by. Wabigoon is relatively shallow body of water for most of it's area with the exception of some deeper pockets or holes and the deepest being in around the 45 foot range.Take advantage of these areas by trolling deep diving baits 10" to 12" in length at a depth of 20 plus feet.The very large female fish will be present in these areas as they will feed on Whitefish and Walleye especially when mid to late August rolls around as they will be putting on bulk to get them through the winter months which helps with the egg production for the spring spawn.Good lures to use are Grandma,Joe Bucher,Shallow & Deep Raider or any other similar big lipped lure.Again,focus on colours that match the deep running forage fish like Whitefish,Shad,Herring,Alewife or Walleye.I have caught Muskie as far down as 50 feet and in some lakes when I was specifically trolling for Lake Trout with spoons,...a nice surprise indeed! So,don't be shy to troll with a large Len Thompson 'Five Of Diamonds' spoon as Muskie at times find them as irresistible as Pike do. Another area on lakes that get overlooked are shallow sandy beach areas.Muskie like to sun themselves at times in calm shallow bays sitting right at the surface to a couple feet below.Keep a sharp eye when in this type of habitat as you may come across one that might be interested in an easy meal.I have witnessed this many times over the years. Also,Muskie are usually on a 3 day feeding cycle.You may find at times that one will just follow your bait to the boat and even bump it showing curiosity.There will be nothing you will be able to do to entice it to hit,...but don't get discouraged as it probably ate earlier that day or the day before.Try doing the figure eight at the boat and if that does not work make a mental note of the location and return the next day or day after that.On day three that fish WILL be ready to feed again and the next time it sees your bait it will come in like a torpedo with gills flared and SLAM the offering so HOLD on and drive those hooks home. I am assuming you have purchased the proper gear so I will just touch on what I use.On one setup I have a reel with 80 lb. test Spiderwire braided moss green line with a medium flex St.Croix rod.Knowing that the Spiderwire will have no stretch properties the medium flex rod will give a little more preventing the hooks from being dislodged from the fish's toothy jaws.The opposite hold true for my other set up which has 80 lb. mono-line with stretch propeties on the reel coupled with a medium-heavy rod which I normally use when trolling.Also,when casting I tie on an 8" 110 lb. Fluorocarbon leader and 24" one on my trolling setup.It is important to note that Muskie fight hard so in order to lessen the degree of a fish dying from exhaustion heavy gear is required to get it in the net quickly,take some quick photos and measurements then release it.On average this should take not more than 5 to 10 minutes maximum. Don't skimp on the snap swivel either.Get a good quality hardened ball-bearing one large enough to handle the lures and punishing blows of a large Muskie,...I learned the hard way on this one years ago. As well,docks and boathouses can hold some nice fish too.Try to pick out the camps or cottages where no one is currently staying and the boat traffic is low.Believe when I say Muskie live there as I have seen it many times before.In some cases I have caught the same fish year after year and if one moves out another will most likely takes its place eventually. One more thing,don't spent too much time casting or trolling one specific area.Troll it once or twice at best then move on.Same goes when casting baits,just work the area once thoroughly and hit the next spot.If a fish is present and hungry it will usually make an appearance within the first dozen casts.The name of the game is to cover as much territory as possible after all,...they are known to have the reputation as being the fish of 10,000 casts.But you can lessen that significantly if you fish wisely. I will attach maps with details of where to concentrate on Wabigoon if I can load them.The red 'X's' will identify areas that I have had follows,strikes or catches and the yellow dashed lines indicate of where to try trolling. Good luck and I'm sure you will have great success in your fishing venture. Edited by Lake Of The Woods 7/31/2016 12:31 PM Attachments ----------------  Lake Of The Woods 2015.jpg (151KB - 755 downloads) | |||
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