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Posts: 196
| What do you do when you can't even raise a fish on a lake which usually produces action? Nobody I talked to (including myself) even saw a fish. I tried several techniques and baits with no success. Wrap it up may be the obvious answer but what is your approach if your guiding or tournament fishing? |
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Posts: 32892
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | When things are tough all a guy can do is plug away and hope. Some days I tried to adapt to the 'no fish' problem trying everything at my disposal, with no results. Other days, a speed change or water column height change did the trick. Make sure you eliminate as many possibilities as to location as you can, and if you are certain you were in front of the fish and didn't get bit, try, try again, I guess! |
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Posts: 1430
Location: Eastern Ontario | All I do once we pounded the waters for 4 to 5 hour without a sign of life is troll. I will troll spots that I know that hold fish untill they turn on. Last Friday nothing worked but Saturday we landed 3 of 4 between 1:30 and 4:00 PM. |
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Posts: 132
Location: Kawarthas, Ontario | I have 3 or 4 "go to" baits when fishing is at its toughest. My first approach is to hit the primary spots and keep altering speed up or down... up if necessary to the extreme (ie: 10 mph) If that doesn't work, I hammer the weeds... pockets and edges. I'll short-line baits over and through the weeds, even it means frequently cleaning them off and re-setting them. I'll even resort to suicide runs into slot areas. Normally such conditions might produce a couple of tentative hits, and only 1-2 fish over the whole day. But, take heart... likely those 1-2 fish are far more than the average angler has boated or even seen. Even if you only get a couple of tentative hits, you're doing something right. Note the speed, presentation, and location and try to match this in similar areas.
Steve Wickens
STRIKE ZONE Muskie Charters |
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Posts: 2059
Location: Belgium | try different areas. By that I mean, fish the deeper water outside the structures that usually produce fish. Maybe the fish are deeper? |
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Posts: 389
Location: Presque Isle Wisconsin | Really this is a classic question and situation that happens to everyone from time to time.The usual causes of a lake going "dead" are a long period of stable weather without swings in barometer pressure , cold fronts, prolonged rainy periods etc.If that Lake is your only option I would I would hit hte open water for a suspended bite first. I like to throw and rip Big Ernies or Floating Depth raiders in that situation. The Ripper from H20 lures has been very very good to me this year for suspended fish.Afeter that Im definately going to go down after them with sinking crankbaits on midlake structure and secondary shoreline breaks. Slow retreives seem to work best here. Also watch for moonrise and mooset periods to kick up the action and try to alternate your times on the water such as early mornings or very late.Changing lure size and even going to a live bait option should all be tried.This is what its all about . Making the adjustments to catch Muskies when they are not aggressive. This is what guiding is all about anyway because we are confronted whith this situation an a weekly basis. Hope this helps a little. |
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Posts: 196
| Has switching lakes in the middle of a bad day paid off for you? Do you switch to different colored water? My limited experience is that if the fishing is bad on a particular day on a good lake it will be bad on other lakes. |
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Posts: 389
Location: Presque Isle Wisconsin | It would depend on whats causing the slowdown. A big coldfront in the warm water season will tend to slow all lakes;however there are other factors that can just affect individual lakes such as low or high water conditions,forage base movements,weed die off, murking of the water from rain runoff,boat traffic on shallow lakes and on and on,or many other factors that we just dont know at the moment.Many times when the deep clear lakes I spend most of my time on are off the flowages are hot and versa.Rivers are sometimes not affected by stable barometer conditions that will slow down seepage lakes.I gues my answer is not to go to the same type of lake because it has a different name,but to choose one that has different base characteristics. |
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