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Posts: 51
| I know it sounds crazy that I would think about finding new muskie waters given that I live about 15 minutes from the St-Lawrence and 45 from the Ottawa but I know there are alot of lakes up north that hold good sized muskies. Im starting to really miss fishing in the woods like I would targeting big Northerns not too long ago.
Not really sure I can frame my question to make it easy to anwser but Im looking for insight about what goes into the process of pinning a lake/river you know for a fact holds muskies, and follow the connection between them and come to the conclusion that there's either a good probability of that unknown place to hold em or not? If that makes any sense?
Are dams a barrier? Are heavy rapids a barrier? Alot of the lakes up north are clear water trout lakes so its kind of hard to get a read from guys who fished the lakes before targeting those species as Muskies would've been unlikely to bite on their stuff...
I know there's going to be alot of trial and error pursuing this but any help would be appreciated. |
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Posts: 1209
| If there is water there is not a barrier. |
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Posts: 20190
Location: oswego, il | I am not familiar with your area. I work use any and all recourses to find out. Publications, dnr website, lake maps. I did a seminar in this about 17 years ago but it was for finding water in the midwest. I have a very extensive lake library for IL, IN, Wi, Mi and MN.
Edited by ToddM 3/22/2021 8:02 PM
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Posts: 1983
| Yes you sound crazy many of us wish we were that close to the pinnacle of trophy waters and you named the two best trophy muskie rivers on the planet.... I’d learn those 
Edited by IAJustin 3/22/2021 8:17 PM
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Posts: 4080
Location: Elko - Lake Vermilion | IAJustin - 3/22/2021 8:16 PM
Yes you sound crazy many of us wish we were that close to the pinnacle of trophy waters and you named the two best trophy muskie rivers on the planet.... I’d learn those :)
! Yep,.... Stay put and dissect your Tr0phy Waters...WHY Go anywhere else ?? common sense ,...Maybe ? |
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Posts: 51
| I dont intend to stop fishing the SL or Ottawa by any means, thing is I enjoy looking for fish off the water as much as I enjoy catching them. This would simply be a side project where I try to spot outback lakes on my vacations and try and catch fish that no one knew were even there. |
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Posts: 58
| Dick Pearson was a pioneer back in the day in NW Ontario. He spent many years exploring the Canadian wilderness in search of trophy muskies. You should send him an email. Maybe someone on here can give it to you or you can send him a PM. I know he does come on this site from time to time. |
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Location: oswego, il | I agree with the comments about the home waters but smart exploration can yeild big dividends. It has for me. |
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Posts: 51
| muskysaloon - 3/22/2021 10:57 PM
Dick Pearson was a pioneer back in the day in NW Ontario. He spent many years exploring the Canadian wilderness in search of trophy muskies. You should send him an email. Maybe someone on here can give it to you or you can send him a PM. I know he does come on this site from time to time.
Thanks thats a good idea! I've been trying to get my hands on his book for quite a while without any success. |
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Posts: 13
| Have you tried Black Lake in Hammond... |
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Posts: 2
| Dude what about Eagle Lake. Legendary spot. |
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Posts: 2294
Location: Chisholm, MN | Listen to Mike Lazerus on the backlash podcast. They did a lot of exploring in that area. If a muskie can swim somewhere, it will. |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Think abt joining Muskies Canada. Their members could be a real good resource to you if they are anything like the US's Muskies, Inc. (I think they are). m
https://muskiescanada.ca/en/ |
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Posts: 8745
| You need to do your homework. What I look for in scouting new lakes:
- Is it part of a flowage/river system? If it connects to something with muskies in it, there are probably muskies in it.
- Stocking history? This takes some digging, but if good numbers of fish were stocked in the last 15 years you might be in luck.
- Natural reproduction? I suspect in your area that applies more often than not, but I don't know if the MNR keeps track of that.
- Lunge log/Creel surveys? If others are catching muskies there, well...
- Forage base? I've found a few lakes that are small - under 200 acres, that really shouldn't be that great. If they're deep enough to have ciscos or lake trout that's a good sign. Otherwise a good population of suckers/redhorse can turn out some quality fish. I've also found some relatively infertile lakes with perch and panfish forage, stunted at that, that were absolute duds. They may have a few muskies, but they are short, skinny, and look to be around 100 years old.
- Last thing is structure. Some lakes are devoid of any reefs, rock bars, points, humps, substantial weed beds, etc. Simply put: If there's muskies to be had, they aren't going to be spread all over. It's open water, or what little they can find to hang around and ambush #*#*. Study the map, hit the likely areas, spend a while out in the abyss. If you don't hit pay dirt in a couple hours, come back another day. If that doesn't work, it's probably not worth fishing again. |
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Posts: 51
| @Kirby Budrow I definetily will, thanks for the heads up!
@mikie Definitely joining this year and will probably also join Muskies INC
@esoxaddict Thanks! The particular area Im looking at really fits the deep brook/lake trout lakes, some small some big, some I know for a fact hold muskie but most Im totally in the dark, most of them are connected someway. The comment about if it connects to something with muskie in it, there are probably muskies in it at least gives me some incentive to follow through with this.
I really have no problem getting skunked looking for new waters and I realize that I will probably find 5-10 duds for every new muskie waters I find, just want to do it in an effecient way. One thing I know is I'll have my eyes glued to my electronics on the water, 2nd best thing to actually catching one is spotting them.
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Posts: 1229
Location: E. Tenn | MKevin - 3/30/2021 8:37 PM
One thing I know is I'll have my eyes glued to my electronics on the water, 2nd best thing to actually catching one is spotting them.
When I upgraded electronics three years ago, I found myself paying more attention to the screen than fishing.. Reversed that, and my catch rate improved greatly..
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Location: Athens, Ohio | No matter where your travels, you'll run into a guy at a gas station who will make a point to remind you that, "A bad day fishing is still better than a good day working!"
My reply is usually, "I dunno, never had a bad day fishing."
It is an adventure to seek new waters. I'm finding more and more that just working my 3 or 4 'home' lakes is quite enough adventure for a day. As someone on this board says, there's no other sport where each day can be totally different. good luck and be extra safe when you ply new water up there - yours has rocks in it a lot. m |
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Posts: 336
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | Northern pike is the barrier.
There are 300000 lakes in Ontario - the majority have pike (hundreds of thousands of lakes, the rest probably have no fish at all). There are approximately only 300 lakes in Ontario that have muskie and their associated streams or river systems. Many of those 300 are muskie-only lakes isolated from pike. The river systems that have both don't have barriers to movement of muskie, but nevertheless muskie are only within certain parts of the river and/or in certain lakes within the system; in my part of the world the English, Rainy and Winnipeg River systems all fall into this category. Pike are the barrier, not dams or rapids. Adequate spawning areas, water regulation, barriers to movement etc, are probably secondary issues, but if there were no pike, there would be muskie. There are lots of pike, ergo no muskie in many of waters that could potentially contain them.
OMNR has done extensive surveys and there are very good management plan papers on muskies, their distribution etc. The entire topic is of great interest to me. It is very unlikely there are any accessible good muskie waters that are unknown in Ontario. There may be the odd small muskie-only lake up our way where muskie have evaded sampling.
Note that US muskie management plans, issues, etc are very different than Ontario's. Other than Simcoe, Ontario does not stock muskies and this is a good thing. In other words there is not some new recently stocked lake somewhere or a lake that had a test stocking that may have some remnant fish like you may find in the States.
The major point here is that there really are very few muskie waters up here and the reason is pike. Pike are across the entire northern hemisphere worldwide, muskies are relegated to relatively minuscule area by comparison (likewise their smaller cousins the pickerels)
No harm in casting some big bait in some warm shallow water though in waters accessible to muskie....
Edited by Angling Oracle 3/31/2021 10:41 AM
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Posts: 51
| Angling Oracle - 3/31/2021 11:37 AM
Northern pike is the barrier.
There are 300000 lakes in Ontario - the majority have pike (hundreds of thousands of lakes, the rest probably have no fish at all). There are approximately only 300 lakes in Ontario that have muskie and their associated streams or river systems. Many of those 300 are muskie-only lakes isolated from pike. The river systems that have both don't have barriers to movement of muskie, but nevertheless muskie are only within certain parts of the river and/or in certain lakes within the system; in my part of the world the English, Rainy and Winnipeg River systems all fall into this category. Pike are the barrier, not dams or rapids. Adequate spawning areas, water regulation, barriers to movement etc, are probably secondary issues, but if there were no pike, there would be muskie. There are lots of pike, ergo no muskie in many of waters that could potentially contain them.
OMNR has done extensive surveys and there are very good management plan papers on muskies, their distribution etc. The entire topic is of great interest to me. It is very unlikely there are any accessible good muskie waters that are unknown in Ontario. There may be the odd small muskie-only lake up our way where muskie have evaded sampling.
Note that US muskie management plans, issues, etc are very different than Ontario's. Other than Simcoe, Ontario does not stock muskies and this is a good thing. In other words there is not some new recently stocked lake somewhere or a lake that had a test stocking that may have some remnant fish like you may find in the States.
The major point here is that there really are very few muskie waters up here and the reason is pike. Pike are across the entire northern hemisphere worldwide, muskies are relegated to relatively minuscule area by comparison (likewise their smaller cousins the pickerels)
No harm in casting some big bait in some warm shallow water though in waters accessible to muskie....
Most of northern Quebec is exactly like that, either lake trout/brook trout lakes or Pike and Walleyes lakes. I've found 2 areas that are the exception, one of them is connected to to St-Lawrence and the other to the Ottawa. I've heard of one in particular that was a result of a stocked lake that flooded in the 60s and got Muskies invading a decent sized river/lake system. |
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Posts: 336
Location: Selkirk, Manitoba | MKevin - 3/31/2021 6:20 PM
"Most of northern Quebec is exactly like that, either lake trout/brook trout lakes or Pike and Walleyes lakes. I've found 2 areas that are the exception, one of them is connected to to St-Lawrence and the other to the Ottawa. I've heard of one in particular that was a result of a stocked lake that flooded in the 60s and got Muskies invading a decent sized river/lake system."
Yeah, going further out east into Quebec of course there is the Lac Frontière stocking that resulted in the St. Johns River, NB fish that are considered an invasive (among all the other invasives in there). If you like muskies, a major coup , but for the trout and Atlantic Salmon guys not so much.
It sounds like you have some other clues along the same lines.
In terms of your OP then I would say your best time to find those fish is to take advantage of their desire for the warmest water available post spawn which will eliminate a lot of water. We do the same thing for pike and smallmouth here after ice out.
Edited by Angling Oracle 3/31/2021 7:59 PM
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Posts: 3820
| Identify and make contact with the government fisheries biologists who work the geographic area in which you're interested. They are the first line experts. The close second level experts are the established bait shop owners. Don't ask for info without first spending money. In both cases start out by making sure they know you are a catch and release guy, you don't kill big, breeder fish. Fisheries biologists and bait shop guys both want to know what you find out from your efforts. |
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Posts: 861
Location: NE Ohio | i took a different approach last year. i stayed on my home waters but wouldn't fish the old fav spots. went everywhere i didn't fish before and catch rates went up and 2 PB's trolling and casting were the result. i think i'll stay with my plan a little longer................. |
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