| Walleyes, perch, carp, suckers, mooneyes, thinfin, Gizzard shad, pike, themselves.......What do they really eat? |
| I'm w/ Scott- anything that moves. Worms, crawdad's, mud puupy's,snakes,bullheads, crappies, panfish, walleyes, muskrats, ducks, .........................snail darters, spotted owls, whooping cranes, bald eagles.
Seriously though, I believe they target the most abundant forage Usually what most of us call bait fish. I know to a big Muskie everything is potential food. But I believe they key on specific forage or area's that the forage species utilize and actually prefer soft rayed forage. F. Ex.The famous late fall "spawning Cisco" bite. I just don't believe they target panfish, i.e., blue gills & crappies, especially the bigger ones. Besides, I read somewhere that because of their body shape blue gills, crappies, etc. are more adept at predator avoidance than other fish, i.e, they can make tighter turn's in escaping a predator attack.
So what's the most abundant forage in the lake? Find the forage and you'll find the active muskies. I have also found active muskies in some other locations where I couldn't detect any bait presence, so they also will ambush just about any other happless creature that should venture along in their vicinity. Maybe their feeding strategy is similar to a shark, swim around until you find something that looks tasty, then put the feed bag on, but also take advantage of any other opportunity, i.e, while resting, etc. I think some of them are wanderer's and others are ambush addict's. I have one spot on a fly-in lake that I know we've raised the same fish multiple times the last 3 trip's over last 5 years. But it's also the inside edge of a good cabbage patch with wood and the cabbage patch is relatively small (100') and has access to +80' of water. So it's the ideal dinner table. Why leave the dinner table if you don't have to?
Al Warner
www.icantplayfindmyfoot.com
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