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| going to be able to start musky fishing once school ends and i've seen jason hamernick and others use ridiculous speed with their double 10's and other bucktails. I've never truly tried super fast speeds in order to fish. I'm wondering when this approach is appropriate? what conditions are optimal? in mid-may should i be using smaller bucktails /jerks? or will dc10s and 7-9in lures be okay ? |
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Posts: 463
Location: Sw Pennsylvania | Speed seems to always be fairly critical. Somedays they want it fast some they want it slow. Your lure size selection should be just fine for anytime of the year. With the dc10s i would suggest more of a moderate speed in between fast and slow it seems to be my best approach with the big double blades. Smaller double blades seem to produce better under more of a burning speed approach..my 2 cents. |
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Posts: 692
Location: Pelican Rapids, MN | When and where your fishing is probably the greatest factor on speed. Last year in MN the weather wasn't variable, it was just cool all summer long. Water temps were stagnant and in most cases fish were holding deep, thus speed in that scenario slow and steady won the race. When there was a slight warming trend, it's all about speed, HOT, NASTY, BAD A55 SPEED!
As for Hamernick, if you saw the Big Blades, Big Muskies video - Mille Lacs was caught in a major cold front, and the fish were holding to a piece of shallow structure. The rapid retrieve he and Billy used was all about a reaction strike - and in most scenarios that's what speed is.
I agree with allegheny that for the most part smaller blades are more effective burned, however, when fishing shallow weeds, 5 feet and under, burned 10's + can be deadly. |
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Posts: 97
Location: Pickering, ON | All season long.
While video trolling last year I was catching fish as late as late November/early December on trolled double 13s at upwards of 6mph. You couldn't reel that fast.
Cold fronts might dictate using that something that stays in the zone longer, but still doesn't mean it has to be worked super slow.
Edited by JeffinPickering 4/30/2010 10:13 AM
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Location: Ontario | Really? Double 13's at 6mph and boating fish last December? Where'd the reports go? |
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Posts: 97
Location: Pickering, ON | You read one from Nov on Raf's board. Even Brett indicated he'd had multiple fish days at 5mph in 39 degree water.
I kept at it until the end of the season, and while I didn't boat everyone I saw or that hit, they kept coming with the water below 40 degrees.
You can doubt it if you like, but I've seen enough to conclude that there's no reason to fish at 2.5-3.5mph ever.
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Posts: 697
Location: Minnetonka | JeffinPickering - 4/30/2010 10:11 AM
...double 13s at upwards of 6mph. You couldn't reel that fast
Ego check...
Anyone else thinking, 'Hope you're talking to someone in particular, because "couldn't" and "can't" aren't in me and my Trinidad's vocabulary!' ?
No offense meant. Good to see yet another testimony on extreme speed.
I'm bringing a radar gun out next year to clock bucktails.
Catch 'em
Andy
Edited by Hammskie 4/30/2010 10:56 AM
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Posts: 540
Location: MN | Hey Andy, do you rember those days on that one lake I'm pretty sure the Trinidads were going 6+. It's going to be even better this year!! |
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Posts: 697
Location: Minnetonka | Maybe even too fast for the muskies, as I remember you giving your Cowgirl the ol' Sondag Slap and muttering expletives after she came unbuttoned. 
Edited by Hammskie 4/30/2010 11:21 AM
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Location: MN | That fish was HUGE  |
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Posts: 553
Location: 15 miles east of Lake Kinkaid | Speed can be a HUGE key, as the guys with much more experience than myself have indicated. However, in my small amount of experience in the southern range of muskie lakes (So IL and KY) slow retrieves seem to produce the most fish. However, on these slow retrieves a figure 8 with speed is often the key to get fish to commit. My basic rule is if I am getting fish up hot on bait at a slow to medium retrieve, but cannot get them to commit, I speed up my retrieve and this often leads to fish eating instead of following. As you saw with Hammernick's video, the kind of "speed" I am talking about is break-neck, wrist cramping, sweating you a$$ off reeling in bucktails all day, but sometimes in clear water it is dynamite!
Edited by MuskyMATT7 4/30/2010 12:15 PM
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Posts: 2
| Hammskie, it's been said time and again that speed kills!!!! Another thing people don't remember is that the faster you fish your getting to that next active fish faster! Something to think about. Also it's pretty amazing to watch a 50 incher make the turn at the boat at Mach 3 speeds and T-boning your DCG!!!! Take em for a walk a quick picture and let'em go!!
There's one!  |
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Posts: 169
Location: Houlton, WI | Burn when the water is our and in clear water on clear days |
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Location: Pelican Rapids, MN | "Sondag Slap" Sounds kinky! Nice being recognized for my tantrums! |
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Posts: 540
Location: MN | Jerry I think my tantraums might rival yours LOL. It's sad but I'll mix in some rod tossing:( |
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| Speed is nice, either speed troll or use salt water equipment for it...same thing for the most part. Will put fish in the boat. |
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Posts: 829
Location: Maple Grove, MN | I am not convinced that fast speed always helps or is even the most important thing. I think it can be, but it depends on what you're doing.
My experience is that speed matters most on straight action lures like bucktails or crankbaits. But it is not always so important on baits like spinner baits, gliders, and plastics. Action and lure placement is usually much more important on those types of lures.
My most productive method of inducing strikes is using spinner baits to make contact with weeds and structure. What I do is very similar to what Dick Pearson calls "grinding", except in a more deliberate and controlled manner. I don't just grind. I also add action and try to control the amount of contact with the structure. Sometimes I'll just clip the weed tops or gently bounce off the rocks. Other times, I'll send the lure deep into the weeds or viiolently smash the lure off the side of large boulders. Being able to control the spinner bait can be absolute key and my spinner baits show it. Even if they don't get hit, they lose a lot of paint in a hurry and usually look "used" after just a few hours of use.
There are many ways to catch a Muskie. Speed is just one.
Edited by Herb_b 5/1/2010 12:19 AM
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| Herb_b, you are a dying breed...today people are more concerned with results rather than skill or technique...They just want to use equipment made for marlin for a fresh water fish. Times change and we are a results focused group...stock more lakes with more fish to make it easier, use saltwater equipment to make it easier...all about making it easier...BR |
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Posts: 829
Location: Maple Grove, MN | Yeah, I love my techniques, but I am about results too. Not to brag, but we have had very good results in my boat the last few years. The more we see others using the big DC-10s and stuff like that, the more fish we have in the net.
Some of my best days the last few years came when following boats who were throwing DC-10s and especially when they were burning them. They woke them up and I caught them. Those three and four fish days are fun. |
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| BenR - 5/1/2010 12:22 AM
Herb_b, you are a dying breed...today people are more concerned with results rather than skill or technique...They just want to use equipment made for marlin for a fresh water fish. Times change and we are a results focused group...stock more lakes with more fish to make it easier, use saltwater equipment to make it easier...all about making it easier...BR
I enjoy the hunt and the challenge as much as anyone, but I'm also out there to catch fish. EVERY innovation in boats, trolling motors, electronics, rods, reels, line, etc has made it "easier" to catch muskies. Every size limit regulation, closed season, and stocking quota has made it easier to catch more and bigger fish. Braided line, release tools, big nets, magazines the internet, TV shows, Navionics chips, side imaging, 3D lake maps, Muskies inc, seminars, muskie shows...
It's a heck of a lot easier to catch muskies that is has ever been, but it STILL isn't easy. Ask anybody who was muskie fishing back in the 70's what it was like, and if they'd like those days back. The 70's were no bargain. I didn't know any better, because I was a kid, and I fished in WI, and if you caught it, you ate it. It's a lot easier to catch all sorts of fish, on the same lakes I fished 30 years ago, than it was back then.
Would you rather make it more difficult? |
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Location: Muskegon Michigan | Herb_b - 5/1/2010 1:16 AM
I am not convinced that fast speed always helps or is even the most important thing. I think it can be, but it depends on what you're doing.
My experience is that speed matters most on straight action lures like bucktails or crankbaits. But it is not always so important on baits like spinner baits, gliders, and plastics. Action and lure placement is usually much more important on those types of lures.
My most productive method of inducing strikes is using spinner baits to make contact with weeds and structure. What I do is very similar to what Dick Pearson calls "grinding", except in a more deliberate and controlled manner. I don't just grind. I also add action and try to control the amount of contact with the structure. Sometimes I'll just clip the weed tops or gently bounce off the rocks. Other times, I'll send the lure deep into the weeds or viiolently smash the lure off the side of large boulders. Being able to control the spinner bait can be absolute key and my spinner baits show it. Even if they don't get hit, they lose a lot of paint in a hurry and usually look "used" after just a few hours of use.
There are many ways to catch a Muskie. Speed is just one. :)
My kind of thinking. My opinion is that speed is relevant to lure . Trolling for instance I have followed guys on Lake St. Clair who were almost on plane trolling Lokes at 5/6 mhp and while they got a few fish we pounded the bigger ones in their wake at 2.9 mph trolling tuff Shads. Mant days big fish just dont want to chase a fast moving meal but will eat a twitch or Glide bait thats is struggling right in thier face. The Cady Weagle is the best example of a slow moving great producer of big fish. The death March ,this lure forces you to slow down to a waltz cadence and big fish pound it. I have a few double tens and even a few double 12's . Where I live on the lakes I fish they dont catch squat Double 8's like the Shumway Flashers have always done far better for us. I had a 6 fish day Thursday here in Michigan and I moved nothing on fast moving double 10's. I put on a smaller double 8 that I made and contacted two fish boated one of them. The other 5 came trolling slow at 3.2 mph pulling Lokes and Little Claws. I am sure that warmer water allows more speed to be used but my guess is that all that speed is not needed. Take that Double 10 off and save your elbow. Toss a bull dawg, a twitch bait or Death march a Weagle. In 2006 My wife and I boated 223 Muskies and we didnt catch one of them on a double 10 bucktail. Thats results if you ask me. Kingfisher |
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Posts: 311
Location: Ontario | Jeff, I'm not doubting fish will hit something at 6mph at any time of the year. I'm doubting what you said about catching them last December. I saw 850 words re: a 7 or 8 pounder that you typed up before your hands were dry once last fall. Something tells me if you were having that kind of success it would have been plastered all over every muskie board in N. America. Don't confuse the fishing element with the fish story element. I'm not doubting the 'speed works in cold water theory.' It's also amazing to me that you had to buy a camera to figure out that 3mph is slow for muskie and that they like bursts, turns etc and will hit well past 5 or 6mph. 2.5-3mph is slow for salmon or rainbows. Then try and teach people how speed works on fish lol. I think a lot of guys already had a hunch. |
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Posts: 59
| Its not that much fun to burn 13's.. |
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