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Posts: 2
| Hey guys new I'm new to this forum but have been musky fishing for 10 years now and have come into a real slump.
I always keep track of follows/strike and misses when ever I go out and make the spot on my fish finder. In the last 2 years I have had 97 follows/strike and misses and a couple of them shaking the hooks at the boat and have only been able to get my hands on three small fish.
I am fishing in south eastern Ontario and have tried everything I can think of to try and catch these amazing fish from big lures, small lures, top water, live bait, bucktails, glide baits, jerk baits, small soft plastics and big soft plastics. And all I can get are these fish to follow and go into the figure 8 for a lap or 2 then they are gone.
3 years ago I caught 27 muskies including my biggest a 51" and am just dumbfounded about the lack of fish I have been able to get to bite.
I am just hoping someone will be able to maybe give me some new ideas to hopefully help me salvage this musky season.
Thanks Bryon |
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Posts: 171
Location: indiana | sounds like your figure eight might need some tweaking. just guessing. everyone goes through slumps. |
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Location: Northern Wisconsin | If what you're doing isn't working then try something new. There are a bunch of tips for triggering strikes. By watching videos or fishing with other people you can pick up on some strategies. I'm no expert but here are some things I try to do to trigger strikes. One overall recommendation is to try speeding up retrieve on all lures and see if you can get a reaction strike out of a few fish.
bucktails- Get the blades spinning right when the lure hits the water. Use rod tip to change direction when lure is getting close to boat. Get the lure to flare up in the middle of the retrieve by cranking hard for a couple turns. When going into the figure-8, make a smooth L-turn and submerge your rod tip to get the lure to dive.
jerkbaits/twitchbaits- Vary your cadence or length of pause. If your retrieving the lure with a jerk-pause-jerk-pause.... all the way back, then in the middle of the retrieve give it 3-4 hard jerks in a row. Every once in a while let the lure pause for an extra second or two. You can let the lure "death rise" to the surface about 10 feet away from the boat. Just simply stop and let the lure float back up. Once it has risen to the surface finish retrieve for last 10 feet.
Rubber- Same type of thing as jerkbaits. Vary length of pulls/pauses and add in a couple hard rips in a row. |
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Posts: 1360
Location: Lake "y" cause lake"x" got over fished | in the new musky hunter magazine (at least I think it is the new one), there is a whole article about triggering more strikes. Some of the tricks I already use, some I don't and there were a few I had never even thought of. But It was a good article and I plan on using some of the other ones to trigger more of my own strikes. Though my year is not spectacular at this point, I am doing alright from using some of my own little tweaks in my 8s and retrieves. I can't complain as I already got a new PB in the boat, just trying to get up to my 50 at this point. My time will come and your slump will end soon enough.
Edited by FAT-SKI 8/28/2012 7:18 AM
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Posts: 1023
| If u r talking the kawarthas, I find that those muskies don't figure eight as readily for me as the other lakes I fish. The water is very clear and they often spook as I go into m turn. Could jut be me though.
Having said that, kawarthas Muskie are numerous and you should be getting 1 - 10 fish un a day if you r familiar with the lake and patterns.
Some years I pick the right days to fish and the fish are really moving. Other years, like last year, I got stuck fishing post frontal or seemingly inactive days.
Landry. |
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Posts: 619
| Have you tried speeding your retrieve? I get very few follows all yr long, use speed and its basically either eat the lure or nothin at all.. no free looks...alot of times if you stick w/ a topwater, they will at least take a shot it eating it, may not get hooks but better than a crappy follow |
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Posts: 2305
Location: SE, WI. | I'd suggest doing some night fishing. especially this time of the year. Also, if you want to turn some #'s, start doing some trolling, long line and short line trolling. |
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Posts: 151
Location: IL | I'd suggest praying to the muskie gods..its worth a shot! |
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Posts: 61
Location: Anoka | Try some trolling to break the skid !! |
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Posts: 1220
| I am every bit as good as Bill Clinton at "feeling your pain" as I have been battling my own severe slumping season. And, I would not say a word of what might well be "bad advice" based on the self-doubt we all feel when that happens....EXCEPT for the comment you make about having the fish stick around for one or two turns of the eight. For me, there is the "Suicide" fish that eats within a moment of the bait hitting the water, and the "Bird follower" that ever so slowly turns away eight to ten feet away from the boat with a seemingly flipping you off with their tail on the way out. (I just hate that!) Then there is all the possible scenarios that come between those two extreme ends of a encounter with a fish. My own experience is that the vast majority of fish you don't catch never enter the figure eight, and that you can net pretty near half of the fish that give you two full turns. It takes a bit of guts to do this...but I reccomend a huge sweep of the rod as soon as you have reason to believe one of these more tentative fish are following. In other words, you see the fish 25 feet away and you literally attempt to "times and a half" the speed of the bait in an effort to take it away from the fish. You just have to believe that YOU CAN'T reel and sweep faster than the fish can overtake and consume your bait. Naturally, you have waited all day to see this fish and it is VERY HARD to do this! |
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Posts: 2
| Thanks guys I have tried a lot of your suggestions, I have bought new lures in new colors and I will try to speed all my retrieves up a little faster. I'm heading out again next weekend with my brother and girlfriend who have never caught a musky so I'm hoping a little beginners luck might help out lol.
And till then I will be praying to the musky gods to help me break this slump and hopefully get back in my groove. |
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Posts: 5874
| Don't forget the $.41 over the left shoulder while facing East and saying that prayer.
gotta be a Quarter, Dime, Nickel and a penny. They don't have to be shiny, either, but it helps the fishes see them as they flutter down to the bottom.
PS. This only works once per day.
Edited by Shep 8/29/2012 11:54 AM
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