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Posts: 6
| Wondering if anyone has experienced a stretch as disappointing/underwhelming as I just had.. I spent 6 days up in Northern Wisconsin and never caught a fish. I moved fish every day but never got one to eat. I tried EVERYTHING, and couldn’t make it happen. I spent at least 12 hours on the water each day. Tried clear lakes, dirty lakes, super shallow, deeper edges, and never made it happen. Lots of northern and bass. Just looking for some trauma bonding.. I expected a couple fish minimum but they had other plans. |
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Posts: 1301
Location: E. Tenn | Caught a 40 yesterday, and two runts earlier in the week.. Hopefully things will heat up next week. |
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| I fished in a league on Wednesday this week in northern WI, 50+ anglers, 5 hour window, 2 fish caught in total. It was a tough bite. I and my partner didn't even have a follow. I did have what appeared to be a nice walleye hit a 9" Suick but I somehow managed not to get a good hookset. |
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Posts: 577
Location: deephaven mn | typical typical muskie fishing is hard you are fishing for a rare fish that is stubbborn. moving fish is the key.. its being in the right place at the right time. keep doing what you are doing and it will happen |
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Posts: 2364
Location: Chisholm, MN | Definitely had some tough trips. I wouldn't plan a musky trip to a real destination before the 4th of July. Sometimes june can be good but it's more hit or miss until July. |
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Posts: 6
| Yeah, it's just a tough start when you plan to come out and slaughter them and you can't muster a single fish. Last year I think I ended up with 13 fish, so I thought at least 1 fish would be a lock for the week. The goal this year is 10 fish over 40 in the boat. Likely too big of a goal, but you have to set the bar high. Now that I'm back in central-ish WI with some water temps in the mid 60's I have a little more hope. |
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Posts: 236
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota | 2 years ago on vermilion I fished vermilion 8-10 days over July and didn’t catch a single fish with only a few follows. Every season I will have at least 1 weekend where I don’t even move a fish up there. Thankfully my first time getting out this year I was able to get 2 yesterday over in Wisconsin, but up until this year I went 2 seasons without catching one for northern wisco opener |
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Posts: 22
| Spent a week in late July on Cliff a few years ago, my partner and I each landed 1 40-41 incher. We were after muskies most of the trip. Only caught a few average walleyes and pike, nothing big. We were told Cliff is an action lake, but there wasn't much action for us that particular full moon week. There were a few other musky guys there, nobody was seeing much. |
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Posts: 47
| If you have fished muskies for a long time, I think we all have had this happen to us! it does really suck however! it is just how muskie fishing works sometimes unfortunately. Here are a couple of quick stories... Bad muskie fishing has happened several times to our groups in Canada over the past 35 years. And it has happened more often to me in Minnesota and Wisconsin than I like to admit. It took me 4 years to catch my first muskie from Cass Lake. And I tried and tried. And I tried and tried. I got frustrated by all of it. All of my muskie buddies were catching them there - but not me. I finally got a 41" fish and that took the pressure off. I look back at the hard work and really great times going through that however and feel fortunate to have been given the ability to try. I also learned a really good body of water that I now fish every few years and feel like I could get a fish anytime I am there now. And I have caught quite a number of really good fish. A group of us went to the French River back in 2009. Instead of going to our normal LOTW destination we went to try a different famed piece of water just to try something new. My boat partner and I fished hard through 90-degree temps daily. It was #*^@ hot every day! We fished approximately 75 hours and saw 5 fish! I did manage to miss one well over 50 so that was on me. Still to this day, it might have been the largest muskie I ever lost! And I lost a nice 42-inch pike at the boat. There were 6 of us together and we managed a 47" and a 47-1/2" fish between 3 boats in a week. To add insult to injury some of our buddy's went to our normal LOTW destination over the same time frame. They managed to catch 14 over 40" and 2 over 50". And they only fished 4 days! Do you think we should have went to the French River? I only know I have not been back there since! We went to Lac Seul in 1993 and had a horrible cold front blow through the first night we were there. It was like 75 degrees on Sat when we arrived. We stayed at Chamberlain Narrows and boats were starting to have water fill up over the back of them due to wind, heavy rains, and waves that first night as it was storming hard. Heavy lightning and rain and heavy winds rumbled across the sky. We went out at 1:00 a.m. trying to bail out the boats as the camp owners were in a panic. Everyone in camp was soaked by the time we reset the boats and went back to bed at 2:00. Back then (maybe it is the same there now) you would just pull your boat on a sand beach peninsula as there were no dock systems. The next day the temps were in the 40's or even colder. And it stayed that way all week. The sun finally came out on Friday and the winds we had all week died down! It was a welcome sight but was too late! Fishing was slow and tough, and we did not fare well at all. While there were some nice fish caught via trolling in camp we were not set up for any of that. We certainly are now though! We ended up catching zero muskies between the 2 boats we had for our group. And just like the French River trip, I have not been back to Lac Seul. It is crazy to think that you plan for a week-long muskie trip and then nothing goes quite right. We could feel the pressure building as far as not having any fish in the boat. No matter what we did, it did not work. Every night we would discuss the lack of fish sightings and lack of success. I feel everyone's pain who has gone through this. I only hope it does not happen again when we go to Canada at the end of June this year. Good luck to all the rest of the year! Hopefully the fishing will get better... |
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