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| I’m putting the boat out on a lake I have fished numerous times with limited success. I’m asking for some guidance.
There is a large area where millions and millions of cisco stack up from 20-60 fow and they’ll be thick. Sometimes they are so thick, I’ll read the bottom at 15ft when I know I’m over 50. I’ve drifted for 10mins straight with a massive stack up of fish under me the entire time. How do I fish this? I feel like I can’t compete with all that bait.
I’ve seen the ciscoes jump out of the water before and they are all between 6-12 inches long and very skinny. They are not the jumbo whitefish/tullibee. I’ve typically been trolling 10” grandmas and casting mag dawgs. Perhaps too big?
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Match the hatch. Cast. Reel. Repeat. |
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Posts: 469
Location: Downers Grove, IL | I'd try working the edges of the baitfish schools if possible |
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| Or don't match the hatch. Make your bait stand out so that you don't blend into the school too much. Brighter, darker, more erratic, deeper, shallower, whatever.
Keep in mind that the ciscoes are probably spawning at night, so the muskies might be in shallow waiting for them instead of hanging out with the ciscoes full time.
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Posts: 16632
Location: The desert | Guest - 11/16/2011 2:55 PM
Or don't match the hatch. Make your bait stand out so that you don't blend into the school too much. Brighter, darker, more erratic, deeper, shallower, whatever.
Keep in mind that the ciscoes are probably spawning at night, so the muskies might be in shallow waiting for them instead of hanging out with the ciscoes full time.
This might work as well, but in all honesty I don't think color really matters. Attempting to mimic the vibrations of a wounded baitfish might be a good start. I'd throw a DDD. |
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| Don't compete with that...
Fish the closest structures to them, or around the outside of them |
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| really? color doesn't matter? wow. ask ANY of the guys that put lots of 50 + inchers in the boat every year and I bet every one will say color can and does matter.
guys who don't catch big fish shouldn't comment like they know it all. period. |
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Location: The desert | really? - 11/16/2011 3:41 PM
really? color doesn't matter? wow. ask ANY of the guys that put lots of 50 + inchers in the boat every year and I bet every one will say color can and does matter.
guys who don't catch big fish shouldn't comment like they know it all. period.
Would you like to delve into color spectrum in water? My guess is you don't.
Do colors catch fish or fisherman?
Edited by Pointerpride102 11/16/2011 4:56 PM
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Posts: 245
| I would use something big, deep running (to fish under the "school" of cisco), loud and bright.
Make sure it catches the fishes attention, why would it eat plastic/wood if there are millions of real fish there?
Reason to fish under the school, musky and pike like to attack from underneath and therefore position themselves under the prey if possible. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | really? - 11/16/2011 4:41 PM
really? color doesn't matter? wow. ask ANY of the guys that put lots of 50 + inchers in the boat every year and I bet every one will say color can and does matter.
guys who don't catch big fish shouldn't comment like they know it all. period.
Don't get me started, I'm leaving to hunt tomorrow and need to get packed up.
Most people have absolutely no clue what so ever what color the lure they snap on to the leader is in the environment in which the muskie lives, and even less clue what the fish is capable of seeing. Maybe YOU need to read more and complain less...just sayin'.
Color is irrelevant. Contrast is king.
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| Color would be important if you have enough light penetration down to those depths. As a result, color is muted and as Steve said contrast is the key.
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| lol
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| If Worrall is gone this weekend does that mean Pointer is in charge?
Color doesn't matter? Isn't color a major contributor to contrast? |
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Location: The desert | whynot - 11/16/2011 4:31 PM
If Worrall is gone this weekend does that mean Pointer is in charge?
Color doesn't matter? Isn't color a major contributor to contrast?
Don't get so hung up on the color. Think beyond!
I would hate to be in charge. |
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Posts: 267
Location: Right behind you (tap, tap) BOOO |
Personally I wouldn't have any idea how to fish that, I guess my approach would be to get in the thick of it and fish away. Casting a big dawg or dussa and pumping that sucker back or trolling through it with some big old cranks. That is how I would vision the guys on the Pond or the V doing it, you have half the battle won finding the bait.
Edited by esox23 11/16/2011 5:38 PM
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| whynot - 11/16/2011 6:31 PM
If Worrall is gone this weekend does that mean Pointer is in charge?
Color doesn't matter? Isn't color a major contributor to contrast?
Not necessarily.
You look at a red bait and say "that's a red bait." You are not seeing color, you are seeing red light reflected off of that bait. So if red light (in this example) does not penetrate down deep you will not have red light reflected off of that bait. In turn, it will appear black or dark or however it appears depending on other environmental factors involved (stain, sun angle, etc.)
So you take that bait in the example above that has red in it. It also has green (remember, it's green light that is reflected) and you get down deep enough where green light also cannot penetrate into the depth you are at. What you are left with is a bait that has no contrast deeper in the water column as a result of a lack of light penetration. Yet on the surface that same bait is bright red and bright green and you think "wow, there's contrast here." You would be right...but you are looking at it on the surface without bloom, stain, light diffusion, etc. factored in.
Bottom line here is that the same bait that appears red and green to YOU on the surface will look very different to YOU if you put on a scuba suit and looked at it in 20 feet of water. Now take into consideration that muskies do not have the same sight as a human does and it's yet another factor that comes into play. Don't assume that because a bait looks one way to you or I that it looks the same to a fish swimming 20 feet below the surface. To put it bluntly, if you make this assumption you are an idiot. |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | whynot,
No worries, even in the National Forest in NW WI, I'll still be checking in. What lure colors you see in the boat are immediately altered by several contributing factors when the bait hits the water. Short answer is what I said above, and that's because most folks are not curious enough to figure out what happens to color underwater, much less consider what the background might be.
To the question, I'd think THAT much competition would be hard to overcome. |
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| Ha, I think Pointer being in charge for a weekend would be a riot...or cause one!
I understand just fine about how color changes under water due to a variety of conditions, but to say color is irrelevant is an overstatement. Certain colors and color combinations will provide better/different contrast under different conditions. |
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Location: The desert | What about solid black? Seems to always be a popular color....... |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Not an overstatement at all. What color is a green bait in perfectly clear water down 10'? |
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Location: On the water | Believe me I'm no expert but what I would do is match the hatch with a DDD (9" just in the middle of the 6-12" bait) and just work around the school. A lot of pauses and jerks. I think my DDD would be much easier to catch that a cisco running for it's life! Good luck to all, Tom |
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Location: deephaven mn | A more import question at what depth in clear water does a green bait not appear to be green ? Or how many feet away horizontally will the bait not appear to be green? |
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| who cares what green or red looks like 10' down if someone has enough experience to know that a certain color bait gets better results on a certain lake at a certain time? isn't actually catching fish more important than how they see a certain color? |
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Location: The desert | lambeau - 11/16/2011 5:42 PM
who cares what green or red looks like 10' down if someone has enough experience to know that a certain color bait gets better results on a certain lake at a certain time? isn't actually catching fish more important than how they see a certain color?
Is it then the color of the bait or the action of the bait itself? Or do they just throw that one the most? |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | lambeau - 11/16/2011 6:42 PM
who cares what green or red looks like 10' down if someone has enough experience to know that a certain color bait gets better results on a certain lake at a certain time? isn't actually catching fish more important than how they see a certain color?
I do.
Knowing WHY a color worked allows one to repeat the success elsewhere in differing conditions that produce the same effect. Knowing what happens to that color can also allow one to refine and improve upon past successes and make better choices in the future.
'A more import question at what depth in clear water does a green bait not appear to be green ? Or how many feet away horizontally will the bait not appear to be green?'
To take this a bit further; what time of day are we talking about? Is the sky clear, are there high clouds, and what time of year is it? Is it calm, or rough? How was the green color created? Blue base and yellow added, or yellow base and blue added? Is there a base color under the green?
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Location: Contrarian Island | ask guys who actually catch lots of big fish and see what they tell you Pointer...
in my world, color or contrast or whatever you want to call it sure does matter in catching more fish |
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| sworrall - 11/16/2011 6:21 PM
Not an overstatement at all. What color is a green bait in perfectly clear water down 10'?
At night? High noon? Cloudy skies? Gonna look different under different light conditions.
What I'm getting at is different colors work better under different conditions...it could certainly be because those particular colors maximize contrast under those conditions. My, and a lot of other people's, experiences say color does matter at times for any number of reasons.
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| I agree with Nelson 100% - ask the guys who catch lots of big fish. Color can make the difference. I have seen it over an over - two guys throwing the same bait but different colors and one catches nearly all the fish. I would work a DDD as erratic as possible with serveral pauses - that would be option 1 of 2. Option 2 - throw rubber (dawgs/dussa's) - try match the hatch and try the opposite. Process of elimination - get dialed in and then expolit the pattern. Sounds like an awesome opportunity to me - I would cast it more than troll it. Hope you hit it big!
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| BNelson - 11/16/2011 8:18 PM
ask guys who actually catch lots of big fish and see what they tell you Pointer...
in my world, color or contrast or whatever you want to call it sure does matter in catching more fish
I thought it was more dependent on the type of visor you were wearing |
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Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | 'At night? High noon? Cloudy skies? Gonna look different under different light conditions. What I'm getting at is different colors work better under different conditions...it could certainly be because those particular colors maximize contrast under those conditions. '
My point exactly. Knowing the why of it allows one to make the decisions based on what the FISH can and does actually see, not what the angler sees.
Green is a compound color. If the base is yellow, and light is low, the lure will appear grey. If the base is blue, and the light is low, the lure will be darker. If a light gray is the trigger...I'd fish light gray.
Another point. Want to catch big fish? Go fish where there are good numbers of them. Want to catch more of them than what might be considered average? Fish more hours. Plenty of variables on that front, too. |
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