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| Hi all. I'm gonna be fishing a gin clear lake this fall with hardly any structure except rock... In the past I usually went to the shallow parts of the lake like flats and coves,etc. I use top water baits, jerk baits,
musky spinner baits. I try to use mostly natural colors of the prey like gizzard shad, suckers and carp with a few dark colored baits also. Been fishing this lake for a while but haven't caught any muskies yet. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.
PS. Does anyone know a of a good bulging bucktail that doesn't require a lot of speed to bulge the surface? I've been using Grim Reaper Bulging Buck, but I gotta reel that thing in super fast to make it bulge.
Will |
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Posts: 196
| Lily tails are good bulgers in my opinion--they're on the small size but the Colorado blade moves some water when you bulge them. |
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Posts: 366
| If your fishing gin clear water I don't think the shallows are the answer. Muskies are leary enough without being able to see your boat from 50 foot away. I would concentrate on the deeper rock reefs. As water clarity increases so does a muskies willingness to move to strike a bait, not only horizontally, but also vertically. In ultra clear water it wouldn't be unheard of for a muskie to come up from a reef that tops at 18 foot to hit a bait. Think of how easy it is for a muskie to go from one end of your boat to the other. It's no differant for it to travel that 17'-20' upward instead. Neutral colors is probably the right choice, but I don't feel that it's vital. And of course any time you're dealing with muskies the lower the light conditions the better, dawn, dusk, night fishing. I get up before light and stay until after dark. Although that would be regarding early fall. If you're talking the few weeks before ice-up then I think you should focus on the warmest part of the day. As far as baits are concerned I would be most confident throwing a big weighted deep running slow jerkbait. If you're marking clouds of baitfish then definately stop and cast them. Contrary to the deep jerkbait the schools of baitfish wouldn't be a bad place to throw your topwater. It can be hard to throw at open water or even deep reefs with confidence, but everything I've experienced and studied tells me that's your best bet. Of course, that is from my perspective where BIG fish are the goal. If your goal is to just put fish in the boat regardless of length then I would say stick with all the shallow structure you can find. But if you're not interested in size then you probably wouldn't be muskie fishing. Not the easy road, but the rewards can be far greater.
Hope some of this is helpful. What lake are we talking about, if you don't mind sharing?
Ryan Anderson
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Posts: 2060
Location: Appleton,WI | Try something differant like deep crankbaits over suspended bait fish. |
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| MUSKIE MANIA'S DOUBLE TROUBLE IS A GOOD BULGER. |
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| WHOOOOPS
I MEANT MUSKIE MANIA'S SNEAKY PETE. |
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Posts: 1906
Location: Oconto Falls, WI | My favorite places to hit on the gin bottles are mid lake humps and points extending into the deepest part(s) of the lake. I use mostly cranks, but will throw a bucktail once in a while. The next piece of structure would be the very sharp, steep dropping shorelines that baitfish like to stack along in the fall.
A great bulger that takes no effort at all is the new Mepps Marabou! However, if you plan on using bucktails in the fall I wouldn't do the bulging thing. I would use a Mepps Giant Killer with a tandem tail and slow roll it to the boat. |
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Posts: 1137
Location: Holly, MI | Does the lake have any deep dropoffs like a quick 10 to 30 feet?
How about big plastics inched up or down from the dropoffs or even somthing like a fuzzy-duzzit or rattle trap cast along the steep drops.
I second on the (shy) gin-clear shallow muskie unless they move in after dark looking for baitfish then have at it with the slow top waters |
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Posts: 124
Location: Rice Lake,WI | BULLDAWG them man. Find the largest most complex structures that have quick deep water access and spend some good quality TIME learning every nook and cranny of every inside and outside turn etc. The deeper weed edges shouldn't be ignored either! Run and learn these edges as some of the largest fish in any system especiaaly an infertile one will have the fish using weeds, their just deeper. If you haven't caught any fish from this lake you need to go against everything you normally do on this lake
and try something completely different. Working the open water is time consuming but the 1st slob you stick out in No-man's land will be more than worth it. As was mentioned before, fish the forage. Goodluck!
Jon Torok |
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Posts: 3926
| Seems like lots of excellent advice in the above posts. A variation to jt's suggestion is: attach a lively 4" sucker minnow to a high quality jig and plastic and slowly bounce it along the steep rock drops. Or, attch the live bait to a small, heavy duty spinnerbait with the hair trimmed short (or removed) and troll along the deep drops, being ever so gentle as you bounce the bait along the rocks. Last, rocks hold crawdaddys and muskies eat them, too, right?, so magnum jig and pig combos bounced down the structure might be the ticket. This sort of fishing takes more patience and percision than I can usually muster. But I suspect live bait can really make a difference when the water is so very clear, maybe because it turns more follows into strikes. |
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Posts: 3926
| ps - best bulging bucktail for me is the Hirsch's Ghosttail, the standard one with tandem trebles. It gurgles along slow. I use the natural perch with white blades for some super clear water I regularly fish, and it has been the best for me this year. Second choice is the Buchertail 700, it's a faster retreive but has more bulk with all that hair. |
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Posts: 177
Location: Germantown & Land O Lakes WI | 2 words of advice on "Gin" clear water..........Head Lamp.
Night fishing cuts back on boat pressure and allows you to move shallower, with stealth, on clear lakes.
There's nothing like hearing the "bloop bloop bloop" of a top water followed by a huge crash of water and a nice tug on the line! |
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