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Posts: 54
| Hi Guys - This summer has been so wet where I fish in PA, it's kept me away from my normal routine of fishing lakes early and late in the year with rivers in the height of summer. I've done a lot of musky fishing, but because of my switching waters routine and my trips to Canada or the Midwest during prime times, I've never have had to deal with the issue of rooting fish out of deeper water in lakes during the height of summer.
So, I've been out on my home lake trying to locate some fish and sure enough I've marked some in water between 22' and 26' amongst big strings of dense man made structure (mixes of fish cribs, vertical walls, artificial rock humps etc.).
I've read a lot over the years in musky books, musky hunter mag, this site etc. about fishing deeper and believe I know of some various tools/methods to extract a few of these fish: deep diving crankbaits, blade baits like fuzzy duzzits, vertical jigs Bondy's & tubes, big rubber & swimbaits, snap jigged spoons, slow rolled spinnerbaits, count down gliders even - the issue is that I've never had to put any of this into practice.
I know the answer is to just get out there and try some of it, but I have some application questions with these sorts of deeper presentations because I've never had to do it and both the amount of structure and the area covered by it is huge:
If the wind is right do you guys normally just make drifts over different sections of structure or are you working into the wind with your troller making more pinpoint presentations or zig-zagging slowly over everything?
Are you typically keeping baits just above the structure (a couple of feet?) or right down in it keeping a lure retriever handy? (I've marked fish on the bottom next to various structures, fish holding off to the side of the structures and a few times fish right above the structure).
I know I could likely try night fishing in shallower spots, but I have a suspicion I might get into a different class of fish using this deeper structure and am excited about finding out if that's true.
Any key concepts, points or tricks you can share about casting for these fish would be very, very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Virgil
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Posts: 434
Location: searchin for 50 | Try what you think will work and let the fish tell you if your doing it right. Fish don't read books. If they like it you will definitely know. Had a lot of zero days doing the jigging thing on prime looking stuff and had some good days also. Jig it on the bottom if that's where you think the fish are. If you see fish up off the bottom definitely jig it off the bottom. if you see bait balls I would jig around those also. There are no rules so just get out there and try some things out. Good luck! |
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Posts: 3772
| Identify the thermo line, troll baits just above and watch your finder for pods of baitfish. Adjust the depth of at least one bait to be thru or above the baitfish, run the other(s) just above the thermo. Spend most of your time in areas that have been windblown for the previous few days, that turbidity lights up the food chain. After a few hours of trolling run and gun back to jig straight down on the pods that showed adjacent big fish. Drop a trimmed heavy duty bass jig with a feisty 5-6" sucker minnow.
Edited by Ranger 8/13/2018 9:56 PM
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Posts: 54
| Thanks for the input guys. I managed to get a few fish on Friday, using a homemade bait that's sort of a vertical jigging plug, just taking different drifts over various parts of the structures. Best fish was somewhere around 40-42" & most were in or just under that range. Saw 1 pig that followed but couldn't get to eat. I kept the bait just above structure, adjusting depth as I went along. Some of the fish came by casting to structure identified on side scan and letting the bait sink to about that level before popping it back to the boat.
Regards,
Virgil |
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Posts: 3772
| Well hell, we need your help more than you need ours. |
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Posts: 54
| Ha, I doubt that! I'm just fortunate enough to live and fish in an area where there's a significant amount of resources and light muskie fishing pressure. Having a flexible work schedule which allows me to be on the water when pleasure boaters aren't, is also a huge plus.
These are the homemade baits I was referring to, I made these a number of years ago actually as a jointed swimbait; had a couple of extra bodies laying around that I hadn't cut the joints in yet and thought why not make a vertical jigging bait out of one? So, I weighted a couple similar to a Mercer Creek bait, did a couple quick finishes and stuck a screw eye topside, and I'll be #*^@ed, they worked! The silver one was the one fish liked that day.
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