Further North

Landing them. I target pike and musky more than any other fish. I wasn't criticizing fluoro, just offering different experience. Almost all my rods - gear and fly - are rigged with wire, and it works great.

There's a lot here that close to what pike/musky flies do: Strip, stall, strip, stall...all the way back to the boat. Most of the eats come on the stall, or at the very first movement...flies do things lures can't, but the idea is the same.

I have the exact opposite experience.

I fish for pike and musky a lot. Bass are fun, but I'll take either over bass, any day. Top 3: Texas riged (over wire) Strike King Smokin' Rooster. They quit making them, so I make my own now. #5 Mepps. Color varies by water, but red/white is a good start, followed by Brown Trout and green/black. Doctor Spoon. Regular spoons work, but I've found the wider wobble and different underwater signature seem to help with Esox that have seen the "normal" ones a lot. I also throw flies a lot, but that's a whole 'nother ball game.

50° surface temps seem to be magic number for bumping activity levels in pike...but muskies in rivers are still pretty active below that. That's a reasonable concern.

I'd offer some ideas, but I've gone zero for five in the last 6 days...apparently what I thought would work doesn't. ...I think the warm weather has 'em off their feed.

Pretty cool. I catch muskies on fly rods...trout on a baitcaster would be a cool contrast.

Similar here: Crestliner CMV 1850, backed up by a RiverMaster drift boat, backed up by a SportsPal canoe. There's not a lot of places I can't get.

I hadn't seen the video, I've seen it live on the water too many times. I did it once, and got lucky - I was able to unhook her without bringing her in the boat, but it could have been a train wreck. Ordered the big net that night.

Ace used to write for at least one of the musky magazines...he's a pretty interesting guy. I'm not sure 20 muskies is all that impressive in this area...I don't feel like I'm working very hard for it, and I know there's a ton of folks better at it than I am. My best day on muskies was 7, with my fishing partner, all on flies...it was a heck of a day!

I"m not trying to be argumentative, but I'm typically over 20 muskies a year by November, and I know I'm not chucking 200,000 casts. If we assumed I could cast once a minute, I'd get 60 casts an hour...200,000 casts would be 3,333 hours on the water...just for musky...in a year. I'm not putting in that much....and I know several folks who catch two to my one. I spent a week on Sabaskong Bay on Like of the Woods a few years back...14 anglers, my boat partner and I boated 9 for the week and we were low boat by several fish. The group was over 100 muskies for the trip. They did not make 1,000,000 casts. I know a local guy - Ace Sommerfeld - who made his lifetime goal of 200 in one season, and a lot of musky guides put their clients on more than that in a season. Obviously all of those fish are not big ones - one of those Sabaskong Bay fish was 9" (worth $50 in the pot for smallest musky ? ) but they are all musky, and they count...

Consider not throwing the bigger lures. I catch bunches of Esox every year on baits, lures and flies that are not great big "musky" monsters. I have caught more pike and musky - by several orders of magnitude - on #5 Mepps, 1 1/8 oz Doctor Spoons and Strike King Smokin' Roosters than I have on "musky" baits. Most of my muskies on flies (every one, so far this season) have come on flies in the 6" - 8" range. This fish: Hit a 6 1/2" Villiwocks Roamer...she was 42". I had downsized from a bigger fly on a 10 wt. rod to this fly on 8 wt. because I wasn't seeing fish, and I was tired of throwing the big stuff. This one, at 43", hit the smaller 3 3/4" Doctor Spoon after I'd had a day of follows but no eats...five of them...on larger lures and flies. There is, IMO, too much emphasis on big lures/baits/flies for musky...It's been a while since I've caught fewer than 20 in a year, and I seldom throw big stuff. Great advice on the leader and the rest of the gear...too many folks are not ready for that big fish when it eats...and way, way too may do not have a big enough net.

I haven't been checking in much, being retired is hard work... Pike and musky, in that order, are my passion, followed by bass when the water warms up and it's not really safe to catch big Esox. My focus has shifted a bit over the years, and while I still fish lakes for them a fair amount, going after Esox in the rivers, more often than not with a fly rod, has been my focus this year. I bought a drift boat, and I can deal with water too shallow for most boats, and can get just abut anywhere a canoe of kayak can get but still have room to stand up, move around...and be able to chuck big flies. My two larges this season are 42" and 43", both in the early part of the year, but things are picking up right now, and we'll see what shakes out. Learning to run the boat has put some kinks in my fishing, as you can't row and fish at the same time, so I'm a little off my average at 18 muskies for the year...I've no idea how many pike, it'd be tough to count them. I fish by myself most often, so the only pics I have are of fish in the net...I don't take them out of the water unless I have to, and getting a picture with just myself doesn't count as "have to" for me.

Kayaks are cool, but I need to be able to stand up and move around while I am on the water. Jon boat for me with those two choices. I wound up selling the Predator I had after just a couple months. ...I went that route for bit, then went to a drift boat, which gets me just about everywhere a kayak can go but gives me the room I need to move around. I have a SportsPal canoe for the few areas I can't get the drift boat to...which isn't very many.

Pete, Here's what we did a week ago, on a NE WI river: New water, so while fishing was great, catching was off a little...that'll happen. We're looking at a spot near home where we'll have to chuck it over the side of a river bank... Rafts: Reach out to Bill Sherer at We-Tie-It. https://bill-sherers-we-tie-it-fly-shop.myshopify.com/collections/watercraft Bill's been fishing skinny water rivers forever and is a genius about this stuff. I think his rafts are affordable (less than $3K, easily, even for the bigger rafts) and he will custom build them. With some looking around, you can find what you're after. I paid $2,700 for the boat (used), $1,200 for the motor (new), and have a set of oars on the way for $750, but you probably don't need the oars...I may have gone overboard there...and you might not need the motor. I looked at the Sniper and Minifly, and was headed that direction when I found the RiverMaster. Jon boats are great options too. Fishing solo has been my challenge also - I'm retired, but most of my fishing buddies are not. That's why the drift boat has a motor (motor up, drift back, it'd work with a raft also), and I'm committed to getting out and dragging it up-river if I need to. Are you on Facebook? PM me, and I can point you at some drift boat groups that'll help. You have to be willing to drive for the boats...we drove 10 1/2 hours one way to get my boat. It was worth it.

Maybe if you buy new. I buy used and have never lost a dime on a boat.

My friend has been having a great week up there - three between 18" and 20".

Enjoy yourself - I hope you tie into some Menominee Monsters.

Scott, unless I'm mistaken, you're speaking of the folks at Tight Lines...great, great shop, great guides, and Tim Landwehr is the co-author of the best smallie fly fishing book available...it's so good most gear guys should read it. I've fished that river several times, and it's an amazing resource. Your 16 x 48 jon sounds perfect, and that 24 volt Terrova is ideal for that kind of fishing! If you see a sort of mustard brown john boat out on the river, that's my old boat, with a good friend fishing from it. It also has a 24 volt Terrova, but he's running a 42 year old Evinrude two stroke that came with the boat new. Enjoy your trip! I'd be jealous if I wasn't hip deep in great water on this side of the state.

That's what I thought too, until I started digging into them. I'll shuttle if I have someone fishing with me, but I can fish 7 days a week and most of the folks I know can only do two, most weeks.

Unless something changes, the market will hot right through September. September is two week s away...

That's a really interesting perspective. There are actually relatively few drift boats in the Midwest; they originated in the Northwest for the big rivers out there, and spread to the western trout rivers from there. Some made it into the Midwest for the larger trout rivers, but that's a limited opportunity. Fishing for smallmouth bass and muskies from them is a more recent application, though Im sure it had it's start further back than I am aware of.

I don't have any pictures of it as it is now. All I have is the "before" part. The "after" will be a while.

Going deeper than the surface on this one, here's what may be going on: The guy who offered the cash deposit understands the current market: Good boats at reasonable prices go fast. ...so he want's to lock down what he thinks is a good boat at a reasonable price. Smart move. If' he's willing to wait until September, I'd take him up on it, pending his inspection and approval of the boat. I'd write up an agreement that specified that the deposit is non-refundable unless: Something happens to the boat (accident, theft, etc.) If he balks at the last moment, he is responsible for either finding a new buyer at, or above the agreed upon price. That you will refund the balance of the deposit once a (new) buyer is found, and will keep whatever increased advertising, delivery, and carrying costs there are...I'd also include your time to re-sell for at least $100/hour. You want to set it up so that it's basically cheaper for him to take delivery regardless of whether he intends to keep the boat. As a sidebar: No way I'd sell before you are done with the boat, unless you've got a way to continue to fish when and where you want to. You need the time to go relax and have fun, and selling the boat before you're done deprives you of that.

I thought this would have generated more interest. Drift boats can go in almost any water a canoe or a kayak can, but offer the ability to get up and move around as as well as more storage.