*TL;DR at the bottom*
Hey everyone
Long story short I have a smallmouth river I camped at just a few days ago. Good smallmouth, and there are also lots of muskie in there. I want to catch one. I’ve got a few spots where I know there’s at least 4 muskie, and some big ones too.
I will be wading with two others. I think I might be the only one who’s actually gonna target muskie in those spots that we know are muskie territory. They will be available to help out with landing the fish, since we do NOT have a net. I know this complicates things. We should be able to land the muskie using fish grippers right? One person grabs him with the grippers, then the one who caught the muskie will use pliers to unhook him. Then the angler grabs him the “right” way and lifts him up for the third person to take pictures. Then release. Does this sound best? The fish will be sitting in the water almost the whole time. Hopefully the muskie are nice and tired out and don’t give me too much trouble during this. Alternatively I could drag the fish onto a muddy/sandy bank but that doesn’t really sound good to me. We’re trying to minimize our chances of getting injured, especially since my older brother got his finger cut decently bad by a smaller one he caught by accident who wouldn’t stop thrashing when we were there the other day. And we’re 2 hours from the closest hospital so getting injured would be a bad idea. Also I’ll buy some 11 inch pliers to use. Should gloves be used?
How exactly do you hold a muskie? I am 99% sure I know how to hold it, but 60% confident in my ability to do it correctly.
Then there’s the gear question. I’m planning on dropping like 60 bucks at BPS to get some muskie baits and a leader. I’ll put those on my 7’2 heavy frog rod, which has 80 pound braid on it. Two questions here: what lures? I’m thinking I’ll just get two brown or orange spinners to look like a smallmouth. And what kind of leader? I’ve heard of using steel leaders or just super heavy fluorocarbon.
Another thing I thought of: I’m worried about getting all the line peeled off my reel. It’s 80 pound braid, and since it’s so thick, there’s not a ton of it on there. (My reel is a regular SLX) I think I’ll need to chase the fish if it’s big? Anything else I need to know about fighting them?
As far as holding them for pictures, I’m planning on just the regular you see online, holding them horizontally by the belly and the chin. Then also a cool angle holding it by the tail and the belly right above the water with his head pointing towards the camera so you can see the teeth. That angle will look especially cool since I’m standing in the water with it.
Any other tips about staying safe, or just in general about muskie fishing? Sorry this post is so long, I’ll add a TL;DR at the bottom. I think I know the answers to most of these questions, but I want to make sure I’m doing this right and staying safe, and hopefully you agree it’s a good decision to check myself here.
TL;DR: I don’t know s*** about muskie fishing and want to catch them in a river.
