Any other musky/pike nuts here?

[gim]

5 hours ago, soflabasser said:

I caught my first muskie the first day I fished for them and caught a couple more after that one. They are not as hard to catch as some people think they are but they do require more effort to catch compared to bass. You do have to understand what makes these fish bite, where to fish, when to fish, and what to use in order to catch muskie and big bass. 

I don’t agree with that assessment. I went 16.5 years logging over 400 hours specifically targeting them without landing one. Not only are they as hard to catch as people think, they’re harder than that. People have no idea what they’re getting into when they start. I actually considered selling my gear and not pursuing it again altogether more than once.

[soflabasser]

I found muskies to be much easier to catch than many other species of fish I have caught in my travels. These fish can be caught often and there are many people that do. There are plenty of Youtube videos that show people catching muskies and many of those videos teach how to fish for muskie well.

[Ogandrews]

3 hours ago, soflabasser said:

I found muskies to be much easier to catch than many other species of fish I have caught in my travels. These fish can be caught often and there are many people that do. There are plenty of Youtube videos that show people catching muskies and many of those videos teach how to fish for muskie well.

It really depends on where you are fishing. If your fishing on the higher population Wisconsin lakes for example, than it’s a bad day if you don’t catch one and see a bunch of fish. It’s the same story with a lot of the stocked reservoirs south of the Canadian boarder states than it is much more common to catch fish because they stock fish at such a higher rate and they don’t have as many pike to compete with. If your fishing on a lake with a much higher population than yes obviously your going to have a lot better chance catching one. If you are fishing a low density lake with huge trophy potential like our Minnesotan lakes and the lakes in Ontario and parts of the Great Lakes, than you are going to not catch anything a lot of the time. The best musky fisherman in the world, who fish these lakes because of the trophy potential, very regularly will go days or weeks without even a follow. If you want to catch the biggest musky in the world than your going to get A lot less action. Obviously there are a couple outlier lakes that have high populations and still have big fish like lake st Clair or lake of the woods, but even places like those you will have days with nothing and those lakes aren’t going to hold records like real low density fisheries like eagle, Rowan, Georgian bay, Mille lacs, vermilion etc. If you have fished muskies a couple times on lakes with high populations then yes it can seem like they aren’t hard to catch. It’s just like fishing for trophy bass, if you really dedicate yourself to trying to catch the biggest ones around, your going to spend a whole lot of time casting and not getting much action. The only difference is that the trophy musky lakes I’m talking about have an average of 1 fish per 4-40 or more acres of water, you don’t have those low of populations when your bass fishing.

[soflabasser]

I was fishing from land in pressured public waters so if I am able to catch muskies from land a person fishing from a boat should be able to catch lots of muskies, especially if they live in a state with awesome muskie fishing like Minnesota. I will admit that I have lots of experience fishing for barracudas and big bass and I feel that helped me. You have to put your time on the water wisely and do your best to learn from each fishing trip. Same can be said if your goal is to catch a 8 pound or better bass in public water.

[Ogandrews]

2 hours ago, soflabasser said:

I was fishing from land in pressured public waters so if I am able to catch muskies from land a person fishing from a boat should be able to catch lots of muskies, especially if they live in a state with awesome muskie fishing like Minnesota. I will admit that I have lots of experience fishing for barracudas and big bass and I feel that helped me. You have to put your time on the water wisely and do your best to learn from each fishing trip. Same can be said if your goal is to catch a 8 pound or better bass in public water.

What state were you in? There is obviously a lot of skill in musky fishing, but in the end a lot of it comes down to being in the right spot at the time when the feeding window starts. In my experience, and others will attest to this, musky feed aggressively in short windows. It is possible to get them to bite outside these windows, but you will get a lot more lazy follows when the fish aren’t actively feeding. Knowing when these windows Are going to happen is a huge part of the game. The normal things like wind switches, fronts, moon rise, moon set, cloud cover ect all play a roll in when they turn on, but there’s so many variables it’s really hard to pin point it down. All of these things together is what makes musky so hard to catch. Take lake vermilion which I spend a huge amount of time on as an example. It is a 40000 acre lake with 400 islands and over 315 miles of shoreline. The lake on average has about one musky per 4-10 acres of water. Mix a lake that big, with a low density of fish that mostly will only feed once or twice a day and it makes for a very difficult fish to catch. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to go out and regularly catch them, I’m just saying that if you do regularly target them you will see how truly hard it is to put fish in the boat on a daily or even weekly basis.

[gim]

9 hours ago, soflabasser said:

I was fishing from land in pressured public waters so if I am able to catch muskies from land a person fishing from a boat should be able to catch lots of muskies, especially if they live in a state with awesome muskie fishing like Minnesota. 

There is a pro muskie tour, maybe you should join it if its that easy for you.  You'd win every tournament hands down if you could haul them in like panfish from shore.

[soflabasser]

7 hours ago, Ogandrews said:

 vermilion

Vermillion is a good lake from what I read, lots of big muskies there.

On 5/6/2020 at 10:18 PM, Nelson Delaney said:

Patience patience patience. Esox fishing is not for everyone. 

^ This ^

It seems the best muskie fishermen and big bass fishermen I have met are very patient fishermen. It is no surprise they catch nice fish on a consistent basis.

[jimmyjoe]

   There's an old saying; "Can't fish where the fish ain't."   Finding pike is 90% of the game. Finding musky is 99% of the game. 

   Some people (including me) say, "You can call'em!"   True, but sometimes the phone is busy.  ? ? ?     jj

[Bird]

On 5/6/2020 at 9:42 PM, norb said:

Any tips you got for me ? ? tried so hard these last 5 days and I only got a single bite. Season just opened and its still pretty cold here in Montreal, Canada so my guess is that they are still inactive and are not shallow yet? any help is much appreciated, im getting desperate now haha. 

I'm only a bass fisherman but can tell you this......every single pike, pickerel and Musky I've accidentally caught over the years was caught on a Jerkbait. 

[YoTone]

10 hours ago, Bird said:

I'm only a bass fisherman but can tell you this......every single pike, pickerel and Musky I've accidentally caught over the years was caught on a Jerkbait. 

Same here. This was caught using a popmax. I lost one last month when she spat my chatterbait. Last year I saw one swimming near the surface and saw me then started swimming towards me. I was in shock and instinctively grabbed my net and held it out and she swam right into it. Later I leaned it was illegal to net one.

[Ogandrews]

Pike fished most of the day today, had 3 fish in the low 40” range follow or hit at the boat but didn’t hook up. My buddy landed the smallest fish we saw which was around 36”, really nice thick fish. This one hit on a 6.8” keitech

[Vilas15]

On 5/7/2020 at 9:55 PM, Ogandrews said:

It really depends on where you are fishing. If your fishing on the higher population Wisconsin lakes for example, than it’s a bad day if you don’t catch one and see a bunch of fish.

What area of the state are you talking about here? I fish mostly Vilas county but have done better the few times I fished in Madison. The lakes up north average anywhere from 25 hours per fish in the "action" lakes up to 80 hours or more per fish on the trophy lakes. This is based on the creel surveys which is in line with my experience.

[Ogandrews]

11 hours ago, Vilas15 said:

What area of the state are you talking about here? I fish mostly Vilas county but have done better the few times I fished in Madison. The lakes up north average anywhere from 25 hours per fish in the "action" lakes up to 80 hours or more per fish on the trophy lakes. This is based on the creel surveys which is in line with my experience.

I’m just basing this off of a couple of my friends that regularly fish in Wisconsin. They have told me about multiple “action” lakes that have a way higher population of fish that they will practically always see fish every time they go out and rarely don’t boat one. 

[Patrickt]

I live in eastern pa, not a lot of musky lakes in the area. I just started targeting musky in the last two years. This is by far my biggest musky. I fish 2-3 times a month, maybe 4-5 hours a trip. My main lake is only 150-200 acres. I fish solo in my 10’  pond prowler.  My dilemma is that I bring a musky rod and a couple bass rods and try fishing both on the same trip. Naturally it’s not that productive since I’m only Musky fishing 1- 1.5 hours before I start losing patience and start going for bass. Really need to find the correct balance. I usually catch one musky a year. This musky was such a thrilling experience that I’m now going for musky much more of the time. I just picked up a lexa 300 hd reel and am waiting for the 2020 mojo musky 8’6” heavy rod for my basically finesse musky fishing gear.

[Vilas15]

My two trips in September worked out pretty well

[gim]

21 hours ago, Patrickt said:

This is by far my biggest musky.

That one looks like a Tiger Musky also known as a Hybrid.  I caught this small one about 2 weeks ago from a lake that is stocked with hybrids and the patterning is similar.

[Patrickt]

On 10/1/2020 at 8:49 AM, gimruis said:

That one looks like a Tiger Musky also known as a Hybrid.  I caught this small one about 2 weeks ago from a lake that is stocked with hybrids and the patterning is similar.

Mine was definitely a tiger. They are such a pretty fish

[Str8BraidPowa]

I wish we had musky / pike near me, but I have a ball catching Bowfin. My fishing buddy and I went last Sunday and caught a couple dozen ranging from about 2 pounds to 6-7 lbs along with a Pickeral or two also. 

[Further North]

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.