Outdoors Articles & Tips

Mid-Summer Musky Tactics
Fishing Articles and Tips >>

It was a picture perfect June morning as I eased my boat into one of Caesar’s Creek Lake’s numerous timbered coves with my two guide clients, Heather and Kelly Stevens.   They had won this fishing trip with me by winning the donated day on the water I had given to the Leukemia/Lymphoma Foundation for a major fund raiser event grand prize last year.   They were both eager to try musky fishing, and neither of them had ever caught a fish the size of a typical muskellunge.  Because of the time of year, I kept the boat in deeper water rather than casting the shorelines, and we keyed in on deep standing timber as our primary structural element.  We tied on jointed Bucher Depthraider crank baits and began fan casting the deep woody cover, of which some of the trees still stood in 38 feet of water.  A quick glance to my electronics showed lots of gizzard shad present amongst these deep trees.  After roughly ten minutes of fishing, I was looking over my shoulder when I felt a musky crush my Depthraider halfway through the retrieve.  I instinctively pounded home the hooks and after a good tussle and some great jumps near the boat, a chunky thirty-eight inch musky was soon swimming around in my landing net and was promptly released after a quick photo.   Shortly thereafter, I had another strike, and I immediately felt head shakes after I set the hooks home, and this is usually a sign of a nicer musky.  After another great battle, the fat forty-five inch Caesar’s musky was posing for pictures prior to release.  Heather and Kelly were absolutely thrilled at seeing these beautiful fish up close, and I could tell that they were eager to catch one themselves!   We eased my boat through the trees further back into the cove, and I felt my boat rock on the hook set, and Heather yelled, "I got one!"  Soon a feisty thirty-five inch musky came rocketing out of the water with her crank bait "T-Boned" in its mouth, and before long, Heather was posing for the camera with a huge smile on her face!  Three muskies boated and released in less than three hours, all caught by casting, and all caught over deep water.  A special fourth fish came later in the day, but will we cover this exciting event later in this article. 

I have often talked about the small windows of opportunity for casting for Ohio muskies at my seminars each winter, and I see this holding true year after year.  What I am referring to here is the peak times each year to fish the shorelines with traditional casting lures such as jerk baits, buck tails, and spinner baits to catch these fish.  Typically in the state of Ohio these small windows occur in April through early June in the Spring period, and September through November in the Fall period.  During the rest of the summer months our surface water temperatures raise up over eighty degrees and the fish migrate away from the shore line cover and move more to open water and deeper water to escape the summer heat.  This period typically demands a trolling approach to cover water most effectively and get the lures down to the depths where the muskies are.   This shallow water casting window typically wanes in early June in our state, and anglers must adjust their game plan accordingly to locate and catch muskies more consistently in mid to late June.   I am going to recommend some tips and tactics to pursue these fish via casting and trolling and hopefully this will put more muskies into your net this year.

If you prefer to catch your muskies by casting for them as I do, concentrate your efforts on deep weed edges on lakes like Clear Fork, Salt Fork, Alum Creek, or Leesville.   Weed edges that drop off into deep water are the best, particularly if they coincide with a main lake point.  Muskies will move up and position themselves to feed on these spots during the early and late time periods each day, or just before an incoming thunderstorm or other major weather change.   Cast deep diving crank baits parallel to the deeper weed edge, and have your fishing partner cast a buck tail spinner or jerk bait over the tops of the deeper weeds.  As the days become hotter in mid to late June, you can also catch these same fish after dark.  I recommend that you bring one to two rods tops per angler, a high quality comfortable head lamp, and plenty of tools for catch and release purposes that you want to put in a place you can locate them quickly in the dark. I only have four to five lures that I use to help keep the boat clean and well organized. As far as musky location is concerned, I usually fish deep weed edges relating to points or mid-lake humps, especially the inside turns of these structural elements. Any established deep weed edge has the potential to hold night time muskies. Once again, position your boat parallel to the edge and make short casts to the weed line, with the angler in the front of the boat using deep diving jointed crank bait to probe the edge of the weeds. The angler(s) in the back of the boat should use a large black buck tail and cast over the weed tops, or a noisy top water lure like a Bucher Topraider will work well, too. I use glow tape on all of my buck tails I throw after dark to better enable me to do a proper boat side figure-8 maneuver.  Another great tactic for these same lakes is to cast heavy swim baits like the Bulldawg by Musky Innovations over deeper water adjacent to these same main lake points, keeping your boat positioned in water over twenty feet deep and working around these areas starting from one inside turn on the point and working around the point itself, and finally finishing the other inside turn present on the other side of the main lake point.  Many muskies will suspend over deeper water in these areas and can be caught with these deeper running swim baits or deep diving crank baits. 

On my home water of Caesar’s Creek Reservoir, deep wood cover (standing timber) is my primary casting area due to a general lack of weed cover throughout the lake.  I attack the flooded old timber in the deep coves found in many areas of the lake, and cast crank baits and heavier spinner baits or buck tails in and around the tree tops.  These mid to late June muskies will hold ten to twelve feet down over water as deep as forty feet deep and utilize the woody cover as ambush sites for gizzard shad in these coves.  These same fish can also be caught early and late in the day using noisy surface baits.   You need to fish the wood cover aggressively, and it is quite common to snag your lures occasionally in these areas.  It is imperative that you carry a quality lure retriever with you, and if you free up two musky lures with it, it is paid for.  These deep wood muskies will hold tight to the timber, so bumping a tree now or then with your offering will help trigger strikes.  I also want to emphasize the importance of the properly executed figure eight maneuver when fishing these deep timber areas.  These fish will often follow below the lure and you might not even see them with the naked eye as your lure approaches the boat, but by utilizing the figure eight technique, you can catch additional muskies you might not even knew where there.  

As the weather becomes hotter in late June, many of the muskies will head out to suspend over deep water at the thermocline and they will spend all of the mid to late summer period there until the water cools down again in the Fall.  The thermocline is the transition layer between the mixed layer at the surface and the deep water layer. The definitions of these layers are based on temperature. The mixed layer is near the surface where the temperature is roughly that of surface water. In the thermocline, the temperature decreases rapidly from the mixed layer temperature to the much colder deep water temperature.  The mixed layer and the deep water layer are relatively uniform in temperature, while the thermocline represents the transition zone between the two.  Muskies will hold right on this transition zone for maximum comfort during the hot summer months.  The best way to catch these fish consistently is to troll deep diving crankbaits and cover a lot of water.  I usually run my boat at speeds between 3.4 miles per hour and 4.2 miles per hour and I try to keep my lures at depths between ten and fourteen feet down.  Remember, you can always get by running your lures a little to shallow when trolling, but if you make the mistake and let out too much line, you will miss catching a lot of fish each year.  A musky will always come up for a lure, but never go down for a lure, so try to keep your lures in that key depth zone at all times.  I run eight foot trolling rods made by St. Croix, and I run eighty pound braided line on line counter reels, so I am usually running anywhere from forty-five to sixty feet of line to stay in the proper depths.  Another important factor when trolling is to use your electronics to key on large concentrations of gizzard shad.  Since this is the number one food source for Buckeye muskies,  it should be no surprise that the muskies out in open water will be close by this readily acceptable food source. 

On the same day I opened up this article with, where I had caught the four muskies with Heather and Kelly Stevens, I decided to key on the open water trolling opportunity as the day grew hotter and boat traffic increased.  I took us out into fifty four feet of water and my electronics showed strong concentrations of shad ten to twelve feet down.  I ran two Depthraiders out, one at fifty feet and one at fifty-eight feet of line.  We trolled for approximately twenty minutes and I was re-setting one of my lines and was about to clip on my planer board when suddenly the line was literally ripped out of my hand.  Heather was holding the rod and my drag started to scream, and she promptly handed the rod to her husband, Kelly.   The fish stayed deep and fought really hard, and as it neared the boat, I could tell by the bend in the rod we had a really good one hooked up.  All of a sudden, forty-nine inches of musky broached near the back of the boat and gave us a good look at her while she was violently shaking her head to try to free the crank bait firmly lodged in her mouth!  Kelly stayed calm and we eased her into the net, and numerous high fives were passed around.  After a few great pictures and measurements, we released her to fight another day and hopefully break the coveted fifty inch barrier next season.  

Whether you like to cast or troll to catch your muskies,  the month of June can be outstanding here in Ohio.  You need to tweak your locations and lure selections accordingly based on the musky locations and you can catch plenty of fish each year.    Use your electronics to key on the shad forage, and you should be well on your way to boating more fish.  Sharpen your hooks right out of the package, and always re-sharpen after each fish caught or snag, as this one simple but often overlooked factor will give you more fish pictures on your camera each season! 

Tom Dietz is the Store Manager of the Baxter Minnesota Gander Mountain store, and resides in Baxter, Brainerd, Area Minnesota. He guides for muskies professionally in Minnesota and frequently fishes muskies in the PMTT Tournament Circuit each year. He gives seminars and writes articles on a regular basis. Tom is originally from Wisconsin, a multi species angler since 1988.

• Back To Top Of Page •