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Musky Misconceptions
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The weather was typical of a September early Fall day in Madison, Wisconsin. A beautiful post frontal bluebird sky and cool, comfortable temperatures greeted my PMTT tournament partner David Foor and I as we launched my Ranger boat onto Lake Waubesa to pre-fish the upcoming Qualifier Event. It was obvious that we were in the midst of a massive high pressure weather system, and my initial inclination was that fishing was going to be difficult under these conditions. Based on years of experience dealing with post frontal weather conditions, my confidence this day was not extremely high, but none the less, we had to go out and try to establish a pattern on a chain of lakes I had never fished before. We spent half the day exploring Waubesa, and then spent a few hours on Lake Monona driving around and examining weed edges and other structural elements.  We had not raised a fish at any of the spots we fished, and my gut feeling on the weather pattern throwing us a curveball this day was looking like an accurate prediction. I told David that I wanted to try one more spot on Lake Waubesa on the way back to the landing, and I selected a deep weed edge that we noticed earlier in the day. I had spoke to my good friend, Justin Mullins via cell phone earlier in the day, and his suggestion of spots to try led me to fish this next spot based upon his experience in a previous PMTT Tournament event on the Madison Chain a few years earlier. I positioned my boat in twelve feet of water and put on a standard Bull Dawg, while Dave used a jointed Depthraider along the weed edges. We traveled about one hundred yards when my Bull Dawg’s gliding journey through the depths abruptly ended with a heavy thud on the end of my line. I instinctively pounded the hooks home, and I yelled to Dave, “FISH!” The musky headed for deeper water after the hook set, and as she neared the boat, my St. Croix 7’6” Heavy Avid almost groaned under the strain of loading up on a really big fish, and I immediately knew this fish was a really good one. The fight was awesome, and after several minutes of an exciting tug of war down deep, she ripped out some drag when she shot away from the boat coming to the surface with a head shaking jump and I yelled to Dave “She is a fifty incher!” and she dove back down into the depths again.  My heart was in my throat as I truly never expected to hook a fish like this on such a tough weather conditions type of day, and now I had a trophy musky on and Dave had the Frabill ready and waiting. I led the fish to the net, and David scooped through her and we exchanged high fives and got to work unhooking the beautiful musky prior to release. I measured her out at forty nine inches exactly and David captured a few quick photos before I let her go. I sat down briefly to ease my excitement, and thought through the scenario of what had just happened.   If I hadn’t had to pre-fish the tournament on that given day, I might have opted to not even fish at all, due to the cloudless sky and post frontal high pressure weather scenario at hand. The moral of this story here is simple. The misconception I initially had about not catching any muskies due to the weather conditions earlier in the day was false, and I landed a trophy fish on a day I might not even have hit the water! Fish hard every single day of the year you can and you will up your odds at being more successful year in and year out.

If you look up the definition of the word misconception online, it states “A mistaken thought or idea; or misunderstanding.”   My article this month is intended to discuss a number of misconceptions we as musky anglers make that prevents us from boating more muskies on an annual basis. As my opening story above points out, high pressure or post frontal weather conditions is a common excuse or misconception that we musky fishermen and women use to explain our reasons for not fishing on a given day, or cutting a fishing day short. A big musky can bite on any cast at any time, and if we continue to believe these common misconceptions, we will catch fewer muskies each year versus if we had more of an open mind with regards to our every day angling approaches.    Let’s examine a number of other musky fishing misconceptions and how to rule these out and increase your success on the water each season.

Small Lures in the Spring/Fish Weeds in the Spring:

How many articles have you read where the writer implies that in the early musky season, you have to throw small lures to be successful?   Is this a true fact or a misconception? Ask my good friend Chad Cain how many big Lake Kincaid fish he has caught in March and April while using ten inch Jakes in the past? Why is it that a good number (with the exception of the 2007 tournament!) of recent June PMTT events have been won by anglers using Bull Dawgs over open water rather than the traditional June lures like small bucktails and crank or twitch baits over the weeds? I am certainly not saying that muskies will not strike a small offering, because they do year round as evidenced by bass anglers tossing white spinnerbaits. The winning team in this year’s Eagle River PMTT event caught four fish over forty inches this June on tiny number four Mepps spinners in really skinny water, and my hat truly goes off to them! However, what I am pointing out here is that there is a general misconception amongst musky anglers that you have to throw small stuff in order to be successful early in the year, and this simply is not true. Each year down at Cave Run Lake in Kentucky, trophy fish are caught on large jerkbaits like weighted Suicks, Hellhounds, and Mantas as well as Bulldawgs.   Many of us know the popularity of the rattletrap bite down there each Spring, and because of the vast number of people throwing these at the Cave in march and April, a good number of fish are caught on them each year.   I went against the grain last year in the PMTT Qualifier event at the Cave and I caught a check cashing fish on my Super Stalker crank bait on a cold, rainy morning when a lot of the tourney anglers were slinging rattle traps. One needs to keep an open mind and put aside the common misconceptions about spring time muskies.   Do not be afraid to throw larger lures on these early season fish along with the common smaller lures typically presented to these early season muskies.

Another common misconception with early season muskies is that all of the fish are located in the newly emerging weed beds of a given lake. Fact is, many of these early season muskies are either suspended over open water or are laying up inside the weed edge in three feet of water or less. I wrote an article for Musky Hunter Magazine back in 2003 on sight fishing for these shallow muskies with plastics. When I was guiding back in Eagle River I used to do very well on these shallow post spawn muskies, with multiple fish days being quite common. On the lakes I fished, however, over ninety five percent of the musky anglers were concentrating on those “newly emerging weeds”. Another often overlooked early season pattern is lobbing Bull Dawgs or crank baits like Depthraiders or Jakes for suspended fish in twenty five to forty feet of water. The key is using your electronics to locate the schools of bait fish and casting your lures in these areas accordingly, yet a good number of musky anglers still cannot leave the newly emerging weed beds this time of year.

Small Lures vs. Big Lures:

A common musky misconception locally in Ohio and other parts of the East is that larger traditional musky lures do not work as well to catch fish as compared to small bass crankbaits like Sissons or the old Lightning Shads by Storm Lures. I guide for muskies professionally here in Ohio, and I am amazed at how many experienced musky anglers or newcomers to this sport think that our traditional musky lures are too big to use. I often here laughter or joking around when customers walk through my musky aisle at my Gander Mountain store and say “What the heck would ever bite that around here?”. Obviously many of these people aren’t musky anglers, but a good number of local musky guys around here scoff at the idea of trolling or casting with jointed Depthraiders or other large lures. There are many very good musky anglers who do catch a good number muskies on smaller lures like Sissons or Lightning Shads each season here in Ohio, but they also run the risk of having hooks pulled out or straightened on large muskies simply because these bass crank baits are not designed to handle big toothy predators. I also strongly believe there are certain times of year when a large lure is simply more appealing to muskies instead of smaller bass crank baits.  I regularly troll the mid-Summer months with the jointed full size Depthraiders at Clear Fork, Alum Creek and Caesar’s Creek and I know that these lures will hold up to the rigors of battling a mid-forty inch or larger musky all the way to the net.   My point here is not to get into the mind set that only certain size lures or certain lure colors work in any given regional location. Muskies are muskies, regardless if they live in Ohio or Minnesota and they are opportunistic feeders and will hit all lures, big or small with equal vigor at any time of year. I also spent two years in east central Pennsylvania with Gander Mountain, fishing the Susquehanna River and other waters. When I first moved there, the locals told me the only musky lure that works out there was a jointed J-13 Rapala. This major misconception of the local anglers in Pennsylvania really limited their overall catches, because I had tremendous success on the river using traditional larger musky lures like Topraiders, Buchertail bucktails, Suicks, Bull Dawgs, etc. These same local anglers were convinced in their minds that those “big lures” didn’t work on the Susquehanna, and I am here to tell you that they worked extremely well, with fish boated up to forty nine inches to prove it.

Muskies can’t be caught in the winter months:

In parts of the country where the season remains open in the winter months, many musky anglers put way their boats and spend the majority of their cold weather months sitting in a deer stand or watching football because they feel that muskies will not bite real well in the cold weather. I love football and deer hunting as much as any one else, but I also know that late Fall or early winter is prime time to catch a giant musky. Take my good friend and fellow Musky Hunter writer Tom Gelb, for example.   Tom was fishing on the lastday of Wisconsin’s musky season last year when he hooked his fifty one pound giant row trolling a Depthraider over open water with the air temperature hovering around a balmy eleven degrees! It would have been very easy for Tom to call it a season because of the frigid weather, but he chose to go fishing, and caught the biggest musky of his life because of that fateful decision. When I moved to Pennsylvania to work for Gander Mountain, I was presented with the opportunity to fish winter muskies because of the seasonal regulations. Since I am originally from Wisconsin, I was used to spending my December and January months ice fishing or watching football rather than fishing for muskies. In January of 2005, I was fishing the North Branch of the Susquehanna River and I boated a nice forty three inch musky (one of three muskies boated that day) with my good friend Eddy Powell. We were jigging for these mid-winter muskies in deep holes below creek mouths which were classic wintering spots for these fish. In January of 2006, a year after I had moved to Dayton, Ohio to run the new Gander Mountain store there, my co-worker Rick May and I ventured down to Cave Run lake to fish muskies. The weather was comfortable (highs in the upper fifty degree range) for that time of year, and we ended up boating three muskies and saw several others, including one really large fish that followed Rick’s Suick to the boat. Once again, disregard the misconception that you cannot consistently catch muskies in cold weather or in the winter months.

Muskies will not hit during or after severe weather:

We all know that musky fishing can be explosive right before a major weather front or major thunderstorm hits, but what about during the actual storm or right after? I think many anglers have the misconception that fishing will not be as good after the storm passes or during the actual storm, and I have had several experiences on the water that prove otherwise. One of these examples happened while I was fishing the 2000 PMTT Qualifier event on the Three Lakes Chain near Eagle River, Wisconsin with good friend and Musky Hunter Magazine Managing Editor Steve Heiting. Steve and I had just took off from the starting point and arrived at our initial fishing location when a huge thunderstorm struck out of nowhere. Severe lightning and loud thunder made it a truly dangerous situation, and although we put ourselves at some risk, we opted to fish this spot through the storm because we were confident it held nice muskies. It was raining so hard that the water on the surface of the lake appeared white in color, yet a nice fat 38 inch musky managed to locate and engulf my Topraider right in the midst of the downpour and put us in better position to qualify for the championship event we took third place in later that year. Most of the other tournament anglers were seeking cover at the time (and they were probably a lot smarter in terms of safety) yet we managed to score. Another recent scenario of post thunderstorm muskies occurred for me in June of 2006. Myself and my Gander Mountain co-worker Rick May were at Caesar’s Creek Lake near Dayton one hot, humid afternoon and while we were fishing, a real nasty thunderstorm passed through and drove us to shelter along a main lake shoreline for close to an hour. After the storm passed, we decided to keep fishing and over the next four hours on the water, we caught and released seven muskies up to 38 and one half inches! We could have easily called it a day and left the lake once the storm passed, but we kept fishing and had quite a day to remember on the water.

I don’t need to sharpen my hooks:

As both the Store Manager of a major retail sporting goods store and a professional musky guide, I am somewhat appalled at the vast number of anglers who purchase musky lures yet do not take the time sharpen their hooks at all. None of the lures you purchase at any sporting goods store or musky show are sharp enough to use right out of the box. It is a common misconception by a lot of musky anglers that they can take the lure out of the box or package and fish it effectively. I strongly recommend purchasing a flat, fine toothed hook file to sharpen each and every one of your hook points to a razor sharp status. I use my thumb nail as a gauge to see if my hooks are sharp enough, and if the hook point slides across my nail rather than digs in, I keep sharpening until it is ready. If you fail to follow this critical yet often overlooked step, you will lose a good number of muskies throughout the season. When a fish nips your bucktail, for example and it hooked near the front of its mouth, you will more than likely lose this musky on the first jump if your hooks are not properly sharpened. Remember, it’s the little details that add up to big muskies each and every year.

There is too much boat traffic on my local lake:

My local favorite body of water to fish is Caesar’s Creek Lake as stated above, and in the summer months the boat traffic it receives from both anglers and pleasure boaters is incredible. It is located between Dayton and Cincinnati so it draws boaters from two major metropolitan hubs. It would be easy to not bother with the crowded boat landings in the summer months and simply not fish, but I would much rather be catching muskies! A great example of beating the boat traffic to score on nice muskies occurred this past June on a Sunday with my two clients, the husband and wife team of Heather and Kelly Stevens.  We went out on a very hot sunny day, and proceeded to boat and release four muskies up to forty nine inches long, and we did this amongst lots of pleasure boaters and other anglers alike. Three of our fish were caught casting Depthraiders into deep timber, including a robust forty five incher, and one fish came via trolling a jointed Depthraider later in the day. I often hear from local anglers who shop my store that they stay away from Caesar’s Creek because of all the boats in the summer months. The muskies are still there and they still have to feed, so my philosophy is to stay on the water and fish, regardless of how many jet skies or water skiers are on the lake.   I am sure that many of you readers across the country can attribute this same scenario to a given body of water near you, and I encourage you strongly not to let the other boaters discourage you from catching muskies, because you still can! Obviously night fishing lakes like these is another effective way to avoid boating or fishing pressure, but sometimes our family or work schedules do not allow for that.

The common denominator here is that there are many misconceptions or excuses we musky anglers can use to avoid hitting the lake altogether or to throw in the towel early on a given outing. The main point of this article is to get the point across that there is no bad time of day or year to hit your favorite musky haunts, because at any given time, the fish of your lifetime could decide to inhale your offering. There is no one style of lure, or one size of lure, that will only produce muskies, and muskies can be at any location at any time of year, so keep an open mind! Fish as often as you can throughout the year, and avoid falling into the seasonal generalizations that often get suggested to musky anglers. In our PMTT tournaments, it is usually the anglers who think “outside the box” to put together a winning pattern, and my friend Gregg Thomas comes to mind as a very successful guide and tournament angler who consistently produces regardless of the weather conditions or time of year. He is a prime example of an accomplished musky angler who keeps an open mind and avoids the common musky misconceptions that are out there. Avoid falling into routines and you will boat more muskies each year!

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.

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