A change in musky fishing
I remember my first encounter with a musky, I was about 14 years old. A hot summer morning on the lake. Fishing along a submerged weed line just off a drop off to deeper water. The big bluegills lived along the weed line. So did the northern that fed on the bluegills.
I spent a fair amount of time working a dare devil and some other spoons and didn’t get a single strike. I changed to a Rapala bait and made a cast. As the bait came up to the boat a large fish came into view just a couple inches below the surface. It was long and it was wide. t just materialized out of the depths and it took me by such surprise that I just froze. The fish just floated there for a second, then it turned slightly and slowly descended back to the depths. That fish remained the largest musky I saw for 20 years - a fish of a lifetime.
I started reading everything I could find about fishing for musky. Turns out that I should have done a figure eight with the bait. Funny thing is after learning how to do that I still froze the next couple times a musky followed my bait.
I don’t fish for musky much anymore. Casting large baits all day leaves me with a sore arm and shoulder. Turns out I like to sit when I fish and that doesn’t bode well for figure eights.
Some of the biggest musky chasers I know all seem to be getting ready for their own annual July Canadian Musky Extravaganza. One invited me along for an afternoon musky trip. He wanted more time running his newest piece of electronics – a 360 degree sonar or livescan.
We drove over two hours one way for about three hours on the water. Believe it or not, a thunderstorm materialized and ended the fishing.
He’s a private guy and worries about the blowback from using this, but he felt he wanted it to learn more about fishing for musky. It makes the fishing more productive and it changes the way the fishing goes.
In the three hours we fished, we both made about 25 to 30 cast and boated one fish about 46 inches long. Had to be luck right, musky are the fish of a thousand cast, right? Forward scanning sonar changes that. We spent most of those three hours motoring around looking for fish on the sonar. When he spotted something that looked big enough to fish for, we engaged the spot lock and we each took a few cast.
If the fish didn’t respond we moved on while watching a small TV screen looking for another fish. Some of the places we found fish were close to waypoints he had saved in his “old electronics.” Many of the musky he identified were under 40 inches he told me. It reminded me of watching someone play a video game. He pointed out schools of crappie, smallmouth and perch. He seemed to know what schools of crappie were too small to want to fish for and which schools the fish looked very nice. He located a fish and he debated casting to it. “He might be worth casting too,” he said. The first cast flung out as I looked towards the shoreline a half mile away. “Fish on!” brought my attention to the boat again. The heavy rod, reel, and line made hauling the fish to the boat quick. It also meant a hot fish. I grabbed his cradle and he guided the musky into it while coaching me on the process. I’ll say I prefer a dip net to a cradle, but I get why a cradle’s better for the fish. Here’s why I don’t believe that forward scanning sonar won’t wreck musky fishing. My friend immediately went to work removing the hook, taking a quick measurement with a bump stick, and releasing the fish less than three minutes after netting it without even taking a picture. The fish never left the water and really didn’t need any reviving. Greater than 95% of musky caught legally are released.
Eventually the cost of forward scanning sonars will come down and they will be installed on more boats and in more ice shacks. I believe when the price comes down, the fisheries that will suffer will be the species that we all catch to eat – panfish and walleye.
THROUGH A
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CHUCK K OLAR LOCAL OUTDOORSMAN
