I'm trying to get prepared for the coming Muskie season, and in order of improving my luck this year, was wondering if anyone wouldn't mind evaluating my strategies. I wouldn't mind a few suggestions either!
I'll start by explaining how bad I need it! Although I had fun trying, out of approximately 15-20 trips trolling for Muskies last year, I only caught three! One was about 15 inches, one was about 8 lbs, and the last was about 12-15 lbs. If you can imagine, this was quite discouraging to say the least. Most days, after several hours of trolling, I would end up walleye fishing out of pure frustration of not catching anything. Then I would go home, check out the forum, and read report after report of people catching up to 10 Muskies a day, up to 35 or so lbs! (grrr....) That combined with the constant reminder in my head telling me how Lake St. Clair is tagged as the "best Muskie fishing lake in the world!," really got me upset, but in a good way cause it usually motivated me to try harder, which still didn't really get me anywhere. So this year I figure I'll first try to battle what I'm doing wrong.
There are several things that I probably do different due to lack of, or different equipment, but nothing that had me believing I couldn't catch a few fish a day, maybe even a 30 lber. Evidently I was wrong. My rod holders only extend at a 90 degree angle, so from these I only fished long rods. Also, I don't have planer boards (a worthwhile investment? I'm starting to think so...what do you all think?), but I do have downriggers, and often tried fishing with those (never got one fish on the 'riggers...). With the long rods I fished 20 lbs main line mono, and then rigged the leaders pretty much like this - http://www.muskie-lures.com/rocketman/leader.jpg - except I used a ball sinker, and fished a variety of lures, with the sinker and distance away from the boat varying. On the downriggers I also tried a bunch of different methods, from fishing the lures high to low, close and far from the boat. These were all fished from 3 - 6 mph.
VERY open to suggestions on the above!
A few questions of my own - any specific lures that are a MUST-own? Could my leader have an effect? I'm not sure how spooky muskie are - is it worth it to switch to fluoro? How heavy? Thank you very much for any help! I just hope to improve my trips to fish ratio this year!
I'll start by explaining how bad I need it! Although I had fun trying, out of approximately 15-20 trips trolling for Muskies last year, I only caught three! One was about 15 inches, one was about 8 lbs, and the last was about 12-15 lbs. If you can imagine, this was quite discouraging to say the least. Most days, after several hours of trolling, I would end up walleye fishing out of pure frustration of not catching anything. Then I would go home, check out the forum, and read report after report of people catching up to 10 Muskies a day, up to 35 or so lbs! (grrr....) That combined with the constant reminder in my head telling me how Lake St. Clair is tagged as the "best Muskie fishing lake in the world!," really got me upset, but in a good way cause it usually motivated me to try harder, which still didn't really get me anywhere. So this year I figure I'll first try to battle what I'm doing wrong.
There are several things that I probably do different due to lack of, or different equipment, but nothing that had me believing I couldn't catch a few fish a day, maybe even a 30 lber. Evidently I was wrong. My rod holders only extend at a 90 degree angle, so from these I only fished long rods. Also, I don't have planer boards (a worthwhile investment? I'm starting to think so...what do you all think?), but I do have downriggers, and often tried fishing with those (never got one fish on the 'riggers...). With the long rods I fished 20 lbs main line mono, and then rigged the leaders pretty much like this - http://www.muskie-lures.com/rocketman/leader.jpg - except I used a ball sinker, and fished a variety of lures, with the sinker and distance away from the boat varying. On the downriggers I also tried a bunch of different methods, from fishing the lures high to low, close and far from the boat. These were all fished from 3 - 6 mph.
VERY open to suggestions on the above!
A few questions of my own - any specific lures that are a MUST-own? Could my leader have an effect? I'm not sure how spooky muskie are - is it worth it to switch to fluoro? How heavy? Thank you very much for any help! I just hope to improve my trips to fish ratio this year!