While most fishing trips are reckoned by so many fish per day, muskellunge fishermen usually find themselves counting so many days per fish. The moody muskellunge is a mighty tough customer to corner.
And yet, despite the discouraging number of man hours needed to bring in one of these brutes, a lot of time, tackle and tempers are frayed each year — just for the thrill of boating one good musky.
I’ve seen anglers, good anglers who could consistently bring in a stringer full when walleye, bass or northern pike fishing, fish 8, 10, 12 hours a day only to return empty handed and worn to a nub. And yet, the next day they would be right back at it again, hoping and casting.
What makes them do it? You won’t understand until you boat your first muskellunge. It’s a feeling of accomplishment, the vanquishment of a noble adversary — the monarch of the pike family. It’s the big league fishing among fresh water fish.
One of the best fishing tips to increase your chances is to get a good guide, unless you are completely familiar with the good spots.
Do as the guide tells you and then when he is out of ideas, here are a few to try. He might be one of those pessimistic rascals who’ll say it’s no use, but insist on trying these anyhow, you’re paying the bill.
First, if you’ve fished all through the day, for a number of days, and brought in nothing but a tired torso, try sleeping during the day and fish at night. Start right at dusk, fish a few hours, take a breather, then fish a few more until after daybreak. Try to find the time they are feeding at night, if they are feeding at all!
Use noisy surface lures and fish them slowly, very slowly. Color doesn’t matter; although you’ll be told, “The blacker the night the blacker the bait.” Suit yourself on color but just be sure your bait makes a noisy commotion so the muskellunge can find it.
And use big lures, for a muskellunge likes an easy mouthful, he’s got a big carcass to keep up. Be sure your rod has sufficient backbone to cast the lure and drive home the barb when the time comes.
And don’t go overboard on the sporting side in choosing your line. Make it as heavy as you can cast with ease, 20 to 25 pound test, anyhow. It’s more sporting in my book to bring in a muskellunge and then turn it loose than to have it break a light line and die with a plug lodged in its throat.
If they aren’t feeding at night, look during the day in those spots other fishermen aren’t bothering. This means tough fishing back in the weed fields with spoons, pork chunks and weedless plugs, but sometimes it’s worth it.
Also try some really big sucker minnows trolled, or still fished, in the deeper holes; big frogs are good, too. Large floating plugs with enough sinker 18-inches ahead of them to go to the bottom, make an ideal trolling rig. The sinker bumps the bottom and the plug wiggles above and behind it, hardly ever fouling on the cover.
The biggest secret in taking muskellunge is knowing where they hang out. So, after you have fished a lake or river enough years, your score is bound to take a jump. You’ll concentrate on those spots where you’ve had action before. Ordinarily, where one muskellunge is taken out, another one soon moves in. If you know a dozen or more good spots, and work these cautiously, you’ve got a far better chance than just fishing blindly.
If you would become a first rate muskellunge fisherman, be prepared to work at it, for you’ll find it doesn’t come easy. Also be prepared for barren days, but remember, they make the good ones better.
Characteristics
Muskellunge, to the uninitiated, look much like northern pike, also a pickerel, for these are the three members of the pike family. They are very much alike in general shape, but here are ways to distinguish them.
The surest way, since body markings often are indistinct, is by the scaling, on the cheeks and gill cover. On the muskellunge, only, the upper halves of the cheeks and gill covers are scaled.
The northern pike has scaling over the entire cheek and upper half of the gill cover. The pickerel has scales covering both the gill covers and cheeks.
The muskellunge varies in body markings, but when visible it can be plainly seen that the markings are dark on a lighter body background. Whereas the northern pike has light bean-shaped markings on a darker background.
There are two distinctly marked muskellunges in the northern Great Lakes area. One is commonly called “tiger musky” because of the distinctive dark wavy markings; this is the common muskellunge. The other is the Northern muskellunge which is colored a silvery blue, with dark olive, tinge, and indistinct bands.
A third recognized species is the Chautauqua muskellunge found in the Ohio River and its tributaries, also in New York and Pennsylvania. This one is bronze colored on the back, shading into silvery white below. At times there are indistinct spots or bands extending to the fins.
Other Names
The following names are used in various parts of the country, most of them descriptive of location or appearance: Great Pike, Leopard Muskellunge, Tiger Muskellunge, Mississippi Muskellunge, Ohio Muskellunge, Lunge, Longe, Great Lakes Muskellunge, Wisconsin Muskellunge, Chautauqua Muskellunge, Barred Muskellunge, Silver Muskellunge and Spotted Muskellunge.
Range
The common muskellunge is native from New York west through the Great Lakes area, including the St. Lawrence River, southern Canada, northern Michigan and Wisconsin.
Habitat
The muskellunge prefers big water, either in lakes or streams, but is occasionally found in smaller tributaries where deeper holes are available.
It is particularly fond of deep holes around logs, stumps, weeds, lily pads, dropoffs, channels, sand or gravel bars, and sunken reefs.
So big and therefore conspicuous is the muskellunge it must hide in such spots in order to get near enough to other fish to gobble them up and exist.
Foods
The muskellunge isn’t too particular what it calls food, even should it happen to be a fellow muskellunge. Some regular victims are fish of any kind, particularly suckers and perch, young muskrats, birds, ducklings, snakes, mice, squirrels, and frogs.
Artificial Lures
Regular bass lures take a good share of muskellunge, particularly underwater, such as plugs, spoons, bucktail-spinner combinations, giant streamer flies and poppers. Large surface lures produce especially after dark or on calm waters.
Methods and Tackle
Baitcasting is the most popular sporting method for taking muskellunge and it cannot be emphasized too strongly that you should not use tackle too light to be practical.The muskellunge is a first class tackle buster, don’t make it easy for it to make a sucker out of you. These lunkers are uncanny at seemingly knowing which part of your outfit is inadequate.
Stiff rods, 20 to 30 pound lines, a light, sturdy reel and a stainless steel leader 9 to 12 inches long make up into sensible outfits, both for baitcasting and trolling.
Trolling is next in popularity and the recommended casting outfit is satisfactory under most conditions. Be sure the rod has sufficient guts to set the hook, but good.
Spinning with heavier rods, lines and lures can be used as a method of plug casting. Here again, don’t try it with light rods and lines, you’ll be sorry. And use a steel leader.
Fly fishing has a few successful devotees and most of them are husky individuals, for it takes quite a fisherman to swing a 7 ounce fly rod with A or B line, and large bucktail flies, streamers or poppers, throughout a day’s fishing! A steel leader is necessary here, also.
Biological Tidbits
Like the other two members of the pike family, the muskellunge is an early spring spawner, mostly during April and May. The parents are nowhere near as attentive to their family duties as the members of the sunfish family.
Instead of riding herd on the fry until they are large enough to forage for themselves, the male and female move into the shallows, the female drops the eggs, the male milts on them and the fertilized eggs are immediately deserted.
With water temperatures in the low 50′s the eggs hatch in 10 to 15 days. The fry live on the egg sac for some two weeks, then their cannibalistic existence starts.
In waters where food is not abundant enough for the hatch, the mortality is high due to the larger muskellunge fry eating the smaller fry.
Although great variations exist in different waters, the average growth runs something like this: 1st year, 7 to 9 inches; 2nd, 13 to 16 inches; 3rd, 17 to 24 inches; 4th, 21 to 27 inches; 5th, 26 to 30 inches; and 10 years, 3 to 4 feet.
Remember This
It isn’t easy to latch onto a musky. However, when you do, don’t lose your head or you’ll surely lose him.
When it wants line, give it line — tight line, that is. And when it starts toward your boat, crank like mad to keep your line tight. Make sure the oars are in the boat, the outboard motor tipped up, and the anchor in the boat; give the big rascal nothing to foul itself on, for it will be searching for something.
Play it out, completely out, and if it’s a big one don’t be squeamish about bashing it on the noggin with a club, or anything else appropriate before hauling it into your boat. A lively muskellunge is a dangerous antagonist, a good many badly lacerated hands attest this fact.
And here’s hoping a whopper stands your hair on end at a time when you least expect it!