40 Inch Muskie on a Bass Rod and Crankbait

Go Small for Minnesota Muskies

The fish that strikes fear in swimmers puts a crushing blow on your crankbait right at boat side. She head shakes, bulldogs and power rolls in a monumental effort to throw the lure from the side of her face. The fish of 1000 casts right? Well the fish above ate a bass size crank within the first hour of fishing. To top it off this fish was caught using a bass rod with a bass lure.

It’s generally thought that big baits catch big fish and in general I believe that’s true. However I also believe it’s true that you will catch more muskies on small baits. Yes they may be smaller but you’re still talking 36-44 inch fish. Thinking about this for a bit has me calculating my personal experience in reference to muskie size and as memory serves me I’ve seen numerous muskie over 45 inches on small baits and many, many more smaller than 45 using bass size lures.

Fishing Mpls/StPaul for muskies is not a difficult task. You don’t even need traditional muskie gear and lures to boat muskies. Personally, I fish with smaller baits more often than all of my fellow muskie fishing fans. Why? The answer is simple. First, I can fish faster with bass size lures such as Rapalas, flatbills, 1oz spinnerbaits, and buzzbaits. Second, I’m presenting lures that muskie do not often see.  Third I can cast these smaller presentations all day (I’m old) with no fatigue.

Let’s break this down a little further. Fishing faster often produces strikes that are pure reaction. Muskie don’t like things moving at high speeds zooming right in front of their face. Plus, it’s much easier on your arms to retrieve smaller baits fast. Now, think about what lure selection your fellow anglers are using to target muskie. Chances are most muskie guys are casting big baits, Bulldogs, Jackpots and Cow Girls. Our metro area lakes are generally small lakes and the muskies that live in them see so many lures it’s incredible. Some of the best spots we know have a virtual train of anglers hitting them. At times I’ve seen muskie anglers bunched up like walleye fisherman on a rock pile. So show the muskies a different lure, a smaller faster moving lure that you can cast all day long and you’ll see good results.

Your equipment should be a beefy baitcasting bass rod or lightweight muskie rod spooled with 30lb superline. I also like14lb mono in some situations . Most importantly make sure you are using a straight wire muskie leader of great strength. I recommend using .051 wire with a 175lb  swivel. Your lure selection should include: 1 oz spinnerbaits with a willow blade, Rattletraps, 4-6 inch shallow diving crankbaits, and bass size topwaters such as Zara Spooks and buzz baits. 

Locating the local muskie is also relatively simple. Find the outside weedline and fish it. In most of our local muskie lakes the weedline is visible and appears in 5-15 feet of water. Turns and points in the weedline are excellent places to concentrate your efforts. Weed flats are also good place and you can cover lots of water fast. As always, stay alert for following fish and finish your cast with an “L” turn at the side of the boat. Many strikes occur at boatside!

After you have landed that beauty muskie please release it in the kindest manner possible. You should carry a long-nose hookout, a jaw spreader that is attached to a rope, which in turn is attached to your boat (in case you drop the fish in the water it does not swim away with a jaw spreader holding it’s mouth open) and a bolt cutter. When unhooking the muskie if you have any doubt about your safety or the muskie’s cut it free with the bolt cutter. The fish will survive and you won’t be making a trip to the hospital.

Muskie fishing is the most exhilarating freshwater fishing experience you can have. Muskies jump, bulldog and power roll like no other fish. Your knees will shake and the perspiration will flow in anticipation of a following fish eating boat side. Lightweight gear allows you more opportunity to cover water and present lures that are not often seen by muskies. Incorporate this method and you will increase your muskie catch! Good luck.

Effective Bass Baits for Muskie

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By Pete Riola

I own many fishing rods. Probably over 30 with most being spinning rods.  If I could only use one fishing rod the rest of my life it would undoubtably be my 7′ ML Extra-fast action Predator, a creation of Lonnie Murphy at Thorne Bros. This rod, in the simplest word: fantastic. Fantastic in terms of sensitivity, speed, cast ability and weight. The rod is rated for 4-10 pound line and 1/8-3/8oz lures.  With this rod I’ve fished plenty of 1/16 ounce jigs plus weightless sinking worms and swim baits too. And it’s tough enough to deal with the occasional over-sized fish. I’ve hooked and landed many fish over 15 pounds with this rod so I can attest to that. Though my Predator is a super-fast ML it has power when you need it. Did I mention the rod is just plain more fun to fish! It’s not that my other rod selections aren’t in the boat, it’s just I’m picking my top jig rod in this article.

Being a jig fisherman at heart I truly believe this Predator fishing rod has helped me detect more bites and get hooksets that keep fish pinned with a mere flick of the wrist. In addition to the speed in the blank the sensitivity is outstanding. The Predator is mostly a jig rod for bass and walleyes but it can double as a panfish rod too. In addition to jigging you can fish sinking worms and swim baits or cast weightless plastics with wide gap 4/0 hooks.

This rod is made with a St Croix SCV blank and I let Lonnie pick the guides. I’m old, I still prefer a Tennessee Handle. For some reason I think I get better feel with the Tennessee handle. If I were to pick a different grip I’d go for the hidden hood. They’re sweet.

My Predator rod is super-fast and sensitive allowing me to detect the most subtle bites.

This rod makes me a better jig fisherman.

This is the Predator 7′ ML Extra Fast vs 40 inch pike.

In the video below I’m using my Predator to fish walleyes. I’m posting this video so you can see the speed of this rod. In particular the hookest on the second walleye is just a quick flick of the wrist.

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Basin Smallmouth Bass in Summer

I know what you’re thinking? Fishing smallmouth bass in a deep basin is just plain a wacky idea in canoe country. Nope. Let me explain a few things. First of all smallmouth bass are voracious predators and they quite simply go where the food is. If this means deep basins so be it. Next question; how does one find smallies in a basin? Basins are deep and typically big or super big so defining where to start can be so easy it’s not funny or it can be a search mission.

Lets start with the easy part, sight fishing. Yep you can see smallies in 40-80 foot basins with the naked eye. How you say? Just notice the surface. Do you see fish exploding on the surface over basins? If so I’m betting these are smallmouth bass chasing bait to the surface. This could be a few blow ups or an entire couple acre area with hundreds of fish blasting away at bait right under the surface! And this is the most fun you’ll ever have in a canoe. Typically this occurs in light wind situations so you can see this a long way off. See the surface blowing up? Start paddling immediately because these fish will eat swim baits hard. Really hard! Some of my favorites swimbaits are Keitech and Zoom. I prefer lighter colors and the larger sizes. Put them on a 1/8 or 1/16 jig head and cast ’em into the boiling water. Start reeling as soon as the bait hits the water and rip it fast just under the surface. Rip it all the way back to the canoe many will eat right in front of you, usually in packs of many. You’ll be amazed! I have witnessed this many times. Two particular adventures had us catching big smallies hand over fist for over an hour using this method and a few other times we had 5-15 minutes of non-stop action on fish over 18 inches.

So that was easy and almost dumb. To find them deeper fish basins attached to weed beds and points. This tactic is a little more methodical but when you find the smallmouth they eat in volumes. Typically I’d start at the first break, say 15-20 feet and work towards deeper water casting the same rig mentioned above only let the bait hit the bottom then start snap jigging it back to the canoe. These fish are on the prowl in schools. Playing keep away is what works best and the bites are take no prisoners.

Want to know more? Feel free to comment and I’ll get back to you. Or shoot me an email.

This is one of the smallies we caught inches under the surface in about 65 feet of water. You gotta see the tail walk!

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Nice Reel, No Real Drawbacks

I needed a couple of reels for some new rods. Rods as in multiple rods. This meant I needed to make a good decision on what reels to buy. I love the Stradics I have but I’m not in a place to buy three reels in that category. And the Symetre reels, I have love-hate relationship with them. So I made a different choice. I purchased a few Pflueger President XT’s, mainly because of greenback supply and perceived quality. I’d never fished a Pflueger reel in my life. I was impressed with the build and fluidity of the C30 model.

Putting XT’s to the test over a considerable period has me believing this: They’re darn good. XT’s cast well. They load line like a champ with minimal line twist. My models are all size 30’s. Lightweight, 10 ball bearings, fast enough gear ratio for fishing bass and walleye. Thousands of casts later and many many fish caught these Pflueger President XT’s to me are proven quality reels. The drag has never let me down. Even catching over-sized fish like northern pike over 20 pounds the drag on the Pflueger XT performed as expected. Smooth and trouble free.

If you’re in the market for a reel Cabela’s has this $100 reel on sale a few times a year for $60. Stock up on them.

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Should the DNR manage more catch and release lakes? Particularly small lakes? A few lakes less than 500 acres? How about a limited harvest? A program that would protect large panfish? The idea would be to have more and bigger fish in a lake with particular attention to panfish and pike. Here in Minnesota we are short of big pike and big sunfish. If the word gets out on your small lakes great sunfish bite look out because your favorite small lake is about to get decimated by anglers seeking dinner. If it happens during winter a town of anglers will live right above a wintering school and lambaste the fish population. This lake will not recover easily.

Small lakes can get fished out. I know of some and I bet you do too. By fished out I mean the nice fish have literally been “fished out” caught, cleaned and eaten. I know a formerly excellent walleye lake that no longer harbors a fishable population of walleye. I also know a formerly great bluegill lake that only inhabits runts. A few years back that lake gave up 9-10-inch bluegills with regularity. Today you’d be catching an incredible number of 4 and 5 inch fish and that’s the way it’s been for 10 plus years. The problem is when the word gets out on the bite anglers box up dinner left and right and soon that fishery is washed up, done caput. This is depressing news for a guy who likes to eat fish but likes catching them even more. To date neither of these lakes have rebounded and they probably won’t.

Big pike, a thing of the past. I can only assume that in the last decade or so big pike over 35 inches have been commonly consumed by anglers virtually eliminating them from Minnesota waters with the exception being the Canadian Shield Lakes along the Minnesota Ontario border, Mille Lacs Lake and Red Lake. Once upon a time when fishing muskie in the metro area it was common to nab pike over 35 inches. Not any more. Ron Schara said it in the Star Trib…”where did all the big pike go?”

It’s my opinion that if we designate some lakes as recreational fishing lakes these lakes will ultimately be better angling opportunities. You’d need to rate a lake by its habitat and fish population to manage specific trophy/action lakes for specific species. Take a good lake for a particular species and make it better would be the idea. Since no fish or few fish get taken by anglers it just makes sense to me that there will be more fish to catch and that these fish would potentially be larger fish. If allowed, natural circumstances would dictate the survival of fish. The lake would have nice size fish in good numbers in relation to the habitat for a particular species. That is to say if the lake has good bluegill habitat and predation by large pike, large bass or muskie (it’s somewhat a fine line and not too many of these top predators) that lake would have a good number of bigger panfish. I’m talking the ultimate lake managed to be a big fish lake and in decent numbers in relation to what that lake can sustain. You’d need to start with a healthy lake to apply the catch and release or limited harvest program. A lake, that when measured by the DNR makes sense to be a fishery capable of sustaining itself as a big-fish-many-fish lake.

Allow me to inject a couple of examples.

Lake X a 450 acre lake in Northern Minnesota is a no motor lake allowing only specific fish, in limited numbers, to be harvested. This lake is an awesome fishery because of this: Canoes and rowboats require a certain physicality and expertise only had by few anglers. Combine that with a lengthy travel time from the Twin Cities and you have an awesome fishery because of limited pressure and restricted harvest.

Example 2 is a Twin Cities lake that allows no harvest of largemouth bass. The fishing for largemouth bass has gone from poor to outstanding in only 10 years. I often fish this lake with my kids because success is darn near guaranteed. The only downside of this 400-acre lake is on weekends it’s full of recreational boaters limiting fishing opportunities to early morning. If this lake were located in a more rural area it would be a dynamite attraction for that community too.

Example 3 is the muskie catch and release etiquette. I would guess 98-99% of all muskie caught in Minnesota are released. Most will agree that muskie fishing in Minnesota is the best it’s been in 40 years or more. The reason why is catch and release works.

We have 10,000 plus lakes here in Minnesota I don’t see a problem with making the small lakes more of a recreational fishing opportunity. Isn’t it more fun to catch fish than eat them? Don’t we all think that private lakes, lakes with no public access often provide better fishing? And the reason is because of a more limited harvest?  Do the people who live on these lakes want quality recreational fishing more than fish from “their lake” for dinner? I’ll bet they do. The couple of times I’ve had the pleasure to fish a “private lake” we caught fish, big fish and many fish most of the time. If you had a private lake in your back yard would you eat the biggest fish you catch or even any fish? Would you invite friends to keep fish for dinner from your private lake?

So to answer my own question I’m saying limit harvest on lakes smaller than 500 acres.

My example:

Crappie-5- less than 12 inches

Sunfish- 5- less than 9 inches

Rock Bass-5

Walleye- 2

SM/LM Bass- None, These fish are toys for anglers.

Pike- 2- less than 32 inches

Muskie – None

Rough Fish- All you want to take.

Am I crazy? You tell me?

This article has been republished from 2010 with edits but I still feel it’s a valid conversation in todays world.