Tonka?

[John Barnard]

Never been on Tonka...need to know more about it before i get my feet wet early june. What's the trick? Are certain bays better than others for muskies? Not to prod for secrets, i just want somewhat of an understanding of it before the season starts.

[DHanson]

Fish during the week. Really I haven't fished it a ton, but I tried once on a weekend in June and I told myself never again. Unless you plan on getting up really early and only fishing a couple of hours before all the pleasure boaters get out. Personally, I won't go fishing if I can't spend at least 8 hours on the water, but that's just me.

[PostFrontal]

You can catch fish all over the lake.

I would first break the lake into 3 parts, and plan on fishing in that area. 1. East of the Narrows Bridge and South of Arcola Bridge (known as the east side) 2. West of Narrows Bridge, and South of Seton Channel (known as the west side). 3. West of Arcola Bridge and North of Seton Channel.

Islands, Points and shorelines along docks (just like you were fishing for bass). Starting out from these areas and moving in: deep water dropoff then it moves to milfoil up into the shallower water, then a row of cabbage (usually only a couple feet to a couple yards wide, then sand up to the shore.

We work it deep then move shallower all the way up to the shoreline. Pattern where you find them and duplicate it from there.

Had the most success on topwater and bucktails and are the easiest to work over and around the milfoil and the most success historically. Dawgs and jerkbaits would be the next two I would try. Last year jerkbaits and plastics are what they wanted early on, but hopefully we won't have to base anything on last year.

[John Barnard]

Awesome. you've been there before then postfrontal? lol. I'm a little more apt to hit it at night because of pleasure boaters...@#%#&@s. but then i'm going to get lost...even with gps. That's a great plan to kind of check the entire water column. toss a couple of reg/shallow dawgs, salmo fatsos.

[chberry]

I've had luck fishing some of the large weed flats during the day on weekends....and I fish Wayzata bay a lot. If the pleasure boaters won't go over them, they sometime hold fish. But gernally speaking, be prepared to be off the lake by noon on a good weekend, otherwise you will be playing bumper boats with the cruisers!

[John Barnard]

IS IT WORTH THE COMOTION? I CAN GO TO WHITE BEAR PRETTY EASILY AND CATCH SOME SKIE.

[sheephead2]

East End

also 10am sailboat race is on have to dodge thru them and that gun goes off when they start the race I junp out of my skin even when I know its is going to happen I try to be off around 10:30am

[PostFrontal]

If you want to fish all day do it during the week, or a weekend that is cloudy and rainy.

Weekends we are off the water usually by 10:00 am. Or you can fish at night.

Weekend evenings are ok, but if you fish shallow it will be a pain because all the floating weeds have been pushed to the shores by the wind/boat traffic.

[Tonka Boy]

IS IT WORTH THE COMOTION? I CAN GO TO WHITE BEAR PRETTY EASILY AND CATCH SOME SKIE.

I've caught litterally hundreds of muskies right in the thick of things on Tonka. Don't let these guys deter you because they are the ones missing out.

[PostFrontal]

I didn't see anyone say that the muskies clock out on the weekend when the recreational boaters come out TB. I thought he was asking from an enjoyment aspect of driving over here on a weekend. That's why I am off at 10:00 on the weekend. I was assuming he knew they could still be caught.

[lunge]

if you look through the metro area thread there is plenty of muskie info on there. you may have to look through most or all of them but I got alot of good info from there.