Follows

[camando56]

So I am new to the Musky world, I was out over the weekend and had 2 fish follow my lure all the way to the boat and then dart off as soon as they got close. They started following the lure almost imediatily after the lure hit the water, I never changed the speed of my retrieve, was this a mistake? Should I have increased the speed? I was using a bucktail by the way.

[mainbutter]

The only bites that came from a follow where I could see the fish and then react accordingly came during a significant pause. Other than those two, all of my musky bites have come before I could see there was a fish after my lure.

Pausing doesn't work so well with bucktails, but plenty of musky guys love to REALLY burn bucktails fast and it seems to produce fish, so speeding up certainly is always an option

Don't forget to figure-8 after a retrieve and especially after sighting a fish.

[50inchpig]

doesn't hurt to throw a few fast cranks in there as your bucktail gets close. that'll work sometimes. also doesn't hurt to do a few loops even if the fish looks like it darted off, but most of the time for follows like yours i just mark them and come back during prime time.

you won't get them all on the 8 but you'll get more and more as you go

[PerchJrkr]

Sounds about right. I also fish the Alexandria area and I probably had around 40 follows before I put one in the boat. Highly pressured fish around here. Ive been at it for 3 seasons now and have managed to catch 2.