Musky Season Prep

[MuskieFever]

It's day two of our snowday here at UND. Looking from my balcony at the 4 foot snow drifts it seems as though spring will never come, I guess we can thank the groundhog for that… Anyway, I'm starting to get the musky itch, or should I say fever. What are your preseason preparations for muskies? Some of mine are:

-sharpen hooks

-buy more lures (or should I say collect..)

-scout out waters I fish for weed growth, temp, etc

-tweak some baits

Out of all of those, I'm planning to do a lot of spot scouting. I want to really get to know spots I fish like whats growing on them, what the bottom is, and how it looks on the humminbird. Anyway, what do you do before your first cast of the season?

[tolle141]

Lake research

-muskies inc lunge log (size structure, colors, depths, etc)

-MN Recreation Compass (forage, lake characteristics, maps)

My gear

-hook sharpening

-clean/lube reels

-line

Watch videos on youtube

Retail therapy

[RK]

First and foremost - pace yourself. If you get ready for the season too early the shack nasties kick in and the only thing you can do is buy more stuff. Good way to accumulate a lot of lures you don't need and will never use...

I go through lures I used the season before and replace hooks, check split rings, etc.

I also usually have a pile of corpses (lures that got ruined, or that I'm retiring) that I strip for parts.

I build leaders if I need them, though honestly I probably already have a lifetime supply.

A big one is servicing reels. I tear them down, clean them and lube them, replace parts if they need it (pawls and worm gears, and the occasional bearing or drag stack).

I also go through my rods and check guides to make sure I don't have any cracked inserts, and clean up the blanks/handles with a 25% solution of Simple Green and warm water.

[Scoot]

I work my butt of on house/basement projects, getting kids to and from activities, trying (and miserably failing) to get caught up at work, and try to sneak in a few workouts a week. At about 3:00 AM when I can't sleep, I wonder about all of my gear, then get up at 6:00 AM and head to work. Come the first weekend in June, I wonder why in the heck none of my stuff is in order, why my line looks like pipe cleaner, and why my boat is do dirty.

Actually I'm not that bad. Almost, but not quite!

[kingfish689]

I go to the Minnesota musky expo.check out the new products and buy some new custom colors sit through a few seminars learn a little bit.attend my muskies inc. Meetings where I learned a lot and highly recommend anyone to join musky inc.I clean my reels and put new line on them (I do not reverse my line on the real ) I change it out completely as reversing it has not worked out well for me in the past. I sharpen and change hooks