Back to basics for nice muskies

[Muskiemanzan13]

In the past I've talked about trying all new techniques to catch these fish but then I began to look back at what's been successful for me in the past. The basics.

When it comes to muskies, there's no magic lure or secret lake. You'll hear about guys going to Lake of the Woods for a week and catching one fish. With muskies there's no guarantees. So if you want to increase your odds in catching a fish, look back at what, where and when you've caught fish. Since we're talking about late summer, think about past summers. How hot or cool they were and things like that. Another key thing to look at is lures you consistently catch or raise fish. In my case, bucktails, spinner baits, a tally whacker and a Poe's Giant Jackpot. Another thing to key in on is certain spots that you've caught fish at. When you go over these spots, look at your locater and see if there's any kind of difference from areas 5 yards in either direction. No matter how slight or how major the difference, it could be what these muskies key in on. For me I have a long shoreline that has a shelf that sticks way out and only gets 6' or 7' and then is almost a vertical drop to 25' FOW. Now this whole shelf is lined with thick weed but there's two spots where it "opens up" and is a hard bottom clear area with no weeds in 5 1/2' FOW and walleyes, suckers and perch (key forage in my lake) hang around in this area and about 85% of the muskies I've caught on this long shelf were in these open areas. One tip I can give you is muskies love weeds but they don't go in the weeds. They'll go over the weeds and around them but rarely or ever do they go through the weeds. So at this time of year, staying above the weeds is key. Now, when I fish this shelf, I don't strictly fish those two areas. I'll fish down the whole shoreline but I shut off the electric motor and make sure I really work these open areas before moving on.

As for lure selection this time of year, there's never gonna be a magic lure for muskies ever. But there's lures that they'll seem to "prefer" over other lures. On my lake, I've tried all the new lures. The Bulldawgs, the Titan Tubes, all of it. Now with time, these lures will work no doubt. But thing is, you'll buy all these lures and 90% of the time, the best looking ones are the ones you'll use first. With that you might catch a fish or two or three and then begin to stick with these lures and the others become paper weights. Like I said above, my particular favorites on my lake are bucktails, spinnerbaits and two kinds of topwater baits. So what I've done to expand my arsenal of lures but still keep it with what will catch me the most fish is go with variations of these lures. Different sizes, colors, blades etc. But what I did, is kept it simple. Looked at what colors stand out best and put into consideration what lure size compares best with the average size muskie in my lake.

Now when you're fishing muskies at any time of year, just keep it simple and go with the basics and you will catch fish. Here's a couple trophy pike and muskies I boated in the past two weeks by just keeping it simple...

Keep it simple and catch more fish.

Good luck,

-Zander