July bite ?'s

[g man46]

I've been going up to LOTW for years muskie and northern fishing in early June. This year I found an excellent deal on a cabin and we are going the first week in July. My question is, Where are the muskies at that time. When we fish them earlier the bigger ones that we caught were off of rocky points and shallow bays that don't have weed growth yet. Mainly, we cast around the points and around the shoreline of the bays. Smaller bucktails and Dr. spoons have always done the best, but what works at that time? What it boils down to is that three of the guys coming with have never even fished for muskie and I want them to have the best time possible.

Thanks for any help,

Greg

[Stratosman]

I like July, reason being weed beds have been established and there will always be some muskies that will relate to vegitation all summer. It is also the easiest cover to fish because it is the most visible, you can get by without a graph because of that reason and you don't have to be an expert on that particular lake, just look for weeds. Whenever you can find areas that have more that one type of cover or structure, your odds increase. Such as a cabbage bed with a rock bar protruding from it running into a main lake basin. Rock bars will still hold fish throughout the summer as well, but might be harder to locate, but are still always worth investigating. I like to try to focus on cover and structure that is wind blown, it is more of a pain to fish but will generally up your odds. Start by looking at your map and finding areas that look productive and make your loop. If you move some fish that won't take, make a point of those spots, move out and try to return at a peak window, such as a drop in pressure, change in wind direction or speed or during sunset/sunrise, even moonrise can be considered a peak window. Even changing the direction of your approach can be a trigger.

As far as lures are concerned; whatever the conditions call for. You say your buddies have never fished muskie before so a bucktail should be the easiest for them to throw, chuck and reel, nothing fancy and it won't wear them out. Other than that bring you arsenal. Topwater can be good also. Other than that, A good pair of polarized sunglasses and always remember to figure 8 after every cast and you should be good to go.

By then the fish will have been pressured plenty odds are, so try to find areas that are not as noticable by the average fisherman, sometimes the smaller the spot the better. There might be a big ole weed bed that everyone and their brother hits on there way through, but way less people pay attention to that boulder with a couple of reeds on it. Things like that can up your odds.

This just scratches the surface but it should give you some general guidelines.

[g man46]

Wow, thanks a lot! From what we fish in June I know of quite a few of those spots. The biggest muskie I caught up there came from a rock bar between two islands that came to a small outcropping in the middle with a few reeds on it. The very first cast I hooked into a 48.5" and on the same cast one of the other guys in the boat had a follow that was almost identical in size.

Do you still look for structure adjacent to deep water, or will we be able to find them in any of the larger shallow bays?

Thanks again for the info.

[Scoot]

Hey G-Man, not looking for gps coords here-- what general area of LOW do you usually fish?

[g man46]

We always stay at Oak island and fish in Canada on the north end of Falcon Island. There may be better places around there, but the group I used to go with were walleye addicts and out of a week, would only fish one day, so we would always go to where we knew there were fish. This year I'll have a little more time to explore.

[Stratosman]

In a word, both.. Sloppy shallow bays will hold fish as will main lake structure. By July the fish will be set up on many different areas with available forage always the key. I would recommend hitting as many types of cover and structure as you can to try to figure out what they are doing and where the active one's might be holding.