Poll..... What is the Best June Muskie Lake in Minnesota?

[10,000 Casts]

Well, ONLY 5 and a half months to go. haha

This comming June will be the biggest month of my life. Getting Married and Graduating from School after 5 long years.

But lets get serious I am trying to figure out where I want to go for Muskie opener.

Last year we did pretty good on Lake Bemidji and I am having a hard time deciding if I thats where I want to go this year. I heard that Plantangenet was on fire last June and I am also told that Elk Lake in Itasca is also a very good early season lake. A friend of mine boated a 53" on Big DL opening morning. Now when you throw in all the other good quality Lakes across the state like Mille Lacs, Leech, Cass ect..

What is teh best opener lake?

[barnyard]

Hard to go wrong with any lake....

Tom B

[setterguy]

If I catch a fish its the one I'm on. If I don't catch a fish, it'll be the one I was gonna go to.

[RK]

Hiya -

You'll probably have a hard time getting anyone to get real specific about which lake is best early on a HSOforum - even with people as helpful as this one has.

What I can do though is give you a couple things to think about in picking a lake...

Generally speaking there's two ways you can go on opener:

- You can go to a smaller/shallower body of water where the water might have warmed up more and warmed up earlier, and the fish are farther along from the spawn. Theory behind that of course is they'll be more active in warmer water.

- Go to a big body of water and fish shallow (or open water), and take a shot at a big one. You might be dealing with fewer active fish, but opener or very early season is also when these fish have been totally unpressured, and it's easier to get a big fish to make an unlikely mistake.

Some lakes are better early season lakes than others. Some have reputations as being flat out tough early. But you can catch fish out of any of them. Not always the same way from lake to lake...on a smaller warmer lake with a warm spring you might be burning bucktails in 70 degree water, but on a big lake it'll be small twitch baits and bass-sized spinnerbaits chasing males that are still up shallow. The go warm and shallow theory can bit you sometimes. You get fish that are right in the middle of transitioning form post-spawn to summer and they're scattered here there and everywhere while the bigger lake fish might be piled up shallow (but not as active). Either option has its ups and downs...

My opener attitude is "who cares...I'm finally fishing again "

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[10,000 Casts]

RK,

Thanks for the Post.

I understand that people like to keep their spots a secret. This was intended to be a fun post and I figured that it would get 20 different answers.

For instance we had a great opening weekend on Lake Bemidji last year. 3 skis in a weekend, especially on opener for me is great. Does that mean that because I told everybody on this site, that I will have to get in line to fish my spot next year? No way....... Its one thing to talk about spots but it is another thing to talk about lakes. I would never give info on where my favorite spots are but I have no problem talking about a big body of water.

The Muskie fishing is getting so good in the state of minnesota that even if you are fishing heavily fished lakes, if you are not catching your share of muskies then you are doing something wrong...

Just my thoughts

John

[MLmusky]

In my opinion, Mille Lacs is a tough lake in June, but I will still be there chasing those fish.. If I did not have a shack on Mille Lacs, I think I would head to Mantrap on opener...

[MUSKY18]

Also take into consideration the color of the water. A lake with a "stained" color to the water will tend to warm up faster than the clear water lakes. This will promote the weed growth faster than the clear water lakes. Hard to determine a specific lake without knowing many of the intangibles that go into it. How the spring and the weather are, etc. But as stated in the above posts, just being on the water is great enough!