Muskie Travel Routes

[PDXFisher]

So I read Pro Tactics: Muskie (and Pike) and am about to finish Muskies on the Shield (feel like I've spent a few days with RK). Much is made of "likely muskie travel routes", but I haven't seen any definition of such or tips for identifying them. Obviously "neck down" areas would be one, but on some place like Mille Lacs, what would you look for?

What makes this even more confusing to me is the studies that show muskies don't move very far in any given day. If they don't very far, what good is a "travel route"?

[cjac]

Here's my take, RK can grade me on my level of understanding of his material. Hoping for a "C" at best....

Take a piece of structure or a major bay or point and highlight the couple "classic" spots, often the ones with a boat or two or ten already on them. Muskies have likely moved off them due to the pressure. So, they went "somewhere". Often a structure edge is a natural travel path. Or it could be adjacent structure. Without "overthinking" it, where would you go to hang out, also considering the fact you made on limited movement.... Likely to secondary spots between those key points or just off the main structure point.

Could be a dock, a rock pile, an inside turn on a weed edge, could be a random clump of weeds smack dab in the middle of nowhere, a place that offers cover and a potential ambush point, simply something to relate to. Could be a subtle flat or edge just off the classic structure. That's where good electronics can help, but don't overlook you own eyes, if you see something, it's something different, simple as that.

You asked about Mille Lacs.......not so easy in the world's largest soup bowl, but still holds true. Steve Jonesi has commented on a couple weed clumps on the north shore, a many-mile long stretch, that consistently hold fish. Relatively non-descript spots, but someplace between A and B, if you will. I have a couple up East of Red Door that I like a lot as well that seem to get overlooked. Same applies in Vineland Bay, a lake of it's own in acreage really, but there are subtle fish holding spots within the bay. Wahkon Bay too, there are turns on weed flats that hold fish more than the flats themselves.

Here's my Chris Haider real-life analogy, where my grade likely goes from a "C" at best previously to an "F"...... When my back was so bad I could hardly make the three block walk I had from where I parked to the building, we'll call them points A and B, like above, and I had to travel from A to B. I'd look for anything (structure) to stop and rest on, like a lightpost to lean on, a building ledge to lean against, and I was in heaven if I made it to the one bench (major structure) provided it wasn't occupied by a Minneapolis transient. However, if I was the "muskie", the alpha of the food chain, I could have flexed my muscle and pushed them off the structure, the bench in this case, and had it for myself. That was my "travel route" and I looked for any cover/rest. Difference is, I still had to get to B (work) but if I had my choice I would have been comfortable to camp out on that bench all day.

Quite a ramble, but do ya follow? It becomes more pinpoint-precise on a lake of a smaller size, but find those subtle spots-on spots and it'll pay dividends.

[PDXFisher]

I understand the whole "spot on a spot" thing. I thought a travel route was something different. When I think of "travel route" I think of muskie Hwy 10 or something. Like there is a certain type of bottom contour that indicates a "route". In a reservoir, this would be something like the original creek channel, or inlet channels all over. That maybe when going between spots, they like to head to deep ravines to do so. I was probably being too literal and as Dick Pearson would say "overthinking" it.

When I hear they don't go more than 200 yards a day, that says to me you could see two "spots" that are less than 200 yards apart, draw a line between the two, which becomes your "likely travel route" (disregarding structure you find on this line...even if it's 50' deep, fish the top 12') and together this becomes a "complex"?

[cjac]

Remember my hoping for a "C" grade? Your getting into PHD level stuff now!

Here's my take.... I fish White Bear in the TC area a lot, 3000 acres or close to. Lot's of nice "eye candy" spots...sometimes I score, often not, but I'm looking to learn more about where they may be if not on the Prime Time spots. They don't travel end to end, so where may they be? That's what I'm looking to leverage, subtle points, piles, clumps they may be on.

Key factor to layer on top of this is time of day when you're chasing. Big factor really......

[PDXFisher]

 Originally Posted By: cjac

Remember my hoping for a "C" grade? Your getting into PHD level stuff now!

Well, I can certainly regurgitate what I've read, but now I'm in the part of Shield where he's telling you not to overthink everything, and information overload and don't apply it at random...he's totally describing the mental gymnastics I do on the water.

 Originally Posted By: cjac

Lot's of nice "eye candy" spots...sometimes I score, often not, but I'm looking to learn more about where they may be if not on the Prime Time spots. They don't travel end to end, so where may they be? That's what I'm looking to leverage, subtle points, piles, clumps they may be on.

Exactly. When it comes to these fish I'm a one-trick pony. I cast to bulrushes/shoreline and to/around weed flats. That's all I've really done.

If all I knew was my experience, my book would read something like this:

"Feeding windows" rule all. I do the same thing for hours on end with nothing to show for it, then alluvasudden, doing the exact same thing, I get four follows in 20 minutes by different fish. Then nothing for a few hours then it happens again. And unless I'm on Cass Lake, it *never* happens when the sun is visible. So Muskie fishing for me last year was casting bucktails for hours in 5 FOW waiting for the next feeding window to hit, and hopefully I'd be ready for it. I'd pay attention to moon/sun rise and set, and use that to try to "be ready" because it wasn't like I was gonna go home in between.

Of course, this produced some very nice fish and missed a few times that many. But what I'm trying to figure out by doing all this reading, is what to do in between those things that I'm calling feeding windows, but what are probably indications that the fish moved deeper. The instructions of the books to spend the first many hours, or even days, just trying to locate the fish (don't worry about the lures, just something fast enough to cover water quickly) is something I really need to take to heart.

After doing this reading, I think why I got follows on Cass in full sun is because there is so much deep water close to shallow water there, that they were holding out in deeper water close enough to see the shallow stuff. Cass has amazing structure that way, that the other lakes I was fishing did not have (or I just wasn't concentrating on those areas because they weren't within casting distance of a bulrush).

 Originally Posted By: cjac

Key factor to layer on top of this is time of day when you're chasing. Big factor really......

I can tell you unless a guide cracks the whip on me, it will never be early AM. I always start somewhere around 10AM and go to dark. Just thinking of getting up early makes me break out in hives.

[DHanson]

You are missing some great fishing early in the morning. If I have a full day of fishing....I always make sure to be on the lake before sunrise. Take a break during the middle of the day sometimes and then head back out. There have been many days, however, that I never came off the lake all day. I think I casted 30 hours straight once.....that's my record.

[PDXFisher]

 Originally Posted By: DHanson

You are missing some great fishing early in the morning. If I have a full day of fishing....I always make sure to be on the lake before sunrise. Take a break during the middle of the day sometimes and then head back out. There have been many days, however, that I never came off the lake all day. I think I casted 30 hours straight once.....that's my record.

I'm just not the fishing rock star. Is 4-8AM that much better than 8-midnight? That's my tradeoff. I can't maintain both with the nap in the middle, I just feel like (carp) and it stops being fun.

[ole matty]

30 hours straight? Holy mackrel!

[RK]

Hiya -

You guys would both grade out pretty well

Travel routes *are* sort of hard to define perfectly because it does vary from lake type to lake type. On a like like Mille Lacs, as Cjac rightly pointed out, it can sometimes be tough because there's a lot of featureless stuff out there.

Basically I look at it like this: There's muskies in area A and area B (might be two seasonal spots like a shallow bay fish are in early season and a rock reef they park on later on in the year). Look for the path between them, then look for things fish can bump their nose on as they swim from here to there. If they are spots connected by a shoreline, often fish will run the breakline between them, and set up temporarily on small points or irregularities along the break. Sometimes the path to point B might be a direct route across open water - then you have to consider the open water environment to see if there's a chance to catch them there. Is there current? Baitfish? Thermocline? That can clue you in on whether or not they'll possibly be over open water, or just swim right on through.

I would really question the 200 yards a day thing though. Lots of tracking studies that would indicate otherwise.

[PDXFisher]

 Originally Posted By: RK

I would really question the 200 yards a day thing though. Lots of tracking studies that would indicate otherwise.

Really? I'm only referring to a Canadian radio tracking study I heard about. I would love to see other ones that contradict it! I wonder if it's different on meso vs. oligo? Heck, it would probably vary from lake to lake, wouldn't it?

When do thermoclines set up in MN lakes? Or is it just assumed that by opener, they've already set up?

Thanks RK.

[Nick Kuhn]

 Quote:

Study Findings - To Date

Some of the interesting findings of the study thus far are: Big Chip muskies are travelers. The most any individual musky has traveled has been nearly eight miles Ð overnight! In addition, catch and release seems to be conditioning muskies. For example, muskies that have been caught and released exhibit an aversion to trolling motors and gas powered motors and attempt to move away when approached, conversely, muskies caught in the studies spawning nets and radio-tagged do not exhibit the same fear of motors. Muskies that have been caught, radio-tagged and released immediately vacate the area that they were caught in and relocate to another non-similar area. Another interesting finding is that Big Chip muskies establish a home base. They spend three to five days at a time in a specific area, then they travel as much as two miles away and stay there a couple of days. Then they come back to their home base. Seldom do they visit the same spot twice on their forays.

I'll agree 200 yards is no good. They'll move a lot farther.

[PDXFisher]

That's fascinating. Where is it from?

That makes wind-drifting just seem that much more important. Wonder what they think of oars?