08-15-2003, 08:22 PM
[cool]I wish I had a magic wand I could wave and make the muskies more cooperative. However, they are legendary for their finicky ways. I have taken regular muskies, but have never had the pleasure of introducing myself to the Pineview side of the family.
I don't claim to know anything as absolute truth, but I have heard from longtime muskie hunters that a big part of the reason they are not caught more often, by more fishermen, is that just DO NOT feed all the time. They are like big brown trout and other big fish. The eat infrequently, but when they do, they glut. It may take them a half hour to round up enough groceries to fill their gut, and then it may be another day or two before they forage again.
What does that mean to fishermen? If you are not exactly in the right place at the right time, you ain't gonna get bit. That's why the expression "It takes a thousand casts to catch a musky." You have to outlast them. Then, if you are good, and if you are lucky...and if you are good and lucky...you get a tussle with a tiger.
Now, that being said, I have seen one person take more than a dozen muskies in one day (not me). I have also seen first time fishermen hang a monster muskie on their first cast.
Within the last month, I received a PM from one of the regulars on BFT who drove two hours from his home, plunked his tube in the water and had a tiger on within fifteen minutes. A boater who had been fruitlessly flogging the water to a froth all day, and who had just left the area the fish came from, motored over and got downright obnoxious. He felt the float tuber had no right to catch the fish, and refused to use the float tuber's camera to take a picture of the fish before ir was released.
The boat fisherman may have been a nice guy. Might have even been a BFT member. Them fish will do that to ya. We just can't be responsible for our actions when under the spell of muskie mania.
One of the other things I have picked up from several sources is that those toothy critters are not exactly fair weather fish. Like walleyes and smallies, they seem to turn on when the wind kicks up or a rain squall is moving through. It seems to trigger the feeding mood. Many of the country's biggest recorded muskies have been taken during foul weather.
Yeah, I don't know all the answers, but I have sure learned a lot of the questions.
[signature]
I don't claim to know anything as absolute truth, but I have heard from longtime muskie hunters that a big part of the reason they are not caught more often, by more fishermen, is that just DO NOT feed all the time. They are like big brown trout and other big fish. The eat infrequently, but when they do, they glut. It may take them a half hour to round up enough groceries to fill their gut, and then it may be another day or two before they forage again.
What does that mean to fishermen? If you are not exactly in the right place at the right time, you ain't gonna get bit. That's why the expression "It takes a thousand casts to catch a musky." You have to outlast them. Then, if you are good, and if you are lucky...and if you are good and lucky...you get a tussle with a tiger.
Now, that being said, I have seen one person take more than a dozen muskies in one day (not me). I have also seen first time fishermen hang a monster muskie on their first cast.
Within the last month, I received a PM from one of the regulars on BFT who drove two hours from his home, plunked his tube in the water and had a tiger on within fifteen minutes. A boater who had been fruitlessly flogging the water to a froth all day, and who had just left the area the fish came from, motored over and got downright obnoxious. He felt the float tuber had no right to catch the fish, and refused to use the float tuber's camera to take a picture of the fish before ir was released.
The boat fisherman may have been a nice guy. Might have even been a BFT member. Them fish will do that to ya. We just can't be responsible for our actions when under the spell of muskie mania.
One of the other things I have picked up from several sources is that those toothy critters are not exactly fair weather fish. Like walleyes and smallies, they seem to turn on when the wind kicks up or a rain squall is moving through. It seems to trigger the feeding mood. Many of the country's biggest recorded muskies have been taken during foul weather.
Yeah, I don't know all the answers, but I have sure learned a lot of the questions.
[signature]