Brett Erickson Great Trip!

Had a really great trip up to Muskie Bay Resort. Next time I will have to get Chris Trinker in the boat as I don't think she has been out and caught a muskie. We got out two springs ago and got some nice sturgeon, but it is time to get Momma Trinkner a muskie.

The nice thing with Crow is that most of the year you don't have to over-think things. The K.I.S.S. rule definitely applies here! Fast moving bucktails during the day (Holcombe's Musky Buster bucktails and #9 Llungen-tails for the first half of the year and then Double Cowgirls and Super Models the second half of the year) and trolling Slammer 10" Deep Shads account for the vast majority of the fish. Do I catch a bunch of fish on jerkbaits, plastics and crankbaits during the day and 13"Jakes, 13" Jointed Believers and a bunch of other cranks after dark? Sure, but the point is that bucktails and the Slammer put the vast majority of fish in the boat! You just can't beat what works--over--and over--and over again!!!!

Good rod holders (like the Down-East) are absolute 'musts' when trolling. After dark we keep the speeds down, but sometimes during the day we are trolling 5-9mph and you don't want to be hanging onto a 13" Jointed Believer at those speeds unless you are on steroids! Off-Shore planer boards (with the clips replaced with the OR-16 releases and the plastic acorn nut replace with a ny-lock nut) not only help spread the lines with multiple people in the boat, but they also help keep some of the deeper diving baits closer to the surface by keeping them on a shorter line.

I've been using the Daiwa Saltist 20 and 30 now for a couple years (got samples from the rep before they hit the market) and I am impressed for how they perform and how durable they are for the money. Don't get me wrong, they are NO Trinidad, but compared to an Abu 7000 or anything comparable, they have perfomed incredibly well. The 20 is an incredible all-purpose muskie reel and will throw everything from small bucktails the the Holcombe bucktail all the way up to Magnum Bull Dawgs. The 30 requires baits with a little more weight to cast them a little more smoothly and I love this reel for ripping big plastics and 10" Jakes all day.

Since the Canadian muskie opener, I have been playing with the new Sufix 832 braid that will be coming out next year. The one thing that you will notice on your very first cast is how far this line casts. It is a green colored line and right out of the package it will launch a bait a country mile. 7 of the braids are just like the Sufix Performance Braid, but the 8th is a material made by Gore Industries (Gore-Tex company) that reduces friction and improved handling. This is without a doubt the dryest line I have ever thrown--so you guys whining about water spray--this line is for you!!! :-) It is so dry that is seems like after a while your thumb gets a little wet and grabs the line as it is slipping out from underneath it on the cast. So far, I give it a thumbs up--but I've only got a solid month on it so far.

I'm going to try and do a better job of reporting in from wherever I am fishing. Most places I fish now have some kind of internet satellite internet connection, so as long as the weather is good I will be able to check in once and a while. Heading off to my next destination on Tues, August 3 so check back later next week and see if I have a good enough sky to connect to the satellites!
Brett Erickson