2011 Goals/New Techniques

The weather is starting to break and warmer temps are coming. Tied a couple dozen leaders this weekend, sharpened several dozen hook points, vacuumed the boat, greased bearnings and preparing to install a different graph provided I win my eBay auction this evening. I am soooo ready to start the fishing season!

I have been making some mental notes regarding goals for the upcoming season and was wondering if anyone had anything they were going to try to do differently whether it be new baits, new areas or new techniques?? After reading some interesting stuff regarding predator vs. prey relationships this winter, I have been rigging a few "mini-BK rigs" very similar to the one's made famous by the St. Larry trolling guys minus the spoons.

The main difference is that these rigs will be able to be casted and there will be very little space between the 2 baits. I am going to run several big rubber baits (Monster Tubes, Medusa's and Dawgs) right behind a much smaller bait to simulate the fleeing response of a smaller prey eluding the big rubber. On one of them, I used a small size Freestyler and attached an 10" October Tube to the back hook hanger and split ringed them in-line and then attached a larger treble to the middle of the Freestyler just in case the Freestyler gets bit. On the other 2 rigs, I used a Mag Dawg and Shallow Mag Dawg and used a Countdown Rapala and Husky Jerk right in front of the big rubber with the same larger treble attached to the middle of the smaller bait. I am hoping the larger treble will aid in sinking the bait faster and close to the same rate as the big rubber.

I will use the rattling gold Husky jerk/Shallow Dawg rig in stained water with a slower sink rate. I am not sure how things will run regarding the sink rates. I very well may have to add more weight to the smaller (lead) baits to have the right sink rate for it to run a tad nose heavy instead of the opposite.

Other than trying these rigs and boating at least 50 "casting fish" for my clients, I am looking forward to testing out the larger Hellhounds later this summer as well.

Anybody else have new goals or techniques they want to share?

1. Fish more
2. Take a few trips to some high percentage water to gain experience (Been looking into the Buckhannon river a lot lately)
3. Dedicate more time to the blades.

Red,
When you are talking about running a larger bait behind a much smaller bait, are you talking about two guys casting to the same spot and then retrieving the smaller bait in front of the larger bait?? That would be freakin' awesome to team up on a fish like that. You could keep track of them like hockey points. 'skies and assists. Lol.

That made me think of an encounter I had last fall. I was bringing a shallow invader in perch pattern back to the boat when I saw a swarm of emerald shiners coming past the boat. I pulled the invader towards the baitball and as I lifted it up into the baitball, they scattered and a musky came out of nowhere and took a swipe at the invader. Unfortunately, the water was very clear and because I brought the bait up near the surface, he got a very good look at me and didn't come back for seconds. It was a very cool miss if there is such a thing :)

I am talking about both baits being on the same rod rigged nose to tail connected by a split ring. Total length of about 15-20 inches........10-15 inches for the Tube/Dawg and 4-5 inches for the smaller front bait.

1.) Pay more attention to fish out of the water time when fishing alone! I often wonder about this since I'm trying to do everything alone along with being caught up in the moment as well! 2.) Speed up CPR in general! 3.)Catch the state record Muskie!:D (Hey, a guy can dream!) 4.) Try and express faster CPR time to every muskie guy I see on the river!


Brian

On the fly side of things:

1) Try using 90# fluorocarbon for the leader connected to the flies.
2) Spend more time fishing the 4-8" flies rather than jumpin right to the 8-12".
3) Try slower presentations and give the flies PLENTY of hang time. This seems odd to me as with conventional gear, the baits almost always in motion. I plan to tease the hell out of these fish this year!! LMAO

Conventional gear side of things:

1) Run big blades at some point on every trip out (not new to most of you, but new to me).
2) Try fluorocarbon for the leader connection.
3) Try downsizing at points throughout entire year.

Not sure about you guys, but I am just haunted by the fact that I hear and see people catching BIG musky on anything from walleye/bass baits down to tiny jigs being used to catch perch and panfish. I don't want to even try to get into the science behind it all. However, I definitely plan to put a healthy dose of smaller baits in front of some esox this year and see where I end up.

Also, I am seriously considering getting a drift boat to help me learn some small rivers and streams. If anyone knows about any 14'+ for sale, let me know.

Oh yeah... I re-read your post and that part actually registered this time.

That makes a lot more sense, although what I said would be cool too! Who wants to volunteer to throw the 3" X-Rap for me?? Haha.

I know my little experiment might sound crazy but since I am always fishing in the clean-up position (the 3rd or 4th rod through an area), I am just curious if this set-up will be appealing.

Lowbidder,

We were fishing a local tournament here on the river 13 or so years ago and I had casted across my partners line (in order to work over a key piece of structure) so when our baits got close to the boat, I saw he had a fish hot on his bait. My line was under his so I could not stop reeling or it would have floated into his line/boatside manuever so I burn mine in to get out of his way. Just about the time his fish flashed off and headed out of sight, my bait came plowing through and the fish nailed it!

I had played around with the notion of crossing lines on days when the fish just seemed to follow (like you mentioned earlier) but really never purposely did it again. Over the years, I have had several guys throw back to the same general area where we last saw the following fish and burn the bait back to the boat.......surprisingly, we probably have caught close to half of those fish. I assume the speed triggered the fish to come back and eat but until I figure out a way to interview these muskies, it is purely speculation. :)

I'm considering the faster release likewise of the fish and not play them so much. I fish with some light tackle most of the time so i'm thinking this year of using heavier line and a bigger rod so i can get them in quicker especially as it gets warmer. Buy some better release tools to expedite the release. I really haven't fished for muskies all that long so i need to be more prepared this year. Dedicate more time to keying in on them only. Would like to try different areas more on the river. Would like to try some top water techniques for once in certain areas as i don't usually use those. My 1st 50" would be nice too :-) Can always hope.

50"+ sounds right.
I made a few glide baits this year so one on any of those would be nice.
Vertical jigging in the spring or fall is my new technique. Usually seems when I tried it in the past my patience wore quick and I was back casting to weedbeds and flats rather quickly.
While I have less times this year I still hope to catch more muskies.

In butler I loaded up on new red october baits mainly 14'' twisted tubes and some smaller ones for early season, I got the heavy head rigs for them I'm going to try some deeper water current break stuff working the bottom a bit more I think it will do very good. And I'm going nocturnal theres going to be some serious night fishing going on in my world big double 10's in the dark. And does anyone have any info on the 10'' phantoms I heard about them but have yet to find them, I do awesome with the 7.5's so I think these will call up the big girls!

I plan to spend a little more time on lower density waters that are known to give up some big fish.

i have seen those st larry rigs you talked about, mostly a believer with a spoon trailing behind, right? i was over at glendale a couple years ago, and it was a flat, calm day, with nothing happening. i was gonna try to make one of those, and my buddy said " why don't you just tie a swivel off the main line, put a short steel leader(about 18" ) w/a spoon on it, then make about a 5' leader w/a deep-diving crankbait on it?" it works great!! we caught one and had 2 others on in a couple hours. short-lining the spoon, it rides up high, and with a deep diver just a few feet behind and underneath, it looks just like a fish chasing a smaller fish. works great speed-trolling. one thing you have to watch carefully, is that you have to keep tension on the line while you are letting line out, or the spoon will fall into the other leader and get tangled. i am going to mold a wire into one of our crankbaits that comes out and up, right at the nose, and put a willowleaf blade on it. this should do the same thing, only it can be cast or trolled without tangling.

The "swivel" rig you described is a nice rig to use especially in heavy current with a 4-10 ounce lead ball attached to the bottom of the rig (dropper). It is very similar to hand-lining/downrigging but you are holding the rod.

I especially like this rig when trolling over irregular bottoms and it allows you to "contour fish" inside the ditches/wash-outs along the river bottom where the muskies will be laying to elude heavy current.

I am also going to spend a little more time in areas that I typically do not fish on my milk runs. Now that we know for sure how far and often muskies will move around in smaller/medium sized river systems, I am going to quickly cover a few areas that I had originally labeled as 'secondary' spots.