Gord Pyzer on ‘Poop Zones’ and ‘Kill Zones’.

[Red Childress]

I have been a Gord Pyzer fan for 30 years which is exactly how long it’s been since reading his stuff for the first time. Here is an excerpt from a seminar he and Jim Saric were doing recently. Just when you think you know most everything about Esox!

The screenshot below may be tough to blow up. I also copied and pasted all of it and placed it below:
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Lots to unpack here, but here's a quick rundown of Gord's thoughts on the topic:

"We often talk about sweet-spots and the spot-on-the-spot, but I think we need to start thinking about them as kill zones."

According to Gordo, the key to finding these “kill zones” is lookin’ just a few casts from the musky’s defecation area or as we like to call it: the “poop zone”. ��

What is a poop zone, you might ask?

"These are sun-exposed, calm water spots (in roughly 3-6 feet). If you look on the bottom of these areas, you will see long white grease marks, which is pike or musky defecation. It looks like a white seagull mark on the underwater rocks. Fish use these areas religiously. It’s like us using the restroom in our house. You eat in a different location than you use the washroom.

"They defecate in these shallow, warm areas, but usually, about 1 to 3 casts away, there is a ‘kill zone’ where they eat. When she’s hungry, she’ll move from the bathroom into the kill zone. When you find these defecation areas, you need to start looking around because there’s a kill zone somewhere nearby.

"In these defecation areas, the suckers, tullibee, walleye, and smallmouth go on high alert, thanks to alarm pheromones in the water. They pass through these areas very quickly as a result. That’s why muskies don’t defecate in the kill zone, because it would spook everything they are getting ready to eat. These same pheromones attract smaller muskies and northern pike…. which encourages Esox cannibalism."

Most humans don't "defecate in the kill zone" either, so that's ONE thing we have in common with our favorite fish.... ��

A lot of this info is based on pike research, but Gord believes it also applies to muskies. What's your opinion – does this make sense based on what you see on your favorite musky lakes?