Musky Update

Our group was in camp fishing from Sat the 13th through Fri 19th. We spent 95% of our time fishing muskie and with 5 guys we landed 10 total. We saw lots of fish on follows, many of which would make multiple turns on a figure 8, but the big ones were not eating. Our largest muskie was 43.5 and the 2 smallest were 38. We raised 10+ that would fit in the large fish range at 48+. Weather, as always, was a factor. We had huge thunder lightning rain storm on Tuesday with high winds on Wed. The water temp dropped faily significantly during that period and turned the fish fairly negative. Then the wind shifted for a day and was coming out of the east vs the west for the rest of the trip. By Friday, the activity was picking back up with our 2 largest fish being taken that day.
We stayed almost exclusively on the rocks and only ventured up to Moore Bay for weed fish (cabbage) a few times. The pattern really seemed to be rocks- points with access to deeper water very nearby, like RIGHT NEAR BY. We did not mess with much shoreline fishing as we were seeing lots of fish on the points, just not eating. As always, the camp was great. Gail, Steve and crew were up to their usual standards in treating guests just right.

Just thought I would add some detail on lure choices:

For the most part we used the Double Bucks such as the Cowgirl and had almost all of our action on those. For topwater, the Giant Jackpot outperformed the Top Raider. The Shallow Invader did also raise some fish, but did not get any to bite.

Steve covered things pretty well. A few additional details are that the water temps were about 72 when we arrived in camp on the 13th and dropped to 66 degrees after the big wind following the storms. By the end of our trip the water temps were back up to 68.5. The up and down temps didn't help the fish activity, but we still managed to see lots of quality fish. On average, we were seeing 6 to 10 fish per boat per day, and almost all were in the mid 40" range or better, and as Steve said we located approximately 10 (might have been more) separate fish in the high 40" to low 50" range. We were working 1 fish in the low 50s for the entire trip and had one shot at her one evening. A lot of the fish would go round and round and round in the figure 8 -- a lot more than during our prior trips. We only had a few that actually hit in the 8, while on some trips it seemed like 1/2 of our fish came on the 8s. By far, the lure that showed the most fish was the DCG, and one with nickle blades and a pearl skirt seemed to move more than others, but the nickle and black/rainbow was also solid. We caught 2 of the 10 fish on a jackpot, and 2 on a weighted suick. After the water temps dropped, the suick moved a lot a fish. While we didn't catch as many fish as we would typically expect, the quality of the fish we saw was better than in prior years. As always, Gail, Steve and the staff were great and really helped us out in a pinch.