last 17 days report

wasn't able to get to a computer durring the trip so.....
The past 17 days of muskie fishing was rough to say the least. I never saw a fish larger than 40".
The largest fish caught was a 37". we caught many 34's, with the smallest being 14". I too was locating all fish in weeds.... 5ft or less.
I also hit many areas where I have raised or caught much larger fish in the past, with absolutely no success. All the fish we caught were on home made bucktails, or figure 8 spinnerbaits. Worth noting, the fish would only follow the baits up to the boat, and never commit to it... unless it had a piece of soft plastic on the back....then they absolutely inhaled it.
We had a few explosions on top water, but never hooked up.

The family staying a few doors down had better success. The two boys both landed fish. A nice chunky 42"er was caught by the older brother (think he was 10 or 12), and the younger one (6 or 7) got a 36". They also saw several larger fish (spoke with thier dad). The boys were throwing top waters.

I will be back in mid-september for another go at it.
Chris

I've also found that several of my best spots have been completely unproductive so far this season, and I don't have any theories about why.

About the soft plastic tail... On slow days, when we only have a couple days of fishin. We often fish for northerns to get some action. The twister-tail tipped spinner out-fishes any other bait. I have very little musky fishin experience. Would it be safe to assume that northern pike and musky like alot of the same things?

Chris,
I should have stopped over more to chat, but keeping the kids occupied sometimes takes up all the time. We did have a good trip last week, with 7 from the 36 and 42 from the boys. Our key was the first two hours of the morning and the last 2 hours at night, which was really the only time we got to chase them. Shallow, weedy sand bars were best, but we saw our biggest fish in the cabbage. One nice 40 came off a pile of boulders. I have to agree with all, that some of our historically best spots simply didn't produce this year, but luckily we had a couple that were on. Hope to see you up again next year, and we can visit. We typically spend the same week in August, before the kids get back to school.

Rocko

It's been my experience (and all the Park Falls fisherman I've spoken to who spend a good amount of time out there) that the usual spots just aren't producing and when they do the fish are considerably smaller than past years. The only thing I can attribute it to is high water and a flourishing panfish population. Seems like the last year I did really well out there the water was 2-4 feet lower than it is right now.

Hello all, The slow Muskie fishing and large fish "slow production" in our favorite honey holes is a mystery to many. We all know the big ski's and northerns are present. Being a home owner on a Mercer area lake, prompts me to come up with a theory. First off the water temps have been way to warm, many days in a row of dead calm winds, and tons of sunshine. We need winds to help oxegenate the water. Warm temps, low oxegen make the larger fish lethargic. The amount of fishing pressure this year doesn't help matters any. The local bait shops here in Mercer have experienced an up tick in business indicating slightly more anglers this summer. As we all know fishing can be fickle and it doesn't take much of a "swing" of any nature to turn these big fish on or off. Anyhow, for what it's worth that's my opinion ......... I'll bet if we get some breezy cool days of consistent temps this month we'll see an up-swing on the larger fish. Kind Regards, The Frog caster, Larry F.

Hey all, it has been a slow year for Muskies on the TFF from what I've seen. We have an informal Thursday night musky league in the Park Falls area, and hit a different body of water each week for 3 hours. In June, the league had 19 boats with 2-3 people in each throwing everything, no muskies caught. The last week of July, we had the annual 10-day camping trip, and I fished till after dark several times without as much as a follow. (Got to finally meet Blue in person though at the landing!) The league hit TFF again a couple of weeks ago, 12 boats and 1 34" fish caught.... my partner did land a 33" northern on a twin-10 over in the Bonie's Mound area, a monster for the TFF! Looking forward to the fall bite... Larry