Trolling for muskies
After picking up my planer board mast I figured it was time to go out with someone that knew what they where doing as far as trolling. I’ve never done it because I love casting so much. Which to be honest is limiting my success as a fisherman overall. Not good when boating fish is the main idea.
So after talking to some guys I know I was finally invited out. 
We hit LSC about 3:45 in the afternoon. There was a big rain cloud hitting the north end of the lake up by new baltimore & fairhaven. Thankfully it missed us but I brought my rain gear anyway.
One of the more interesting things to note about the conditions is that the barometer had been dropping steadily for the past 7 hours or so. Many “experts” will tell you that you might as well not be out because the fish aren’t biting under these conditions. Ha, lies & BS! Muskies will feed when they want, period.
Anyway….We started out in about 7 feet of water (FOW) going 2 – 2.5 mph with 4 lines out. For the inner rods, next to the engine – 1 line was about 10 – 15 feet back basically in the propwash, the other was about 25 foot back. The 2 outer rods were between 30 and 45 feet back. They were poking out the sides pointed slightly down. A quick note on the rods – the inner rods were short, 5 – 6 foot in length. The 2 outer rods were nice and long at 9 foot each. Everything was spooled with 80lbs braid with 36″ steel leaders except my rods, which had 17lbs fluorocarbon and a 12″ steel leader.
We headed north in wide sweeping S-turns without much luck, besides weeds. After a while we slowly swung out & south and put the inline planer boards out about 60 – 70 foot on each side. As we got out into deeper water, about 8 – 8.5 foot the flag starboard side board dropped and the rod jerked. Ken ran over & grabbed it but the fish was gone. When he pulled it in the lure had been hit hard enough to knock a bunch of paint off it and straighten one of the hooks! Man these fish are tough! Another half hour and we pulled everything up and headed across anchor bay to a drop that seems to hold muskies.
After getting everything set up again we switched up the lures and made a pass at 2 – 2.5 mph. That wasn’t working so we brought in the boards and cranked up the speed to about 4 mph. A good speed for the big toothy stuff in the lake.When we picked up the speed we brought the outside lures in quite a bit. The port rod was out only 15 feet or so. THe starboard rod was around 25 – 30 feet. One the second pass at that speed the port rods let out a couple of drag chirps & we had a fish on! It ended up being a 26″ pike that grabbed a dark14″ jake! These fish just don’t care about lure size. If they see something they want they grab it!
1st small pike
TIP- When you first start out trolling put a wide variety of lures out, different sizes, colors run depths. Pay attention to when you get a strike. Was it the inside of a turn or the outside of a turn. Where you running straight, was the lure light or dark, small or large? When it comes to being successful in trolling you have to pay attention to the small stuff because that’s what makes the difference.
We set everything back up, chaging everything to dark lures and continued to make passes in this area. On the 4th pass or so the same rod with the same lure got a hit! I have to say the sound of the drag screaming is beautiful thing and quite addicting! After a very short fight it was another pike this time about 30″. Not muskies but hey it toothy fish and that’s all that matters!
After a few more passes we packed up and headed back west to a different area. We kept 3 of the 4 lures dark and on the starboard rod we threw on a blur & chrome shallow runner. That was the only change we made. We trolled around for about 45 minutes, slowly working shallower into about 7 FOW when the blue & chrome rod let out a couple of chirps. I grabbed the rod and up popped a little musky! About a 24 incher! Finally we boated a musky! Once that was unhooked we looked at the time. It was about 8:30. So we packed it up and headed in.
The funny part about today is that it was far from ideal conditions yet we still went out and boated fish. The conditions were constantly changing, from sunny to cloudy and back again, from calm to 2 foot waves. The wind even changed direction from east to west while we were out there. The lesson in this is that no matter what’s going on as far as the weather goes if you can get out there, GO! This of course means stay within the limits of reason and safety. Don’t hit the lake in 40 or 50 mph winds with 4 – 5 foot waves or anything like that. Safety should be your #1 concern. But if it’s safe enough go because there is something out there biting.
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