The fall muskie trolling pattern hasn't set up yet. Water temps were in the upper 50s and the lake was far from turning over. But, I decided to test the tricky fall transition period myself this past weekend. And, in 25-30 mph southwest winds (that's a muskie wind) I trolled main lake points, steep rocky shorelines near deep water, island shorelines, saddles, open water, and offshore reefs. The 10" Believer that produced in past November trolls basically went untouched. The 10 inch Jake ran really well but only scored small to mid-sized northern pike. The graph revealed some bait balls (most likely ciscoes) suspended deep near islands and saddles; and, in some rare cases nice hooks on the graph just below them indicating my quarry. The whitefish however were still scattered along the bottom in the main lake basin like in summer.
You could mark up these unproductive trolling hours as simply "that's muskie fishing". Or, you could ask yourself "so where are they?" I chose the latter and looked at it all as collecting intel. The only place I hadn't tried was shallow. I had been focusing on the 12-25 foot depths near rocky structure. But, what if I really got in there... As the light levels lowered (there wasn't a sun to drop) I started moving in close. Ten feet. Bang, bang, the Jake bounced off the rocks. Nothing. Nine feet. Eight feet. Seven feet. Snag. My new 10" Jake looked like it wasn't going to survive its first day. Agghhhh. I gave the buoyant bait plenty of slack to float it out; but, it was really in there. So, I circled the boat around the snag and pulled from the way it went in. Out. As the lure shot out of the rock a muskie broke the surface shortly after. No doubt he swung on it and thought he was hooked. A dozen casts in the general area produced nothing. We trolled on.
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| 10" Jake - Walleye Pattern |
That was a sign the muskies were still in shallow. The snag/muskie encounter occurred on a shallow saddle totally independent of the suspended cisco/whitie pattern. I suspect they were keying in on walleyes on shallow rocks in that wind and were sitting right up on top munching.
I trolled down the steep island shoreline to a major point littered with shallow rock piles. I cut the speed and tickled the rocks with the Jake. The rod slammed. Snag number two. Great. I lowered the rod instantly and the bait floated out. Frustrated, I burned the bait in to check its action and make sure it was still running good. It was and a mid-40 inch muskie thought so, too. The brown shape came in hot on the bait right to the rod tip. I went into a figure eight. The fish turned on it. The sharp red tail fin nearly sliced the surface during its turn. It was a big fish. It followed the figure eight a few times around before it lost interest or simply got too dizzy to do it anymore. Bummer. I really thought it was going to eat it. I cast another dozen casts in the area and never raised it again.
Daylight was about over. It was 43 degrees and starting to rain. I had more than a few miles to motor back to the landing in wind and rough water. I reluctantly raised the rod tip, swinging the lure toward me, and with my left hand caught it and hooked it to my reel. The day was over. I got beat. The fish had spoken. They weren't in a fall pattern yet. They were shallow with cranked up metabolisms. They were chowing 'eyes in the wind. And, that was a lesson in muskie fishing during the fall transition.
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| A chunky 48-incher of Novembers past. Trolling a 10" Believer on main lake points. |
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| Coiled tail and ready to put hooks into somebody. Be careful charming the snakes. |
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