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| A lovely little slice of Heaven on Dryberry Lake. |
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FALL FEEDING FRENZY
by Bob Chochola
MUSKIE Magazine (October 2005 issue)
Trolling… Casting… Dragging Meat…
Cover ALL your bases in the FALL…
Catch BIG Canadian muskies…
My Dad and I were trolling a huge rock wall on Dryberry about an hour before dark. There was still a little daylight left, but we were on an east-facing wall that stood about 60-feet high and its shadow had turned the peaceful blue water penetrated by the sun earlier, into a dark mysterious sea almost black in color. Working an “S” pattern tight to the wall (about two musky rods placed end-to-end away) we were over water 45-60 feet deep – it was well over 60-feet deep one cast out from there. I was gunning the throttle with my left hand and white-knuckling a St. Croix 6-9 braced against my chest with my right hand. I could feel the thump-thump-thump of my ten-inch Jake bait working far beneath the calm surface maybe four casts behind the boat. It was a beautiful evening and a good time for a muskie bite.
Facing forward I could see my Dad in the bow seat – he was enjoying the evening in spite of some pretty slow action that day. I watched him holding his 6-9 lightly as if he were waiting for a crappie to nibble, his rod tip also bouncing to the wobble of a Jake.
“Hey Dad!” I shouted over the motor’s buzz, “You’d better grip that rod a little tighter than that, or you’ll lose it.”
He chuckled and shot me that “don’t worry, I’ve got it covered” look, then he slipped a firm grip around the cork just above his reel. Good thing he did, because seconds later something gave him two big jolts that would have pulled that rod into the drink if he had still been crappie fishin’.
Dad didn’t even have a chance to settle-back into his seat when the big strike came, but when he pulled back on the rod for a hook set all that he got was slack line. I could see his braided Dacron waiving out the back over my right shoulder and it was settling in the water.
I screamed at him, “Reel, reel, reel, reel, as fast as you can – NOW!”
He couldn’t take line in fast enough. The beast must have grabbed the lure and headed straight for us at top speed. As soon as Dad took the slack out of his line the surface erupted about ten feet to our starboard – Muskie On!
The fight was short and sweet. A surprised muskie just shy of 50-inches slipped into our net without too much trouble this time. A perfect release and we had logged one of our group’s many fish caught on the troll. Of course, Dad was pretty lit-up, this being the second muskie of his life (his first was a 51-incher) and he was boasting an average of over four-feet per fish. Not too shabby.
Fall is an exciting time to be muskie fishing in Canada. Post Labor Day means so many good things to us: cooler temperatures, fewer bugs, lighter fishing pressure, and most important of all, big fish strap-on the feed bag to beef-up before winter’s arrival. We like to take advantage of that. Pat and I are happy together through all kinds of weather because we know that translates to one thing – BIG Muskie action!
Our fall trips used to be short hauls that lasted only a few days, but we do the whole two-weeks in the fall these days. We have gone up anywhere from Labor Day through mid-November, but take it from me, the later you travel into The Shield the more treacherous conditions get. There’s no maybe about that either – in November be sure to pack warm and be prepared for anything and everything in the way of wet and cold stuff falling from the sky.
The “anything & everything” goes for fishing too when monster muskies are on the prowl. To consider fall strictly “trolling time” though would be leaving some productive stones unturned. Traditionally (and generally speaking) fall has been thought of as a time to drag deep running baits behind the boat and we do our fare share of it, but we never stop casting. I think the only thing that would keep us from doing that is ice – and lots of it. So, I’m gonna come back to the troll later and right now I’ll focus on the other things we do to put big fish in our boat late in the game.
Summer to fall transition isn’t an overnight event. It can (and does) go on for a good long time. It’s a process and one factor alone doesn’t trigger it. Certainly changes in water temperature (or turnover) will affect the system and that has its place in fall fishing, but other things come into play when you are looking for active muskies late in the season – more important things.
We don’t concentrate as much on turnover as we do other sure signs that fall is in the air. There are many and you can usually find fish if you pay close attention to them.
During the dog days of summer and early fall (or pre-turnover) muskies will frequent certain areas and stick to that pattern pretty much as long as the weeds are up. Cabbage weeds are what they relate to and you can be sure that if you find cabbage, you will find muskies.
Throughout the fall transition cabbage weeds begin to die and decay. This does not happen quickly, or simultaneously, while you may find a favorite weed bed completely void others may still have enough weeds to hold fish. One of the first things we ask ourselves in the fall is “Where are the weeds?” Chances are good even pretty late in the season that if you can find cabbage you will find active fish nearby.
Don’t just assume muskies have abandoned their summer haunts because the kids are back in school. That’s not necessarily true. We work the same general areas we normally do in July – we make an adjustment and look for structure near beds that have remnants of weeds and concentrate on what we determine to be the last stop a big muskie may make before heading for deep water. We spend much more time on adjacent rocky points and make long casts to open water trying to hook-up with suspended fish.
Other great all-season areas to cast that can be particularly productive in the fall are reefs, mid-lake humps, and neck-downs. These submerged gathering points provide ample cover and food for big predators all the time.
Later in the year, however, reefs will get busy with muskie traffic when all the weeds are gone and fish are seeking food and cover. We have trolled these places, but if the reef is small or has many turns and cuts, it can be difficult to navigate and cover efficiently that way. Unless you know it well, you may have trouble. In these cases we like to play the wind, set-up long drifts over the top with the motor up, and cast every crevasse with surgical care. You’d be surprised how much you can learn drifting over the top and that information may come in handy when you eventually do decide to make a trolling pass.
Dragging meat may be the deadliest BIG FALL MUSKIE tactic of all.
A live bait rig with a big sucker on it can prove to be irresistible to a hungry toothy critter. We use two brands of live bait rigs: one by Joe Bucher and the other by Musky Mania Tackle. Both are suitable and I’m sure you can find other rigs on the market that work just as well. Just follow the manufacturer’s directions and hold on tight.
Live rigs are a great tandem plan to your casting attack and can easily entice the slow following muskie to get busy. We keep a rigged sucker alive in the well while we’re on the move and then just drop it over the side when we pull-up on a spot. You never know when a semi-curious fish will break from your lure and inhale the live bait. Be ready when this happens because it’s all hands on deck to get the other lines in and net the fish – and to get the camera. Of course, suckers are a little hard to come by on a lake like Dryberry where there are no bait shops. We have to save that tactic for Webster Lake.
So, what’s the big deal about trolling anyway?
Now that I hopefully have convinced you that there are more ways to bag big muskies in the fall than sitting in your boat freezing your booty off for hours on end dragging deep divers, let’s get back to the troll… and the nasty weather that encourages the biggest fish in the pond to bite.
The best trigger of all on any fall muskie hunt in Canada is the weather. We certainly get a lot of it up there. It can give you hot, cold, rain, sleet, snow, sun, clouds, and fog – all in a week’s time. The more turbulent it gets, the more muskies become energized. Although it may be quite uncomfortable, you’ll soon forget the wet and cold the second you hook up. Conditions, sooner or later, signal that light bulb moment and you turn to the troll.
I did a Google search for “trolling for muskies” (www.google.com) and dredged-up 10,600 sources of information on the subject. I sifted through a couple of hundred of these and found a great article by Noel Vick of Game & Fish Magazine called “Last Chance Muskies” that will be as helpful to me as it will be for you. You can reap the rewards of trolling if you do it right and you have the guts to brave the elements. As Vick puts it:
“One would assume that ice-fishing entails the most disagreeable, core-chilling conditions in the entire sporting world. After all, it's winter, with all that goes with it: sideways snowstorms, frozen five-gallon buckets called seats, and ice-covered reel spools and rod guides. But ice fishing isn't the worst "weather" you can fish in. Nope, it's the wickedness of late fall, with days spent fighting damp northeasters and whitecaps. Bar none, that's the coldest a man can be. Even winter's harshest effort cannot outdo a frigid and saturated gale on the open water.”
No doubt about that. The weather up north can get pretty nasty, but that’s what muskie fishing is all about. Those who can brave the worst elements for the longest period of time are going to be the ones whoopin’ it up when it’s all said and done. Vick goes on about increased opportunities for monster late season muskies. He quotes Chip Leer, described as a “muskie hound,” about how you will have a much greater chance at a “super fish” in the late fall than you would at any other time of the year:
"Late fall offers the opportunity to meet one of nature's rarest beasts - big, big muskies. Sure, huge muskies get caught in the summer, but nobody I know finds them with any consistency. That changes in late fall, though, when multiple numbers of big fish forage in the same places.’"
The body of water you fish is important. What are its characteristics? What is the forage? Pat Smith, an envoy for online muskie specialists Thorne Bros. (www.thornebros.com), offers prospective fall muskie hunters some valuable information in the article about what these large predators like to eat:
“’Forage is the No. 1 factor on where to fish. I key on lakes with profuse populations of ciscoes (tullibees) or whitefish - essentially greasy and fatty pelagic baitfish that migrate in the fall. I look for baitfish that make major moves in the fall. Besides nutritional value, the primary feature of lake whitefish and ciscoes - which are in the whitefish family - is their fall spawning run. Sometime after Halloween and typically before Thanksgiving, whitefish hit offshore humps and rocky points to procreate. Opportunistic muskies suspended in ambush take full advantage of the situation. A typical whitefish- and/or cisco-supplied lake is relatively clear, quite deep and conspicuously large.”
I found this bit of info very interesting considering I fish Dryberry. I have often heard people say they don’t like clear lakes. “Like fishin’ in a gin bottle.” they say. They think muskies “spook” easy. I disagree with that because unless you are fighting calm conditions and a big blue sky in the middle of summer (also poor conditions on stained water), clarity gives the advantage to the predator always. Noel Vick continues:
"’Larger lakes simply hold more big muskies.’ Clarity, according to Leer, is important for visual reasons. Muskies rely heavily on eyesight to feed. In the open water where silvery baitfish are naturally well-camouflaged, the ability to scan with a sharp eye is vital. So on the big water, both Smith and Leer focus on deep and hard-bottomed structures that are recognized whitefish breeding grounds, or at a minimum encompass the right ingredients: steep, deep and rocky. Leer centers his energies on offshore humps that culminate at 20 to 40 feet and are encircled by 60, 80 or even 100 feet of water. Traditionally the biggest beasts [are found] on sprawling and solitary structures.”
My group has done better on clear than stained water - trolling and casting. During low light times like sunset, cloud cover, or wind pushing a chop on the surface, clear water gives-up hogs. Forget about it at night… clear water is by far superior.
A large body of Canadian water can often be like trying to find a “needle in a haystack” and sometimes it just makes more sense to troll. You can cover a ton of water and that increases your chances of contacting fish. Keep in mind, however, that there’s more than one way to boat big muskies in the fall.
Evaluate on the fly and examine all the possibilities. Don’t abandon casting too early (pre-turnover), but don’t ignore obvious trolling situations either. If the weeds are still up, fish the deep structure nearby and the open water directly adjacent to them. As the season progresses and the weeds disappear (post-turnover) concentrate more-and-more on deep water related rock structure. Steep points, sharp underwater drops, reefs, and walls are all great places to get trolling.
Right now I’m getting ready to take-off on my big fall musky adventure to Dryberry Lake. You can bet that I’ll be doing my best to bag a huge muskie while I am gone and I’m sure to have all kinds of stories to tell you when I get back too.
Until then, keep your lures in the water and don’t forget to figure-eight.
Source: Game & Fish Magazine, ”Last Chance Muskies” by Noel Vick 2005
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