Dan N. and Dan M. and I left the dock in the dark on Wednesday morning. We were going to fish for Rainy Lake's muskie's. Often we catch northern pike while trolling for muskies. Water temperatures were about forty eight degrees when we started.
I use large stickbaits, about 48" wire leaders that I make myself. I use one 60 pound leader and one 90 pound leader. At times I have noticed that they hit one or the other more often. It could be the amount of vibration the leader causes or does not cause. The 90 pound version seems to have less vibration.
I started with 14' long stick baits mimicking the whitefish that will be making their spawning runs. I very trolling speeds from 3 - 4.5 mph. We had a couple small pike hit but no big fish the first hour and a half. The pike were hitting the rear treble something I don't like to see, it means the fishes moods are neutral to negative. We were working a break line at about 12-13 feet when Dan M. had a real good hit, a heavy fish. Head shakes were not wide like a muskie, I was hoping but soon saw the dandy pike with a 14" bait cross wise in his mouth. Dan landed him about 38" and 15 lbs.
We continued on down the break and Dan was hit again. I could see the wide side to side head shake that a muskie gives when hooked. The fish created a giant boil about twenty feet behind the boat, ripped drag and then was off. My guess it was a neutral fish hooked on the rear treble.
We continued to fish until noon and no more strikes. I decided to downsize our baits. We switched to eight" long stick baits and fish the first break lines in 10-15 feet of water. Dan. M did not have his bait in for more than three minutes and a 40" muskie crushed his bait. This one hit the bait head on and was hooked solid on the front treble. He got up on top of the water raising real havoc. Dan owned him and he had his first muskie, a forty incher!
We kept trolling now 4 mph. and Dan N. hooked up with a 36" muskie on another 8" bait.
We covered another couple miles of breaklines and Dan M. had another mucky hit. This one dropped down in size, about 32 inches.
I am thinking should we leave or stay? There was another area we wanted to fish during the two days we would be on the water. The weather forecast was tough the next day higher winds that would make fishing big water tougher. We opted to leave and go try the other area. I really did not want to leave we had three muskies in 1 1/2 hours and lost one earlier. More often than not the latter part of the day can be really good. We still left.
We fshed breaks really hard in the other area but just had a couple of seven to eight pound pike. We tried reefs, island saddles all for not. Time was dwindling and we moved to points and breaks leading towards them with lots of broken jagged rock shoreline. We switched back to the 14" baits. Dan M. had a vicious strike, pretty big pike.
The baits went right back in the water and Dan N got hit after fifty feet of trolling, another dandy pike.
Is there a third on on the point? Lines back in and a 100 feet and Dan M. had an eighteen pounder!
It was getting really dark but it is hard to quit when Rainy Lakes predators are in a killing mood. We fished one more point and had actually moved across and were turning when another vicious strike on Dan M. rod happened. It was pretty dark, I could not get a read on the tip action. Is he still on Dan? "I think so and then the pike got mad. We slid her into the net got it unhooked and it tipped the Boga Grip at 21 LBS. What an end to a great day of fishing. We were feeling pretty good about the next day.
Thursday started out with slippery docks, brisk NNW wind and darn cool temperatures. We started off with the same big baits as the day before. I was seeing baithfish on the 10-15 break on my Hummingbird 1197c. Sometimes when you come back on the breaklines the baitfish are gone. Guess why? The big predators have moved in! We were in a neck down area around 9:30 in the mornind. The breaks were stuffed with batfish. As we cleared a small nipple type point the Hummingbird went completely clear except for the defined break. Five seconds later DaN M. says oh my god fish on! I kept the boat in gear making sure the fish was on and the hook well set. You could see the waves of water going side to side as the muskie tried to get rid of the treble hooks. They are funny; fight like no tomorrow than become docile. Its like they think we will them at the boat. Not this time, Dan brought the fish towards the boat out came the Frabil net and a 47" musky was ours. The fish looked like it was carrying twins or triplets it was so fat. Great way to start the day. There are muskies that grow in the deepwater of the main lake basins. They follow the whitefish into the bays and breaklines where the whitefish spawn. I call them silver ghosts. This was one of them. Very silver, defined white belly line, and almost always not a mark on the fish.
We trolled another couple hours and all was calm. We fished more breaks and yours truly Dan M. yelled fish on. Another 40" musky. Sooner or later Dan N. had to kick in, he usually does. We moved down a break that had a good spawning rock pile attached to the shore along with a prominent poit. We only got close when a fish clobbered Dan N. This one was a wild one. He gave it his all but finally came to the net. He thought I will see how bad I can tangle us up! Sometimes it is just easier to cut the hooks off, easier on the fish and myself. The leader was destroyed also. Another silver ghost. Dan and Dan had to be back at the dock by 4:00 PM for commitments Thursday evening and Friday. I looked at the clock and said it may be rough on some parts of our ride back to base should we head back now: it was 3:10 PM. No lets make a new leader and make another pass!
Muskies sometimes travel together or inhabit the same areas at the same time, especially when their favorite prey is congregating together at one spot during the "special time of the year". I made a new leader, replaced the damaged hooks and split rings and we were ready again. We made about a hundred yards when Dan N. end yelled fish on! To make a short story shorter we had another forty inch muskie. Check the picture out and see the coloration difference. The picture below shows subtle lesions above the anus, a split damaged tail and two healing dorsal fin.
