Musky - everything else is just bait.

[imwjl]

I was entertained to learn there was a local Musky tournament and even dedicated fly shop. Decades ago my pals and I pursued fly rod musky fishing and many thought we were nuts but were quite successful. What many don't know is they're also river fish and they really are the top freshwater predator for our continent. Once about 3 ft long they don't have much fear and will dominate if pike or smallmouth are around.

One of the most entertaining ways to catch one is fly fishing a trout stream that drains into a musky river or lake, or fishing a larger stream or river as you would for trout and smallmouth or steelhead and get a musky in an eddy. It's quite something to watch one suck in a bird or rodent swimming as a trout does an insect.

30 years ago we met an old timer in the north known to have fly fished for musky and he was our inspiration to have the first known drift boat in the state and tie our streamer fly we call the badger. I never expected there would be a dedicated businesses when we did our nutty first attempts.

By nutty, we've winched my drift boat into little canyons or got where no one but canoes go and had to cut strainers or lift the drift boat over rocks and beaver dams. I don't think my old man self could do much of that anymore.

Record muskies highlight tournament, but return to Madison unclear

Two fish longer than 50 inches were caught in the two-day tournament, but more sponsors are needed for the Professional Musky Tournament Trail to make Madison a permanent stop.

madison.com

 

[elihu]

And here I thought this thread was in reference to the Do You Wear Cologne thread…

 

[BigDaddyLH]

Don't they use those for bait to catch sturgeon?

 

[uriah1]

Nice on fly

The fish of 1000 casts

 

[schmee]

Always wanted to go Muskie fishing since I was a kid reading those fishing mags!

Sturgeon came to mind for me also! My Grandad, RIP, used to take me Steelhead fishing in the dead of winter. We'd use big skeins of salmon eggs treated with Borax. He'd talk about a certain huge sturgeon that was 14+ feet which hung around a spot nearby in the river that all the old timers had a name for.
This was the 50's.

I got spoiled when I went sailing though.

 

[imwjl]

Don't they use those for bait to catch sturgeon?

No. Sometimes they bite sturgeon and humans.

Fly fishing for them taught me how they look a lot like pike but are not. They are boss fish even if a really big pike mama is near. Pike will rather stupidly take a bait and also shy away from a human when a musky will follow a bait, nudge it and stare back at you from close range.

They will bump a human and show attitude but most bites that do damage are understood to be mistaking a foot or arm over a boat or pier for a wounded fish or bird. They will attack a large meal first from the side and then swallow it.

One of the coolest visuals I've had was one gulp a water bird kind of like a toilet flush on water surface.

Nice on fly

The fish of 1000 casts

Yes and no. After we learned what we were doing and what works we had days of a good river drift landing 10+ of various sizes but also days when we've been exhausted from all the casting and on the oars.

I stopped guiding 20+ years ago. It was no fun to have someone in the boat who didn't know the work and skills and to dilute what to me was so special. Also, it was difficult to get to the very special places and we didn't want the world to know them.

Fly fishing for musky on more remote rivers or river sections has a sadomasochistic aspect not unlike earning your own powder turns skiing.

 

[Stubee]

Man, they caught some nice ones in that tournament!

 

[Twofingerlou]

Very nice!!

 

[brookdalebill]

I caught a couple of huge Northern Pikes, in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.
What’s the difference between Muskies and Northern Pikes?

 

[imwjl]

I caught a couple of huge Northern Pikes, in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory.
What’s the difference between Muskies and Northern Pikes?

I recall musky have more of the pores under their jaws like you see with northern and those sense vibration or motion. It might also be if populations of both are healthy in an area, the musky are bigger. Musky color seems to vary more.

That stuff I linked is not me BTW but the one caught locally in S WI where water is not as dark or brown from tannin is a lighter colored fish. The most beautiful to me are darker with more brilliance in the color. I've only seen them like that in N. WI rivers and streams. It seems a lot like but different colors the way smallmouth bass colors vary.

 

[Knows3Chords]

Caught a few northern pike in Michigan in years past. Hardest fish to filet I've ever seen. Those little bones are like needles. Me and a friend were in a canoe at Green Lake Mi. just screwing around with a bluegill as bait and a two footer pike grabbed the line. We were both laughing so hard trying to get that thing in that we flipped the canoe over (we had a few beers in us too). All I could think about is that mad pike was somewhere around my feet as he was going to take a bite of me.

 

[Bucster752]

Yeah? Bring those sorry little excuses for fish down here to the Gulf and we'll see who's the bait.

 

[Bellacaster]

The bass player in a band I play in told me a story about him fishing out of a canoe in northern MI with his wife and very young son where he hooked a musky. He reels it up next to the canoe after a long fight and it was so huge that his son started freaking out, so his wife insisted that he cut the line. He's still bitter about not being able to land it.

 

[Joebanjocolo]

I was entertained to learn there was a local Musky tournament and even dedicated fly shop. Decades ago my pals and I pursued fly rod musky fishing and many thought we were nuts but were quite successful. What many don't know is they're also river fish and they really are the top freshwater predator for our continent. Once about 3 ft long they don't have much fear and will dominate if pike or smallmouth are around.

One of the most entertaining ways to catch one is fly fishing a trout stream that drains into a musky river or lake, or fishing a larger stream or river as you would for trout and smallmouth or steelhead and get a musky in an eddy. It's quite something to watch one suck in a bird or rodent swimming as a trout does an insect.

30 years ago we met an old timer in the north known to have fly fished for musky and he was our inspiration to have the first known drift boat in the state and tie our streamer fly we call the badger. I never expected there would be a dedicated businesses when we did our nutty first attempts.

By nutty, we've winched my drift boat into little canyons or got where no one but canoes go and had to cut strainers or lift the drift boat over rocks and beaver dams. I don't think my old man self could do much of that anymore.

Record muskies highlight tournament, but return to Madison unclear

Two fish longer than 50 inches were caught in the two-day tournament, but more sponsors are needed for the Professional Musky Tournament Trail to make Madison a permanent stop.

madison.com

Great story! Really cool pic!

 

[Greg70]

I was entertained to learn there was a local Musky tournament and even dedicated fly shop. Decades ago my pals and I pursued fly rod musky fishing and many thought we were nuts but were quite successful. What many don't know is they're also river fish and they really are the top freshwater predator for our continent. Once about 3 ft long they don't have much fear and will dominate if pike or smallmouth are around.

I'd like to see one take on a big fat alligator gar.

 

[imwjl]

I'd like to see one take on a big fat alligator gar.

That would be interesting. Though a big predator, alligator gar are reclusive. There doesn't seem to be stories of them attacking people as is with musky but I think many of those are exaggerated. They bite body parts they mistake for wounded fish or birds, but they will give scuba divers a bump. Like their barracuda cousins, musky will act on showing themselves as boss fish opposed to gar being reclusive.

As similar as they are to northern pike, when they do strike it really is a strike opposed to the way pike do a lot of chasing and biting musky don't always do. The differences are subtle but there. If a musky is not really hungry they will bump or follow a fly or lure when a pike will seem to still just bite.

I've had the understanding musky dominate where they've been stocked in more southern waters but also gar can live in poorer water quality.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I've never heard of musky before, I've been fishing about as long as I've been playing the guitar so it's great to learn something new.

They look very similar to Northern Pike which here in the UK are just known as Pike (Esox Lucius).
I've caught pike on the fly before using big rainbow lures or even trad salmon patterns, with a wire trace on an intermediate line, they're great sport but I've never caught anything more than about 10lbs on the fly. My record is 17lbs as a teen in the middle of winter on the local canal using herring fillets.
Tiddlers compared to that monster in the OP.

Here a common rod size for fly fishing for pike would be a standard trout reservoir rod, a number 7 or 8 (ATFM sizes).

What size of fly rod are you using the catch musky @imwjl?
It looks like they'd be fun to play on a double hander salmon rod or even the switch rod I use for sea trout.

 

[BigDaddyLH]

I've never heard of musky before, I've been fishing about as long as I've been playing the guitar so it's great to learn something new.

Not surprising, this is a North American word. Musky is short for muskellunge:

The name "muskellunge" originates from the Ojibwe words maashkinoozhe (meaning "great fish"), mji-gnoozhe, maskinoše, or mashkinonge, meaning "bad pike", "big pike", or "ugly pike[2]" respectively. The Algonquin word maskinunga, which is borrowed into the Canadian French words masquinongé or maskinongé. In English, before settling on the common name "muskellunge", there have been at least 94 common names[3] applied to this species, including but not limited to: muskelunge, muscallonge, muskallonge, milliganong, maskinonge, maskalonge, mascalonge, maskalung, muskinunge and masquenongez.[4]

It is indeed in the pike family.

 

[Knows3Chords]

Well, are they good eatin'?

 

[BigDaddyLH]

Well, are they good eatin'?

I prefer squirrel.