Question

[Mark D. Platt]

I take a fall fishing trip the second weekend of October. The lake is deep (130ft) and clear. The main forage is Ciscoe. For years, we have fished for Pike on this trip. We started to fish musky the last year. We have had some success 6 fish around 30 inches and a much nicer fish at 35 inches. The spot we typically fish is where two river mouths empty into the lake. There is a deep water basin adjacent to this bay.

I feel like we are doing many things right, but are slightly off when it comes to location on the lake. After reading many threads on this site and having spent much more time trying to become a better musky fisherman, I am beginning to believe that we need to move out from the shoreline and fish in deeper water 20-35 ft and fish the upper part of the water column.

Any advice on how to fish a clear, deep lake in early-mid October would be welcome.

[Will Schultz]

Mid-October on the type of water you described screams trolling to me for big fish. I would run the breaks in 18-35 keeping baits higher in darker conditions and scrubbing the break in bright conditions.

You want to cast? Fish at night.

[hemichemi]

Have you read Buck Perry's book? It seems to be helping me... which some think is impossible.

http://www.buckperry.com/product_info.p ... ts_id=1232



Executive Summary: Work the weedlines/breaklines, and especially look for places where shallow points and bars have close access to deep water.

[Larry Porter]

I would call this time period the prime time period for working the hard-bottom edges with deep water access (doesn't necessarily have to be super deep). I would be trying to find the cisco spawning areas, which are not always apparent from map-looking. You have to do some fishing or find some bodies on your electronics. The Minnesota lake with which I am most familiar finds most of the Esox (northerns and muskies) bailing out of their normal areas for a 10-day period in early to mid-October and ganging up on a fairly nondescript run that drops from 5 feet to 20 or 25 feet with a scant weedine of Chara and a cabbage stalk or two. It is near a large bulrush field covering many acres which leads out the lake outlet. You could fish this spot all year and it would be a fair spot (not bad but not good). But in those 10 days, it is pretty wild. Also these fish will follow straight-retrieved baits as a rule and strike the jerks and gliders. They must be keyed in a darting movement of the ciscoes.
But that is just my take. I would use Will's advice first because he has a gift that I do not have.
If your lake is farther north in the shield waters, that would put it into a cooler water period which would be a better trolling time.

[Mark D. Platt]

I appreciate all of the input! Thank you.

[Hamilton Reef]

Mark, You should have stopped by Fisherman's Landing last week when the spoonpluggers had their annual week interstate Muskegon Lake outing. I talked a while with John Bales (Indiana) and he has no trouble catching muskie. They can also give you tips on Mona Lake in your back yard. They got a Mona walleye over 9-lbs last week. Bob Kingsley notes they do troll very fast on the breaks and over the deep water structures.