Matt was up and we put in a hard weekend of fishing.
Skegemog 10/20 – Water 54 Weeds laid down and dying.
Been moving my fish consistently the last few times out. I'm convinced it's the same girl, Matt thinks its multiple fish but either way there is one or multiple 50" fish taunting us. Last weekend Matt hooked into her again and failed to convert. This weekend same story, same spot, same time, same bait. She shows up behind the Thunderbeast and we got a good look at the fat belly on her, but this time she just didn't want to eat. We will catch this fish before the season is up.
Tahq. 10/21 – Took the trip up and found a dock that was 2' under water. Water was super turbid, banks were flooded, weedline was hard to find. We found out quickly that it was going to be a tough day. Cruised down from Mcphee and about an hr. in I had a fish eat a 10" hellhound. 41" skinny fish.
About mid-day Matt landed 2 fish in 20 mins on a suick. One was a fat 43" and the other was small. Besides that the day was crappy. Didn't see a single fish. Visibility was <1ft. which was probably the problem there.
We came up with a theory the next day. With horrible visibility and flooded conditions like that should we have been working baits really fast and making a lot of cast to different spots just hoping to get a bait in front of a fish's face? I was in the work slow mentality most of the day, but the more I think about it the opposite seems true…
*video is coming*
In general, you are not going to have as many follows in dirty water than clear water, but the fish will be more in the mood to bite. With the lower visibility, the fish don't have the opportunity to really check out a bait and see what it is. The fish knows something is there as they can feel the vibration on the bait, but can't distinguish if it's real food or a fraud. This leads to them making more mistakes than fish in clear water. I usually like to go fast in clearer water and just go regular speed in dirty water. You guys caught three fish so you had a really good day even if you didn't see any follows. I always ask people, would you rather catch 1 fish and see nothing or catch nothing and have 10-15 follows?
I don't have any experience with river muskies, but I have a lot of experience fishing rivers. In high water conditions, I look for "soft spots". It could be behind wood/rocks/weeds , an inside bend, a drop off, etc. Fish want to get out of the heavy current which includes the bait. In my experience with fishing for large browns, which tend to act more like predator fish as they get big, its not rare to find them in shallow water under high water conditions. The reduced visibility gives them added cover to stalk prey in shallow water.
I'm not sure if river muskies act the same way, but I would definitely hit what I would consider likely holding spots under high water conditions.
"Chris Musselman" said:
Will how do you approach situations with almost no visibility?
This greatly depends on why the reduced visibility is there. If they deal with it all of the time they're going to act differently than if the visibility is temporary.
A couple things:
Make it easy for them to find, this means baits like a spinnerbait with double colorado blades, high side baits like Jakes, dive rise jerkbaits, etc.
The fish should be much more predictable, because of the increased current they're going to seek out more normal flow or current breaks. Also keep in mind that there is always less current near bottom and generally clearer water.
Since I would assume the fish to be in more predictable areas I would fish those areas slower and not try to cover water.
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