After fishing for muskies 14 years, a "first" happened to me yesterday on Murray. I was jigging a 7" fuzzy duzzit, 13" leader. Felt the fish hit near the bottom of the downward trajectory. As I started the hookset, without yet a whole lot of pressure, bite off occurred.
Other then a longer leader, how do I protect that from happening again? Hope the fish was able to get rid of the lure. Thanks
Charlie
Bummer! I have no experience with that and muskies, as i never seem to hook muskies any more… but while jigging for bass or walleye, in areas of pike infestation, I have noticed a marked difference if I stay in contact with the bait all the way down. I tend to get more pike hooked in the nose that way. A little slack always seems to be a bite off.
That said, I can't honestly say there's any way to prevent the inevitable. If a muskie eats a falling bait while going up, it can get a lot of leader in it's mouth in a hurry!
If you never had much pressure to drive hooks home I am guessing the fish tossed the bait fairly easily.
I had 3 bite offs in one season 2 years ago (twice in the same week in Canada). In my case it was fish head hunting aggressively and getting braid in their mouth on the attack.
All 3 times they shook the bait and it floated to the surface. 2 carried it aways, 1 shook it free boatside while I watched.
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