Lurking musky

[lowbidder]

I had an interesting day on the water today. The river was the clearest I have ever seen it and quite honestly I thought it was going to be a horrible day. No fish in the net, but I did have a lot of action and came away a bit smarter than when I started.

I lost one beast of a fish (aren't the lost ones always big?) because of a hookset my wife would laugh at, but what was really interesting was what happened after the fish came unhooked. She continued to follow the bait back to the boat although deeper than pre-strike. Once back to the boat, I went into the figure 8 and she just sat there 12 feet below the bait moving back and forth for just over 45 seconds (timed it from the vid). If the water had not been so clear, I would have assumed she took off after shaking me loose and probably wouldn't have even gone into the 8. No, I didn't get her to bite again, but it was still very interesting and gave me some insight into just how strange these fish can be.

An hour before dark, I had another fat 40 class fish come up on a crankbait just as I was going into the figure 8. It took a swipe, missed and then did the same thing as the previous fish... went back to the bottom and swam around watching the bait. The second fish only watched for about 30 seconds before losing interest. Once again, had I not been able to see down so deep, I would've picked up after a few rounds and cast again.

I'm not going to say I'm looking forward to another day of crystal clear water, but it did give me a good opportunity to witness their behavior for an extended period of time. Watching the video has proved very beneficial as well. I was able to really critique my hookset and also my figure 8 technique which really needs some work! (and maybe a 9 footer) :)

[Trauts]

I think if we could see the end of every follow that the amount of time a musky just hangs around and watches the bait is probably far higher than we imagine.

Think of how many times people in the figure 8 get fish rushing out from under the boat for a strike.

It would be very cool to see in clear water like you did...but OOOOOOHHHHH so frustrating...

[Anzomcik]

Few weeks back i faced conditions like you had. Besides learning a ton of what the bottom looks like, i seen so many fish!

Not sure why but of the 5 hits we had none got to see the net, but we seen well over 10 musky. Most of them just cruising.

While the super clear water is fun once in a while, i like to leave the water with a little pride. Knowing how many fish did not care about my offering, it is somthing i would rather not think about.

[Esoxman]

I have a friend who always keeps a large tube bait rigged, and will drop it to the bottom if a fish follows his first bait to the boat and does not commit to the figure 8. He's caught many fish using this tube throw-back method.

[lowbidder]

It's funny you said that... after the second lurking fish, I snapped a "big sexy" onto my backup rod but had no further action.

Anzomcik,
I know what you mean about pride. I threw 3 different baits to a low 30's fish hiding from the current behind a rock in 4' of water several times... just couldn't piss it off I guess!

I know there was another thread about this, but if any of you guys have had success throwing to visible fish, I'd like to hear about it. Did you upsize, downsize, topwater, bang the rocks, put it on her nose, give it a few feet, natural colors, bright colors... all of the above!? Lol.

[Red Childress]

The recent thread which talked about keeping your bait in the water while repositioning the boat or just a random figure-8 every now and then for the hell of it all makes perfect sense for these "lurking" muskies. Tom Gelb wrote a recent article in MHM talking about having a 'figure-8 machine' that never stopped during the course of a fishing day.

Having musky follows that we never see happens all the time and many of us have had fish come from nowhere to plow our baits at boatside.......for me, many of those have been hanging directly under the boat from a previous follow as previously stated. (I have even had walleye pull under the shade of our anchored boat while we 'fed' these fish in as shallow as 6-8 feet of water.....actually watching the fish suck in our crawlers.)

Anyone can go fishing but the guys who pay close attention to details and modify their techniques are the ones who consistently put fish in the net, IMO.
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Mike/Esoxman,

Thanks for posting your observations.........it just gives me more confidence to back up the fact that these fish may seem like they are gone after a follow but in reality, many of them are just holding deeper and are very close to the boat. Stories like these keep me motivated in putting in the extra effort in catching these fish. Wouldn't it be cool to have a 360-degree camera under the boat (thru-hull construction preferably) to observe their behavior during the course of a fishing day??

Jim Bortz told me a story one time that really sums this up......he was fishing with a buddy of his and his buddy had his floating bait in the water at boatside just screwing around moving it back and forth while he smoked a cigarette and as luck/skill would have it, he stuck a 53-54 inch fish with one hand on the rod.

[McDunnoftheAllegheny]

what about mounting a camera on your trolling motor? get the coordination right you could move it to follow any action you have coming in.