Kinzua Hay Days

[Red Childress]

When I first moved to Warren, I met a guy who fished it 2-3 days per week when that "lake" was on fire. Trophy Walleye, Crappie and Muskies being caught on a weekly basis.

Anyway, this guy told me about having his Swim-Whizz bitten in half while trolling the Willow Bay area. The time frame of this occurrence is somewhere around the late-70's or early-80's.

Have any of you ever heard of a wooden or plastic plug being bitten in half by a musky or pike??

I am NOT questioning the guy's integrity at all (rest his soul), just trying to find out if this has happened to any of you or if you have ever heard of this happening.

[Joe M]

I had the junk plastic creek chubs rip in half on me twice. This happened while casting. One I set the hook on a log and the other was a ski. I took them back to Dicks and showed them. The guy in fishing was a musky man and he gave me my $$ back. I have about 6 other ones that I will never use. The screw is barely threaded into the front section. Now my older wooden ones work great..

[muskie24/7]

I saw a show one time where the guys were fishing with muskie lures for Wolf Fish! These things were ripping huge muskie lures to peices. I can remember the mouths on them were so tough that they couldn't get good hook-ups and lost most of them! Looked like alot of fun!

Brian

[toothyfishman]

I missed the HAY DAY living right here, my dad and his stupid bass habit!!!

AAHHH. to know 10-15 years ago what we all know now.

[Ivan]

Never had a plug bitten in half but...
Several years back up at the Kawarthas, I was trolling an 8" jtd Wiley that was struck by what had to have been a muskie. Fish never hooked up, just pulled a couple feet of drag, but I reeled the bait in to check it out. 8" Wileys have 6 ought (used to be Mustad, now VMC, I think) hooks. The back trebble had a hook that had the gap closed enough that the point was touching the shank of the hook, like somebody took a pair of pliers and smashed it flat. I can only guess that the fish had enough bite pressure to smash that hook flat...couldn't think of anything else that could have happened. Pretty hard to believe, but muskies must have some serious biite pressure. I know they have measured the bite pressure of sharks and crocodiles, etc and they are very high. Muskies might be up there too.
Adam A.

[Red Childress]

Speaking of sharks, I have been following the MadFin Shark Tournament series each week. My partner has always told me that when the musky fishing is slow on Chautauqua (mid-late August), go drop an anchor and fish for gills, crappie, perch and white bass in the weed beds. After 30 minutes or so, if you have not seen or had a musky grab your panfish, move to a slightly different location until you begin seeing muskies.......then target the muskies you see with musky tackle.

I thought he was crazy until he showed me back in the mid-90's. The first time we did this, we both had muskies destroy our bluegills as we were bringing them in. One of the muskies absolutely hammered Charlie's bluegill that he was slowly bringing to the boat. It hit so hard, the fish's momentum carried it way above the water line. Right after that happened, he chucked a twitch bait back out and caught the musky.

The correlation between this tactic and the shark fishing tournament is very similar. These guys hang sliced-up fish over the side of the boat while fishing for smaller forage fish in the "shark areas". Sure enough, all the commotion (and blood trail) will bring in the sharks. They switch tackle and begin catching sharks.

This happens to him all the time while he is pan-fishing. As a matter of fact, the largest musky he has ever seen on Chautauqua was when he was reeling in a walleye he caught off a weed bed and the musky smashed it. He got the musky all the way to the boat but he could not get the fish in the net by himself. Finally, the musky just let go and swam off. The walleye was ripped to shreds. He immediately called me to tell me about it.....his voice was cracking so then I knew it was a VERY BIG fish. The walleye measured 17.5 inches and the musky had almost inhaled the entire thing....Charlie said there was no need in even cleaning the walleye because it was ripped up so badly!

Kinda interesting, I thought.