All About Fall Muskie Fishing

Saltwater fishing is full of mythical beasts. Books and movies portray man’s battles against the leviathans. Jaws. The Old Man and the Sea. In North American freshwater, that beast is the muskellunge, just called a muskie by most.

Nothing compares to this monster, not even the largest northern pike. Anyone can catch a northern pike. Not everyone is cut out to be a muskie angler.

Known as the Fish of 10,000 Casts, the muskie has achieved an almost mythical status among those who chase them. Image by Kristine Fischer

THE FISH of 10,000 CASTS

Growing up, my family vacationed at Chautauqua Lake, a western New York beauty where water skiers and bass fishermen share the waters in a perfect setting. The old guard, though, were a different breed, haggard and worn from a nighttime obsession. They weren’t at Chautauqua for fun. They were there for muskies.

The bait shop featured Polaroid photos of gigantic fish with lengths recorded on the margins. Many fish exceeded 50 inches. One was 60. The muskie hunters would stagger out into the daylight like vampires, shielding their eyes on their way home to bed.

Once I convinced my father to take me muskie fishing, I was immediately greeted by the sport’s oldest proverb. “A muskie,” he said “comes every 10,000 casts.” I counted as high as I could remember, but never reached 100.

I’m not sure who discovered the mathematical equation that a muskie requires a month’s worth of fishing to catch. If that were really the case, the vast majority of anglers would quit before catching one, turning back to walleye or, yep, Northern pike. Still, muskies definitely don’t come easy. In a week’s worth of fishing on a good lake, a knowledgeable angler might see a handful of fish.

Muskies don’t come easy and a week of hard fishing might produce only a few good follows. Image by Kimberly Boyles

OUT OF THE SHADOWS

Seeing fish is part of the game when muskie fishing, as many don’t commit to eating a lure and instead follow it to the boat. Followers are like witnessing something from another dimension. An orb on a haunted graveyard tour. Often, you wonder what you really saw.

Sometimes a follower will come in and commit. Big fish do this; as the lake’s apex predator, their fear of boats, people, or just about anything is lost. It’s like the scene right out of Jaws, when we first glimpse the true size of the shark as he breaches near the back of the boat.

Veteran anglers will confirm the fact that some muskies seem to use the boat itself as an ambush point. Lakes busy with traffic likely produce ambush zones for these fearless predators as smaller fish get tossed around. Other times, it’s docks and moored vessels that allow them to capture prey. Muskies aren’t afraid of you in your boat.

Big muskies are smart, though, if a fish can be intelligent. They size up your offering. Most feed during periods when we’re not on the lake, anyway.

UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS

As I alluded to earlier, a contingent of muskie hunters fish exclusively after dark, especially in summer. Big stickbaits occupy the top shelf of the tackle box. Fishing these lures is tough work that requires physical manipulation of the lure on a heavy rod.

Topwaters will catch their share of muskies any time of day, but nighttime is understandably most productive. Everything from whirling chopper baits to baby duck imitators can work. Just tying on a baby duck lure is exciting.

In my youth, most anglers still fished live baits. Magnum suckers, some as long as 18 inches, sat in the concrete bait tanks waiting their turn. Chautauqua’s muskie men would take to the lake at dusk, rowing aluminum boats into the sunset. They’d set their baits out back rigged on heavy lines with steel leaders. My gosh, a fish that required steel to catch. Freshwater’s monster.

Live bait fishing lost much of its appeal as anglers began releasing more fish, and rightfully so. Muskies regularly swallow live baits, and successfully extracting giant hooks from the fish’s gullet is a coin-toss, at best. Back in the day, big muskies went home to the smoker.

Fewer anglers fish at night these days, as refined techniques up the odds during daylight hours. Thinner braided lines help. Expensive glide baits tease fish into biting. Still, around Chautauqua Lake and elsewhere, archaic black Suicks still hang form the windshields of local boats. Most are full of tooth marks, the paint needing another touch up from a Sharpie.

FALL FISHING

For muskies, October is where it’s at—unless you fish in November. While duck hunting on Lake St. Clair, I’d watch in wonder as muskie anglers continued into December, often breaking ice at the boat ramp. The lake would be shrouded in fog, with 40-degree water holding back air temps in the teens. Rod guides instantly froze. But the men kept casting.

Dedicated muskie chasers often fish deep into the fall, sometimes busting ice to launch their boats. Image by Aaron J Hill

“The worse the weather, the better the fishing.” This adage is superseded only by the 10,000 cast nonsense. But I can attest that this one seems true. Once I was old enough to pursue muskies on my own, many of my best days were those when I should have been duck hunting. Photos of big fish show companions wearing stocking hats and gloves.

Muskies are a fish of the North, accustomed to the seasons. They feed heavily through the fall. As weeds begin to die and water temperatures compress their food sources, muskies move in and take advantage of the situation. Wind puts the odds more in their favor. River mouths, acting like buffer zones for open-water baitfish, concentrate the predators. It’s the mullet run of freshwater.

This migration is apparent with all apex predators, from giant walleyes crowding the piers to great whites swimming across the ocean. When the going gets good, the biggest, baddest fish show up.

Presentations turn more vertical in the late fall, as jigging baits have filled a needed niche with anglers burning both ends of the seasonal candle. A lot of credit for this can be given to Jon Body, a Canadian guide on St. Clair who discovered how to catch muskies straight up and down, creating a whole new category of lures.

Traditional casters will still catch their share. Erratic baits and slow retrieves result in gaping jaws and visual strikes. Even more fish come boat-side to think about it.

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THE SWING

Cooler water brings prolonged attempts at the figure-eight maneuver. I’m not sure who stumbled upon the fact that muskies will bite a lure with 6 feet of line out, but I wish he’d fallen overboard (but safely gotten back to the boat, of course). The figure-eight occupies the best and worst of muskie fishing.

Working your bait in a figure-eight motion can trigger explosive strikes right at the boat. Image by St. Croix Rods

Some anglers figure-eight after every cast, just in case. Try keeping that up at cast number 9,000. Other anglers do a “light eight,” a short little loop and glance, just in case.

As soon as you give up on “The Swing” you’ll spot a giant fish below the boat while lifting out your lure. But make no mistake, once it’s gone, it’s gone. You and the muskie both know it. But when things go right, especially in the fall, a muskie can be seen tracking the bait, and seduced with the figure-eight. What happens next is anyone’s guess.

Again, taking a scene from Jaws, you’ve got her hooked and tied off to the cleat. We all remember what happened next. Nothing can prepare an angler for the reaction of a 30-pound fish hooked on massive trebles an arms-length from the boat. On two occasions, I had a muskie hooked on a figure-eight when my line wrapped around my rod tip. Both times the rod instantly broke.

On another occasion a friend hooked a monster on a figure-eight with a big bucktail. Five seconds later, the musky was gone, and the 3/0 treble was embedded in my buddy’s scalp. Crazy things happen on The Swing. That’s part of muskie fishing.

Muskellunge. You won’t hear many people use that word anymore. You may still see it painted on the side of an old row boat in New York. Even by more common names, though, these magnificent fish haven’t lost any of their mystique. Now is the best time to battle the coolest fish in freshwater.

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