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Northern Pike / Muskie

eiowaarcher

eiowaarcher

Member
My buddy and I are trying to plan a week this summer to go Pike and Muskie fishing. We were thinking of trying to go on a Do-It-Yourself trip to Minnesota or Wisconsin. We might hire a guide for a day or half day but mostly on our own. We have each caught a decent amount of northern but never a Muskie. Does anybody have any advice or preferences on lakes, time(night/day, beg/mid/end of summer), tactics, or just advice in general. We have never done a trip like this before so we are "going in blind". Any help would be great. Thanks.
 
I go up to Lake Winnibigoshish in northern Minnesota twice each summer. One trip is over memorial day weekend and the other is the first week in August. The memorial day trip we seem to not catch much for northerns. The first week in august however, we almost exclusively fish northern. We fish a chub about six feet under a slip bobber. We use a 1 oz weight with a 12" steel leader with the hook through the mouth of the chub. We try to find the submerged weed beds and drift across them. We will troll with crank baits on occasion as well, although it doesn't work as well in the weeds. Some of the people in our group will throw spoons and plugs with some success. Some of my best days fishing I've caught 4 pike over 30". I've never tried fishing muskies there, or anywhere for that matter. I think there are a fair amount in lake Winnie, but if what I hear is true, they are caught more earlier in the summer. I can give you a recommendation on where to stay, where to fish, etc if you'd like.
 
AAAAGHHH pike,... 2nd in my heart after whitetails. I cannot wait for May Long Weekend, my annual boat 100's of northerns with 50% of them being over 36" trip. PB is 48". I can't give any tips unless you want to travel to Keeley Lake, Sask,...other than take bandaids.
 
Anywhere in that area in August for muskie & big Northerns... Winnie, Leech, even Little Boy Lake. Lots of gudes to get you started, but after that it is just patience and a strong casting arm.... Good luck... Bring lots of bug spray that time of year. The deer flies are a PIA!!!!
 
I would recommend going to the U.P. in Iron County. A group of 4 of us went up there with 2 boats the beginning of June for a week. We stayed in a cabin on Chicaugon Lake, which has a good population of big muskies, smallmouth, and pike. There are about 20 other lakes within 15 minutes of Chicaugon as well, so we fished a different lake every day. Lake Emily was right down the road and is only about 300 acres, we had it all to ourselves for the whole day and boated 10 muskies one day and went back another day for a few hours and caught 7 or 8 more. We went up there to smallmouth fish mostly, and the smallmouth fishing is world class in a few of the lakes.
 
I go every year to Leech Lake in MN and last year we caught a TON of walleye- muskie and Pike- was a blast!
 
firsttimebowhunter said:
I go every year to Leech Lake in MN and last year we caught a TON of walleye- muskie and Pike- was a blast!
Click to expand...

What time of year do you go? What's the caliber of Muskie and Pike?
 
we go over labor day weekend and stay at Spirit of the North so end of Aug/first of Sept

largest muskie we caught was 44" and the pike varied from 18" to 40"

very inexpensive as well- I would look up spirit of the north and they have amazing deals that includes the boats
 
Check out the Mn stocking reports over the years for musky. Pick a lake that has been heavily stock over those years. Pay attention to the acreage so you can figure a fish per acre ratio. This is the best place to start giving you a better chance for more encounters. Start small like 300-1500 acre lakes with traditional structure. This makes it easier to eliminate certain parts of that lake. Good luck.

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Leech Lake, Cass Lake (that area)

Great pike fishing, can be good musky

Boy, Woman and Roosevelt are some other good lakes in that area
 
Got back from woman lake yesterday after a week of fishing. Caught a few northerns in the 30 inch range and walleyes at night. Also caught some rock bass and large mouths. Other than that great weather just slow fishing.
 
Gundog- glad to hear you had a great time at leech lake- what did you catch and what tactics if you don't mind me asking? last year it seemed all the fish we caught were trolling- but we didn't try any night fishing- do you?
 
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