Halloween Musky...

Carving. Although I've seen pictures of guys with Jason masks fishing muskies on Halloween day. That would be pretty fun. Instead, I had to settle with this. Had to use toothpicks after I forgot things can't suspend themselves in mid air... oops.

This logo is on my truck's rear window (would make a cool tattoo actually).

Letters were too hard to cut out and after a day of being dried out a bit of the fish collapsed near the head. Valiant effort nonetheless!

It's gotten very cold here and snowed a solid inch yesterday evening/night. I'm wondering if we're going to have early ice this year!

Though not muskie related, this one became a head-turner!

Too Perfect...

This past weekend I noticed the weatherman (no, not Brick Tamland) was calling for Tuesday's high to be near 20C. I called on my trusty sidekick Hedrik to see if he could give me a hand, but unfortunately he was busy. Remembering one of our lab's new undergrads, Travis Raison, is an avid bass angler and has expressed interest to another labmate of mine in going muskie fishing, I shot him an email. He was free yesterday and we agreed to get an early-ish start to maximize our time on the water.

When we arrived at the launch the river was like glass. In hindsight I should have snapped a picture, but I was too stoked to hit the water to have that amount of foresight. If Tuesday morning had been three months earlier I would have rigged nothing but topwaters! Although one should never discount the power of surface presentations, I had a better idea of what might produce for us.

Apparently I was a little cocky because what had worked this past Friday and Saturday produced nothing for us (big surprise, eh?). The system we were fishing doesn't require the mental capacity of a rocket scientist (or a Master's degree for that matter...) and it's merely a matter of staying at the right depth (weed edge) and cover water.

Towards midday I turned to see local angler and Loomis rep Wally Robbins passing by headed toward an area that was going to be my next spot. We finished up our drift and ran down to have a chat. It turns out that Wally was fishing with local outdoor writer Tim Allard. Tim's writings are prominent fixtures in Ontario's largest outdoor magazine, Ontario Out of Doors. He's also just finished a new ice fishing book. I have a copy waiting for me back home in Illinois, but was able to check out a copy from a friend. If this book doesn't get you excited to ice fish then I'm not sure what will. The pictures are superb and capture the essence of ice fishing, from peering into an 8" hole to the thrill of pulling a lunker from the depths on a sunny winters day. Pictures aside, the content is what makes the book. Tim goes in-depth into everything from electronics to how to catch your favorite quarry, be it panfish or trout, and everything in between. Take a look at Tim's book online or see if your local tackle shop has copies or can order them in: Ice Fishing - The Ultimate Guide.

Tim also does photography and snapped a few (quite a few actually) photos while we were out there. Looking forward to seeing them and I'll be sure to post them here.

After parting ways, Travis and I went back to fishing. We casted a rock spot and then returned to fish weedlines. The wind picked up so I had to move the boat across the channel to the opposite side. As I slowly slid my Red October tube back to the boat I had a "Rideau Runt" grab it about 15' away, but the hooks never penetrated. Maybe 10 minutes later as my tube slid forward and then de-accelerated at the end of the rod's sweep (the slide-and-glide), a slightly bigger fish darted up and thumped the lure. This time the hooks found flesh and it wasn't long until the small 30.75" was in the net. The little female had a tummy full of something large and deep bodied, a panfish perhaps. Its blood was easy to get and she was soon on her way. We had one more sniff from some kind of esocid that swirled on a Top Raider at the boat, but aside from that we had barely any action all day. I guess the weather was too nice...

Muskies Gaining Increased Publicity

Have a look: Muskies are 'it'. (For Canadians, I would be surprised if you soon don't see an article on fly fishing muskies with a well known female fly angler).

Maybe a fly rod is on the list of winter purchases this year! (It was last year, but I bailed last minute).

Something's Foul

I fished with John Anderson and Wally Robbins yesterday. It looked like the fish might be active as the first spot produced a boatside strike for Wally from a small muskie as well as a muskie that grabbed my bait for a few seconds before kindly giving it back to me. Our cloud cover dissipated and the action slowed. Soon the wind was roaring and it was evident that we were likely chasing inactive fish. I switched to a glide bait hoping for a reaction strike...

Before I continue I'd like to point out (perhaps state the obvious?) that fish will often strike lures from a variety of angles, speeds, and motions. With muskies, sometimes the fish stalk the lure and carry out a perfectly horizontal strike with a rapid lunge forward. Sometimes muskies will eyeball a deadsticked crankbait or topwater, then slowly and quietly nip the lure. Others will launch themselves completely airborne from a near 90 degree angle to viciously strike a topwater lure. Still others may quickly swipe or roll at a lure.

A swipe or roll strike can sometimes result in foul hooking. The photo below shows a chunky 37" male that rolled beneath a glide bait, missed the lure with its mouth, but whose body made contact with the bait causing the atypical hooking location. This isn't necessarily a rare occurrence as I have seen this happen before with gliders and crankbaits. However, there are a few considerations to make after realizing you've foul hooked a muskie.

I'm not too thrilled with this whole foul-hooking business.

To prevent further damage to the fish, avoid horsing your catch to the boat. These types of battles necessitate light drag settings (I prefer to free-spool all hooked muskies, regardless of hooking location). Also, net the fish as soon as possible even if its head is pointed away from the net which is usually the case with foul hooked muskies. Take extra care to avoid wrenching on the hooks during the de-hooking process. Cut hooks if need be and be sure to remove any cut pieces prior to release.

Good luck out there!

Data x 262,212

With help from two of my labmates, I retrieved and uploaded my data last week. The water was a frigid 13C (55F), but we pulled the receivers quickly and without issue (unlike when they were first deployed and I may have entered the first stages of hypothermia). It took me a couple of days before I got around to actually uploading the data, but when I did I was pleasantly surprised.

The 16 tagged muskies, eight surgically implanted and eight externally attached, gave me 262,212 data points! We have a temperature spread of over 15 degrees, which would be higher but an alarm was activated on one of our thermal loggers preventing temperature data from being recorded above 26.375C (almost 80F). I will likely group the temperatures into extreme high (above 26C), high, medium, low and extreme low (below 10C). I will need to take a closer look at the data before I decide exactly what I'll do, but that's just a thought.

I'm excited to start parsing apart patterns or trends in our data as they relate to activity during the day vs. night vs. crepuscular periods (dawn/dusk) and at different water temperatures. If time allows, perhaps I'll take a look at activity as it relates to lunar phase or barometric pressure; all things anglers have associated with increased catch-per-unit-effort.

We are still going to continue angling and hopefully catch a few more muskies before season's end to boost sample sizes for our physiological data. And, if we can get hold of some, we may sucker fish for muskies as part of a side project attempting to assess the viability of alternative J-hook live-bait rigs.

One For The Memory Books

After a brutal 23 hour cross province drive, with no overnight stops, I finally arrived home from my Lake of the Woods fall trip this morning. The drive itself was spectacular along the northern rim of Lake Superior, but Lake of the Woods in the fall was wonderful. I can only imagine what it will look like in another week or two when the temps start dropping and the colors kick in full tilt. We had unseasonably warm temps which probably hampered just about everything, from wildlife spotting to the fishing.

Over the course of the week our boat put nine fish in the boat up to 43.5". Two came casting and the rest came trolling. Our group's big fish topped out at a thick 47 x 23". Lots of pike were caught up to 38" and a handful of walleyes as well. Fishing the lake at this time of year was completely new to me; I have always fished Lake of the Woods in the summer and trolling is not my forte. I walked away having learned a great deal about how to troll more effectively and discovered new details and idiosyncracies about some of our favorite summer casting spots.

When trolling rocky systems like Lake of the Woods anglers often use long, single-strand steel leaders to reduce line abrasions caused by constantly rubbing rocks. During the angling event, esocids will often roll in themselves up the leader and line as they attempt to throw the hook. When these fish roll onto the steel leaders they material can actually cause tremendous damage to the fish, slicing the flesh as if it were scoured with a chef's knife. I witnessed this first hand last week and was appalled by the damage dealt. The alternative is to use long, heavy duty fluorocarbon leaders which I strongly encourage all to use en lieu of steel leaders, for the fish's sake. Fluorocarbon leaders in 150-200 lb test up to 5' in length are incredibly abrasion resistent, offering many of the same qualities that steel leaders do for the angler. In any case, food for thought for those of you considering whether to use steel or fluoro this fall.

The trip wrapped up in two ways. The first was our visit to a new tackle shop, muskie-focused I think would be fair to say, right on the water in Kenora. The shop is called Figure 8 Baits and run by Ryan Marlowe and his buddies. Great prices, great selection, and the guys have great personalities. A win-win for all involved. You can try out anything in the shop down at the dock below them. They've got a great policy when you try their baits out, one I'd certainly be happy to respect if I were ever that lucky! The second and last thing we did was attend the inaugural meeting of the Northwest Ontario chapter of Muskies Canada. There are some very big names associated with this club and it's an exciting time for MCI as folks like Gord Pyzer, Steve Herbeck, Linda Rice, Jeff Gustafson, Jeff Moreau, and Gord Bastable become involved. I gave a presentation to the chapter covering both research initiatives covered under Project Noble Beast.

Enjoy the pictures below!

What's a trip to Lake of the Woods without a shorelunch? It's making me hungry just looking at it! Thanks, Keith for cooking and Ryan and Sean for providing the fish!