smithy97

Hey all - had the pleasure of fishing Sturgeon Lake last week. Fished 4 days solo, 2 days with a buddy. My total was 7 muskies, with the 2 biggest being 40'' and 41'' taken solo. My friend caught a beauty 44'' and two at 31''. The other 5 I got ranged from 29''-36''. On Saturday my friend and I represented team Canada in the annual Can-Am tournament started by the great Hank Jr. Team Canada lost by a few inches and had to provide lunch for Hank and his son. It was a great day, with great fun being had by all. Double 10 bucktails were the hot lure for me, followed by medussa's. Maybe next year Team Canada will be the victors! The highlight of my week was a 3-muskie day, with a 29'' being caught at 2:30, a 36'' being caught at 6:45 and a 40" being caught on the first cast after releasing the 36''! Not huge fish but it sure was a blast! I'll get some pictures up once I remember how to do it lol..

That was a great tourney! Mike and I will carry Team Canada next year hopefully! Loved fishing Sturgeon, and it was a pleasure to finally meet the muskie legend Hank Jr!

This sounds like a good plan

Since I only got into Senko's this year I can respond about how to best store them over winter. Hopefully someone can chime in on that. I keep mine in the package in an plano box that has no dividers in it. I know some guys put them in ziplock bags. Not sure if they need to be sealed up that good or not. In the last month I had great success on wacky style, both weightless and weighted. For weighted I use an 1/8oz vmc wacky jig head. Works awesome when the fish are down below 10 feet. For you guys and gals fishing with high vis line - do you use that setup for only fishing senko's? I'd like to have a reel with high vis line for that but would also like to use the same rod for topwater baits too. Any thoughts on tying a mono leader (maybe 16'' long) to high vis line and throwing topwater baits?

It was great! Wasn't sure what to think after getting lots of different opinions on it, so I decided to just give er' and try it for myself. Caught 2 nice keepers (1.5lbs or so) and put the fillets in a beer/egg mixture, then into garlic and butter fish crisp. Fried in vegetable oil over the coleman stove and ate them up with my cousin on our campsite. Memorable meal for sure. I remember some folks on here mentioning to stay away from the belly meat, and I can see why now. I tried a bit of it didn't care for it. The fillets were fantastic, no grubs to be found. I'll be eating more of them in future for sure!

For weightless wacky I'm using a gamakatsu 2/0 weedless, for weightless texas rig I use 5/0 offset straight worm or wide gap hooks. These work great with 5'' yamamoto senkos

Beauty fish! Musky fishing is my absolute favourite. Can't get enough. My PB is 41" from Pigeon Lake. This is my first full season of fishing for them. After I get a bit more experienced I plan on getting to the Wolseley Bay area of the French to try and catch the fish of a lifetime. I know its tough going on the French so a huge congrats to you!

This is all great info everyone. I bought an o-ring tool yesterday and will be trying it out next week on Lovesick Lake for some largemouth. Haven't fished there before. I know there's lots of weeds and cover, so if the frog/topwater bite is off I'll be pitching wacky and weedless senkos in the junk and hopefully pulling out some big ones!

Cabelas has their gore-tex guidewear series of bibs and coats on sale right now. Look like they are worth the money

Dunkirk was great - it might not be what most people expect from a war movie, but I thought it was very real and well made. Anything with Tom Hardy is worth watching. Other than that I've found 2017 to be a dry year as far as good movies go.

adempsey - I had planned on using 12lb fluro or copolymer, but would consider braid to. I'd be mostly throwing weightless wacky and weightless texas rigged. If x-fast is best for those than that's what I'll get. What's the advantage to braid for those setups? ohiofisherman - yup colour does make a difference, I use the june bug and the baby bass colours, and if neither of those work it's watermelon that does the trick. Easy to get caught up in thinking that you need to own every colour out there. Once I found my confidence colours there's no turning back

Haha no kidding! Thankfully I can keep it to 2-3 colours that just work without making my brain explode!

I've been looking at the mojo lineup - lots of options that could work. I'm not sure whether to go with an x-fast or fast action. I think it will be a 6'8'' length for pitching short and accurate casts, just not sure on which action would be better. Any suggestions would be great.

We keep pike from 24"-30" and they are great to eat. They are fun to catch and eat for sure. I know some people don't like catching pike but I enjoy targeting them here and there.

I just started fishing senko's a lot more and have seen a lot of success. I'm using Yamamoto 5'' in purple and in baby bass colour. I've been mostly throwing them wacky style. I'm using a spinning setup and would like to switch to a baitcast setup. I prefer to use baitcasters over spinning gear, and I'm more accurate with baitcasters. Any suggestions on what length or power of rod to use? Longer, shorter, fast or moderate? Also how do you like to fish senkos (wacky, weightless texas rig, etc)?

I'm liking the sound of this Canuck - thanks!

Canuck - that sounds amazing, thanks!

Will do!

Great info on getting the lmb onto ice right away. I know the water temps are up high where we're going, and we'll be in shallower water for sure. We'll be catching and going straight to cooking I'm thinking. Don't think there's any cows on this island lol....hoping to land some nice crappies as well, and trying those for the first time. Again thanks for everyone's help and suggestions, much appreciated!!

Wow lots of great feed back here! There are no pike where I'm going, but there are tons of lmb and crappies. I've never fished for crappie but I would sure try, and we'd try eating some for sure. There are walleyes there to but they are out in deeper water, and we are canoeing in to an island. Lots of shallow water around and looks like a ton of lmb spots. I think we'll try to cook some lmb in the 1.5lb range as a few people here suggest. I'll remove the mud line as well. I guess it all comes down to the personal experience you've had and what your own taste buds tell you. We'll give it a try (and hopefully survive to tell the story haha!) I will look more into crappie fishing since I've never targeted them before. Between a few nice crappies and a couple 1.5lb bass we should stay nicely fed. Thanks for the help everyone! Feel free to keep any feedback coming.

Lol grimsbylander haha! Seems like a mixed bag of thoughts of this one, I think I'll give it a try to see for myself. The deepfried method suggested by chris.brock sounds worth a try to me. Thanks for everybody's feedback!

Just curious who keeps the odd largemouth for a meal. I've never done it, but I'm curious to try. Are smallmouth better tasting? I'm going on a camping trip soon where there's lots of largemouth to be had, and if they are good eating I'd love to try them. Any recommendations for cooking the fillets over an open fire?

Would rather live nowhere else eh!

Yup I screwed through the walls of the canoe with deck screws, dipping them in silicone first. Was hesitant to screw through the walls but it's worked out fine.

At least with 80lb braid when I backlash (oh I mean, professional over-run..lol ) the lure doesn't snap off the line. Yup those rocks have cost me a few bucks...even with these "superlines" we fish nowadays. Thank goodness that BWB floated! I'd have been tempted to go for a swim