Dontcryformejanhrdina

I'm not entering the derby but I'll be fishing the bay for the 1st time Sat.What time does the rush to launch start? I imagine it's very very early.

I was sure happy we were in that boat when I went fishing with ya lol. Better overkill than to be underpowered. I hope your gaskets come in soon or you might not be able to hit 10,000 walleye this year.

I was in the same situation last year, it's extremely hard to see your father struggle like that and change so quickly. I hope your dad has a full recovery, it's good news that he's talking and wanting to get back to his normal life.

Congrats on the turkey. I see lots of them pretty much every time I go to Bancroft.

I've considered using tail dancers but I wasn't sure how effective they'd be going so slow. Nice to know they'll work, I'll have to give them a try. I was fishing in a small lake too, much easier to find them.

Thanks for all the tips guys! I was able to catch my first 2 lakers a couple of weeks back and I'm going to give it another try Monday. I caught them bouncing bottom in 20-30' of water using leadcore with just spoons, slowly pulling the rod back and forth while trolling. They weren't very big, but it's a start!

Hahaha Well at least there was nobody around to see their stupidity.

I buy most of my gear from Stacy, really nice guy and I'll probably end up putting his kids through college. I wonder why they discontinued that model. I have the winch and the highspeed and I find the winch is great for pulling large bucktails but it can be a little slow at times, it would be nice to have something in between.

Good to know. I take my nieces fishing from time to time (and hope to take my nephews a lot when they're older) and I'd hate to make them throw a good eating sized fish back if they didn't have to. So anyone under 18 can't keep a musky even if it's above the slot size? Interesting, can they even fish for them then?

One thing I've always wondered about kids fishing is how many can they keep? Do they fall under the "conservation" or "sporting" restrictions?

Wow, those are some gorgeous fish! I'd like to get into that kind of fishing. I caught my first 2 lakers on mon-tues so it's a start, but they weren't nearly as large as the one you got lol.

Wow! That is incredible!

I bought a new ram quad cab last Jan (with a 4.7 V8) and it gets the job done quite nicely. Towing my boat (which isn't as heavy as yours) makes a difference in mileage but it isn't a drastic difference, that I've noticed anyway. For $26,000 it's a pretty good deal. Either way you're going to be shelling out a lot of money for gas while towing with these gas prices. Thankfully I live very close to work so I just walk there which gives me more money to tow the boat around.

As a pens fan, pittsburgh has been flat out embarrassing for several different reasons in this year's playoffs.

Haha that's awesome, talk about being in the right place at the right time! I wasn't sure whether it was common for pike to turn on a figure 8. I've had pike hit nearly boatside but that was before I put my rod tip in the water. Most pike I see following turn around and take off immedietly once they get to the boat. I had 1 pike kind of turn on a figure 8 but it wasn't really following it, just nipping at it then stopping, tuirning around to nip again then stop, etc... I actually tried to figure 8 the first pike I saw but as soon as my rod tip touched the water it took off the way it came, that was the only figure 8 I did. The water there is very stained so I didn't want to increase the chances of catching a musky since they can appear almost out of nowhere on figure 8's in water that murky.

My pattern is if I want to catch it, chances are I'm catching something else.

I guess I don't want people to think I'm out there targetting musky. It figures, I catch all of my pike while musky fishing, and I rarely catch musky. When I try to specifically target pike, I catch a musky. Last year I fished Elephant lake almost 10 times trying to catch a musky, never even saw one but I caught lots of 20-25" pike. Then I throw out a little husky jerk on my medium action bass rod hoping to catch a pike on lighter gear, and other than a few small bass I had a musky hit it, peels drag before getting off. Figures lol.

That's one of the main reasons why I use small musky gear instead of bass gear for pike. I tried hard to catch a pike last spring before I bought my musky rod in late June, and I never caught a single pike but the bass were just insanely annoying. I was catching 8" bass on a 5" husky jerk, spinnerbaits only resulted in bass or panfish too. Then I used a 6" depthraider (same lure I used most of Sat) and it resulted in my first 3 pike the first few hours I used it (in the same stretch of river, actually).

It was the Trent River. I don't think there's a shortage of pike in there, they definetely far outnumber the musky as far as I can tell in that stretch.

Congrats Mike!

Saturday I took the boat out to zone 17 to try for some pike, and caught my first fish of 2012: An out of season musky. I had to net it since it had 2 treble hooks stuck in it's mouth, I cut the hooks beside the boat and immedietly put the fish back in the water and it swam off like it was shot out of a gun. Normally I'm extremely excited when I catch a musky, I don't catch them very often so it's still special to me. But I couldn't enjoy catching this one at all and I'm actually feeling a little bad about catching it. I was fishing in a zone where pike is open all year, I had 2 pike follow to boatside that day but they took off as soon as they saw the boat. Every pike I've caught, I have caught on my musky lures so that's what I was using (mainly 6" depthraiders which have gotten me a lot of pike but no musky until now). I've caught out of season fish before but I've never felt bad about it, more annoyed than anything. So I'm wondering why this is actually bothering me a bit. I'm not out there throwing big soft plastics or doing the figure 8, but I am using traditional musky gear, so maybe that's why it's bothering me a little. Should I be out there using musky gear to target pike, even if that's what's been successful for me in the past, or should I be using smaller bass sized lures (I don't want to catch bass or walleye either which would be much more likely than pike). Or should I not be out there at all? I love to fish but I don't want to be catching muskies while they're spawning/out of season.

Grab it by the gill plate and support it's body with your other hand, hold on tight because they are very slippery and will sometimes headshake while you're holding them. Just minimize the time out of the water (unhook, get your camera ready, etc.. while the musky is still in the net in the water). I struggled BIG time when I first got into it last year because it was completely new to me and I didn't know anybody who fished for them. The biggest mistake I made starting out was to fish for them in low numbers waters instead of more populated lakes/rivers. Find a good numbers lake and just keep fishing it. Finding somebody experienced to fish with will help a ton too. I'm not the most experienced guy but if you ever want to try for musky around the quinte area give me a shout. I'm still learning myself but I'd be more than happy to help out somebody new to musky fishing since it's still very fresh in my mind how tough it is starting out by yourself. -Christopher

This is very important. It takes a lot more than being a good fisherman to be a good guide. Nobody wants to fish with a jerk. I've been lucky enough to fish with 2 really good guides (Musky Mike and Stacy Ash) and both guys aren't just knowledgable but upbeat and friendly guys and genuinly want whoever they're fishing with to succeed and have a good day on the water. If you've ever worked in retail you know there are good and bad customers. Some people are real jerks or just have bad days, but most jobs dealing with customers you don't have to see or talk to those people longer than a few minutes. As a guide you could be stuck in the boat with a grade A jerk for the entire day and have to be able to know how to deal with different personalities/situations and put up with their crap/make the best out of it.

Haha don't worry Dan, I've mailed out the paperwork today. Should be in my name before the water opens up and I get a chance to do something stupid. I still have your trailor plate, want me to mail it to you?

Well I imagine they'll find out eventually so I might as well pay it now. Thanks everybody!