mostlymuskies

DaveT,Congrats! Nice Catch!

DaveT,Congrats on your first Chautauqua Lake Muskie!Your off to a good start,may many more muskies make to your boat for a short visit!

Yes,I'm still doing Muskie Charters on the Niagara River,Lake Erie ,Chautauqua Lake and St.Lawrence River!Private email me for pricing. Thanks,Capt Larry

Ivan,I'm certainly not one to shy away from talking about the safe handling and equipment needed for muskies.I did not see that I needed to bring it up since you covered most of it in your post.For many years a lot of us also used wire line for catching muskies.The reason was we could get more depth out of lures like Depthraiders and could feel everything from the crankbait to the rod handle,knowing instantly if one hook gets just a very small piece of moss.There is nothing wrong with using wire line as long as one is aware of its weak points.First is a twist in line can mean a kink and instant break off,so the best thing is to have a cone shaped Twili-Tip that will turn in the direction of the twist to straighten line before going through the rod eyes.One must also have a looser drag when using wire line because it does not stretch and can break on bigger fish or snag.Because of the looser drag you will need a stiffer rod for helping set the hook,so the normal downrigger rod is a little to limber.The other problem with wire is when your putting line out you must keep good tension on the reel spool so as to not allow the line on the spool get loose,when a fish gets hooked the wire line can cut into loose wraps on the reel spool,causing back lash and instant break off.In the late part of November a wet spool of wire line will freeze together,so needs to be sprayed down with silicone spray to stop freezing.Hooks need to be lazer sharp,stick into your finger nail with ease.Now with the water temps being closer toward 80 degrees it is important to not play the muskie to total stressed exaustion,bring them to the boat as fast as possible.Once in the net,remove hooks and get the lure out of the way.Now if the fish can't keep upright on its own it is to stressed for an out of water picture at that time.Grab the muskies tail and upright it keeping it's head and gills completely under the water until the fish can stay upright on its own.Then look at the fishes eyes if they have a glossy look do not take the fish out of the water for a picture, take the picture with the fish in the water.If you lift a fish out for a picture have the camera ready ahead of time before taking the fish out for the picture,quick picture of only seconds out of the water.I put the fish back in the net keeping the fish always upright under the water,if you loose control of the fish and it turns on its side,it's not going anywhere because you have it in the net.Just grab the fish by the tail and keep upright and under the water again.The fish will begin to fight your grasp and the little fin on the back top of the fish will start to waver from side to side.Dip the net and let her swim home.On very stressed fish I have placed frozen bottles of water in the net with the fish to cool water down around them and also have used a C-pap hose on my live well airator with the other end putting oxygen into the water near the fishes gills.They come back very fast doing this.I also like to see each new muskie fishermen get the correct information on how to have the correct equipment and how to handle the muskies safely as well.

Down 20 ft out over 33 to 37 ft of water the water temp is 72.3 degrees.Water clarity is only about 3 ft because algae has water turning green up north now too.

Also the water visability up north is getting greener with algae now.Some places you can only see your lure down 3 feet.Surface water was 76.5 degrees,temp down 20 ft was 72.3 degrees and that was were the bait fish were suspended over 30 ft + water.Over 25 to 27 ft water the bait fish were suspended 15 ft down.Weeds were not much of a problem in 30 to 37 ft of water,but closer in to shore the Cutters were working from Irwin Bay to Bell Tower and with a West wind the weeds were bad in 25 to 27 ft water yesterday.I did not go south of Prendergast Point so I have no info to help for those areas.

Pap,shoot me a private email when you decide that you are ready to come and try walleyes on the Eastern part of Lake Erie,I will put you on the correct place to be!

The best boat launch is at Long Point State Park.2nd best is Prendergast NYSDEC Launch in behind the Hatchery.The muskies will be just above the thermicline.The only thermicline I marked were near the deeper holes and it was around 28 ft down.Cloudy covered days the muskies have been suspended in the upper 15 ft over 23 to 27 ft of water.Bluebird high sunny days the muskies have been suspended down 20 to 25 ft over 32 to 37 ft of water.

Today we did a half day from 7 am till 1 pm.It was very slow up north in 33 to 35 ft of water,but we marked many big muskies and tons if bait fish.First two hits were on and off in short time,one bent the rod near the handle so was good size.We did manage only a 32 1/2" & 27" muskies!20 down over 33 to 35 ft of water just past Bell Tower north.

Move over west of Dunkirk to 80 ft off the point.

Today we had one of those days where everything seemed to go wrong.Started trolling around 9:30 am and has one big rip right away,but no hook up.Then we went all day till 3:45 pm and finally hook up to a high 30" fish to only loose it just out of reach of the net.Finally again we had another chance at a fish that looked to be 44 to 45",it did two Tarpon jumps near the boat and crossed over the two lines on the other side of the boat.With the direction of the wind keeping the fish a distance from the boat we atempted to net the fish and the mess of lines,only to loose another fish.Just at dark we did get a 35"er to save the skunk.I don't ever remember having that much trouble with loosing so many fish in one day.At least we had action!

Pap,I guess I should have said myself & my clients on my boat trolling have caught the 67 muskies!

I will be at Chautauqua Lake tomorrow, I will report what works or does not work for us tomorrow night. As Ivan stated muskies are caught on many different trolling & casting programs at Chautauqua Lake.It changes back and forth there are times one program can out produce another.I live and die by my leadcore program have been using it since 1975 and most days it does produce for me.I do best when fish are down 20 to 25 ft suspended over deep water.But then again that is the program I'm use to using and know at all times how deep and how far from the boat my crankbaits are for placement and when to make structure change moves.Ivan and others also have great programs and they also know where their crankbaits are at all times for proper fish catching placement.Some crankbaits work better slow and others work better at faster speeds,I just seem to catch more fish going only 3.7 mph with 5 1/2" Wiley's, 4.5 mph with 5"Tuff Shad and 5 mph with 7" Warner Baits!I have caught & released 67 muskies between Chautauqua & Niagara River over 30" to 51" so far this year using leadcore program.A friend has caught 61 muskies over 30" and 20 muskies under 30" using leadcore at Chautauqua Lake this year so far.

We did 14 walleyes today just NW of Cat over the line in 85 ft,chatter sticks gold & orange off dipsy out 165 at 1.8 mph

We did very good in the same area of 90 ft on Wednseday.Mostly with dipsy on #2 setting out 165 ft with 3-D Thumper blade in black with watermelon tape at 1.9 mph.