Great Lakes/Niagara River Musky Season

[mostlymuskies]

The boat traffic has been so heavy with the hot weather that there are more floating weeds then I have seen in sometime.We tried trolling from 8:30 pm to 1:00 am and spent most of the night reeling in to clean off weeds,no hits,Zippo!

[mostlymuskies]

I'm still fishing Lake Erie for walleye,but reports coming my way have some mid 40" muskies still being caught at night,in west river!

[mostlymuskies]

The regulars that have been fishing at night have still been catching muskies and it is starting to even pick up with a little more action with the water temp dropping 5 degrees to 72 degrees.I will be back out on the Niagara River tomorrow night now that the water temp has dropped back down to where catching & releasing muskies will be successful.

[slapshot]

Looking to fish for musky for the first time ever in lake erie or the river.  Can anyone offer some info as to where a good starting point would be or 2 and what types of baits to use?  Thanks

 

We have fished for big pike in canada, so we have some top water bait, diving baits, bull dawgs, spinner baits and buck tails.

 

Tony

[Missdemeanor]

 Muskie Candies Night stalker......   The night stalker will not be denied!!!

[mostlymuskies]

Slapshot,The best muskie fishing has been at night.We are mostly trolling 13 to 14 ft edges coming off waters of 20 ft or deeper.Depthraiders,Hi-Fin Trophy Divers,Legend Perchbaits,Believers,Muskie Candies and 5 1/2" Wiley's trolled slow up stream or cross stream angle never going over 3 mph down stream or 2 mph up stream.

You could drift and twitch crankbaits as well or toss top waters at creek mouths.

[mostlymuskies]

A muskie charter with me and you could learn the spots to be in quick time!

[muskiedreams]

Fished the east Niagara River with Toothy yesterday from 9:30 am til dark. My first time on the river this year. Water temp. was 68 and went down to 67 later. I got a nice 44" tiger about 10:30 am. Was coming up to 13' from 20' near the southern most marina on Grand Island pulling a niagara walleye junior perchbait. No more action the rest of the day. Arms are sore from fighting weeds which were a big factor. Will post pics later.

Edited September 24, 2015 by muskiedreams

[mostlymuskies]

Steve,Did you get Toothy to spring for the Ontario Fishing License yet? Best fishing is infront of a Marina is at the one most SW on Grand Island,but your in Canadian waters 10 ft off the Marina!

[rougarou]

nice raffle win steve

[muskiedreams]

Here is one photo. there is a chunk missing from it's tail. The only way I have been able to post photos is to add to media on this forum. I know there must be a better way to post photos. Can someone explain to me how?

 

[Ivan]

Congrats on your fish. The pic you attached is very small. I'll have to try get a better look from my desktop when I get to work.

Do you have a smart phone with the pictures on it, and do you use the LOU app? If so, it's very simple and more or less self explanatory...you just attach a photo using the photo icon when you are posting.

If you are using a laptop or desktop, you probably need to use on online photo storage system like photobucket, and copy and paste the image url into your post here.

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[mostlymuskies]

Steve,Where the tail section was missing on your nice tiger,was it an open sore like rot or was it healed over?Just curious if it was the same tail rot disease like I seen on a couple Chautauqua muskies 3 or 4 years ago.

[pro-fish-n-c]

I see them like that occassionally . I always thought it was from a previous injury where the tail fin got split in the net and didn't heal properly.

[muskiedreams]

I didn't notice it until Jim mentioned it and I looked at the photo. Wish I had gotten a closer look in person. If I zoom and adjust brightness and contrast, it just looks like there is a V shape chopped out and it looks like it happened a long time ago.

[JOE ESOX]

I had to log in on my work PC to get a better look at the pic, but i would agree that it looks like the tail was messed up in a net at one point and just healed funky.. but hey what the heck do i know.    Beauty of a fish though!

[mostlymuskies]

Pro-fish-n-c,I have seen parts and all of the tail section that looked like it rotted right off on Chautauqua Lake Muskies 3 to 4 years ago,caught three that were like that.

[Ivan]

Like this

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Ivan]

Or the dorsal fin on this one.

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[JOE ESOX]

Yep- looks like fin rot to me.  could be from being in a net earlier in their lives or from any other number of factors (spawing behaviour maybe).  i am a fish nerd and used to have mulitple huge fish tanks with large predator fish. i have seen this a few times during the healing process after injuries due to fighting or whatnot.   sucks if human inflicted but at least catch and release is working...

Edited September 25, 2015 by JOE ESOX

[mostlymuskies]

Out of 76 muskies this year so far I have not seen any fin rot on any fish from Chautauqua Lake that were caught by clients on my boat.

[pro-fish-n-c]

Is fin rot a form of red spot or dermal sarcoma like pike get?

[JOE ESOX]

Fin rot is a general term used to describe a bacterial infection in the fins.  could be fungal also..  i dunno, just what it looks like to me.     i have never seen it on a muskie, but i am not puttin up the #'s like capt larry or some of these other guys.

[Bluefin54]

Great looking tiger! congrats!

[BlueEye]

Nice fish Steve - thanks for sharing.  Looks like you put that new raffle table lure to good use pretty quickly