MIBowhunter
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2002
- Messages
- 2,089
- Reaction score
- 0
BIG FISH TAKE A BIG BITE: Muskies are feeding on Lake St. Clair, and they're hungry
October 2, 2003
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
It was a very big fish. That was evident from the teeth marks, which ran from the front of a nine-inch Wiley frog muskellunge lure all the way to the back. The gouges had taken the paint down to the bare wood in a couple of places.
"You have to wonder how a fish could take a whole lure with two huge treble hooks into its mouth and not get hooked," Eric Guider said.
Guider dropped the battle-scarred lure into the green water next to the boat to make sure it was still running properly, then let it drop back another 30 feet before clipping it to a planer board line and letting it slide out 75 feet to the starboard side.
"That's OK," he said. "There will be more where that came from. I just want one of them to take the down rod," which pointed downward off the back of the boat. "That's really what I came out here to try."
Guider is the Shimano tackle representative for eastern Michigan, and he brought a handful of new Telora trolling rods for this outing on Lake St. Clair. He was fishing with Bert Cummings, the founder of Bert's Custom Tackle and one of the best-known anglers on the lake. Joining them were Chuck Cauchy of Traverse City and Chris Temple, manager of the Gander Mountain store in Waterford, who sells their products.
Muskie fishing on Lake St. Clair has been good to phenomenal for the past few weeks. Most fish species start feeding heavily with the onset of cold weather, putting on fat that will get them through the lean months when the lakes are covered with ice.
But until the ice and snow cover gets thick, muskellunge will continue to gorge themselves, and the limiting factor in fall fishing isn't the willingness of the muskies to feed but the blustery winds that often keep small boats in port.
Guider's group was fishing out of a marina near Stony Point on the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair, using the new trolling rods.
"They came up with this nine-foot roller guide rod for the saltwater market, but I think it will really work well for Great Lakes fishermen who use wire and lead-core lines," Guider said.
"Wire and lead-core lines started really getting popular again a couple of years ago on Lake Michigan, and pretty soon you'll see more of them on Lake Huron. For some reason, Lake Michigan is always a couple of years ahead. This short-range muskie fishing isn't what it's really designed for, but it's a chance to fight a big fish on it."
The rod is mated to a new Shimano Torium reel, which also was designed for salt water but fits a Great Lakes niche as well. With a 6.2-1 gear ratio, it retrieves 46 inches of line with every turn of the handle. That should make it popular not just for cranking in big fish like muskies and salmon but for the tedious work of retrieving 200 or more yards of lead-core and wire line to change lures.
Ten minutes later there was another hit, but it came on one of the lighter downrigger rods that Guider figures will be popular with walleye anglers. Cauchy played the fish and soon landed a 38-inch muskellunge, a nice fish but nothing special on Lake St. Clair, the world's top fishery for these oversized pike.
Soon the big wire-line rod bucked wildly as a fish took the lure, a Luhr Jensen fingerling in baby bass colors that has been a hot muskie bait. Temple grabbed the rod, and line started peeling off the reel as he said, "Oh, this is a big one. I can really feel some weight on the rod. And I can feel some real big head shakes."
Muskies usually give up quickly because lactic acid builds up in the muscles of the big fish and robs them of the ability to fight. This one apparently hadn't read the books on fish physiology and battled for 15 minutes before sulking up to the transom of the boat.
It was a thick 48-incher that would weigh more than 25 pounds. But Temple didn't waste time weighing it. He got it back in the water so it could live to fight again.
Temple was still grinning with the excitement of his catch a few minutes later when another rod went off and Cauchy found himself battling a fish that jumped 40 yards back and showed it was as big as the previous one.
"I caught one muskie before, years ago," Cauchy said. "It was about 30 inches. I thought it was big at the time, but this is just amazing."
This muskie was a 49-inch fish that would outweigh Temple's by two or three pounds.
After about four hours of fishing, Cummings headed the boat for shore with the score reading five fish boated and released, four fought and lost, and three more strikes Guider called drive-bys -- fish that whacked the bait hard enough to pull the line out of the downrigger clip but were never hooked.
"Not bad for an afternoon," Cummings said. "The last couple of times we were out, we've done even better, but we fished longer."
Joe Belanger, who runs the Up Our Alley charter boat out of Tilbury, Ontario, said the fall season has been one of the best he has seen for muskies.
"We've had double-figure catches just about every time we've gone out," Belanger said. "The other day we went 11-for-14, including this one," a 52-inch fish that would push 35 pounds. The fish was in a freezer, where it was awaiting a trip to the taxidermist.
"Now if the big perch would just show up," Belanger said, "it would be about perfect."
October 2, 2003
BY ERIC SHARP
FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER
It was a very big fish. That was evident from the teeth marks, which ran from the front of a nine-inch Wiley frog muskellunge lure all the way to the back. The gouges had taken the paint down to the bare wood in a couple of places.
"You have to wonder how a fish could take a whole lure with two huge treble hooks into its mouth and not get hooked," Eric Guider said.
Guider dropped the battle-scarred lure into the green water next to the boat to make sure it was still running properly, then let it drop back another 30 feet before clipping it to a planer board line and letting it slide out 75 feet to the starboard side.
"That's OK," he said. "There will be more where that came from. I just want one of them to take the down rod," which pointed downward off the back of the boat. "That's really what I came out here to try."
Guider is the Shimano tackle representative for eastern Michigan, and he brought a handful of new Telora trolling rods for this outing on Lake St. Clair. He was fishing with Bert Cummings, the founder of Bert's Custom Tackle and one of the best-known anglers on the lake. Joining them were Chuck Cauchy of Traverse City and Chris Temple, manager of the Gander Mountain store in Waterford, who sells their products.
Muskie fishing on Lake St. Clair has been good to phenomenal for the past few weeks. Most fish species start feeding heavily with the onset of cold weather, putting on fat that will get them through the lean months when the lakes are covered with ice.
But until the ice and snow cover gets thick, muskellunge will continue to gorge themselves, and the limiting factor in fall fishing isn't the willingness of the muskies to feed but the blustery winds that often keep small boats in port.
Guider's group was fishing out of a marina near Stony Point on the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair, using the new trolling rods.
"They came up with this nine-foot roller guide rod for the saltwater market, but I think it will really work well for Great Lakes fishermen who use wire and lead-core lines," Guider said.
"Wire and lead-core lines started really getting popular again a couple of years ago on Lake Michigan, and pretty soon you'll see more of them on Lake Huron. For some reason, Lake Michigan is always a couple of years ahead. This short-range muskie fishing isn't what it's really designed for, but it's a chance to fight a big fish on it."
The rod is mated to a new Shimano Torium reel, which also was designed for salt water but fits a Great Lakes niche as well. With a 6.2-1 gear ratio, it retrieves 46 inches of line with every turn of the handle. That should make it popular not just for cranking in big fish like muskies and salmon but for the tedious work of retrieving 200 or more yards of lead-core and wire line to change lures.
Ten minutes later there was another hit, but it came on one of the lighter downrigger rods that Guider figures will be popular with walleye anglers. Cauchy played the fish and soon landed a 38-inch muskellunge, a nice fish but nothing special on Lake St. Clair, the world's top fishery for these oversized pike.
Soon the big wire-line rod bucked wildly as a fish took the lure, a Luhr Jensen fingerling in baby bass colors that has been a hot muskie bait. Temple grabbed the rod, and line started peeling off the reel as he said, "Oh, this is a big one. I can really feel some weight on the rod. And I can feel some real big head shakes."
Muskies usually give up quickly because lactic acid builds up in the muscles of the big fish and robs them of the ability to fight. This one apparently hadn't read the books on fish physiology and battled for 15 minutes before sulking up to the transom of the boat.
It was a thick 48-incher that would weigh more than 25 pounds. But Temple didn't waste time weighing it. He got it back in the water so it could live to fight again.
Temple was still grinning with the excitement of his catch a few minutes later when another rod went off and Cauchy found himself battling a fish that jumped 40 yards back and showed it was as big as the previous one.
"I caught one muskie before, years ago," Cauchy said. "It was about 30 inches. I thought it was big at the time, but this is just amazing."
This muskie was a 49-inch fish that would outweigh Temple's by two or three pounds.
After about four hours of fishing, Cummings headed the boat for shore with the score reading five fish boated and released, four fought and lost, and three more strikes Guider called drive-bys -- fish that whacked the bait hard enough to pull the line out of the downrigger clip but were never hooked.
"Not bad for an afternoon," Cummings said. "The last couple of times we were out, we've done even better, but we fished longer."
Joe Belanger, who runs the Up Our Alley charter boat out of Tilbury, Ontario, said the fall season has been one of the best he has seen for muskies.
"We've had double-figure catches just about every time we've gone out," Belanger said. "The other day we went 11-for-14, including this one," a 52-inch fish that would push 35 pounds. The fish was in a freezer, where it was awaiting a trip to the taxidermist.
"Now if the big perch would just show up," Belanger said, "it would be about perfect."
