Sight fishing cruising musky

[wgmiller]

I made it out to Lake Marburg this morning for a few hours and was fortunate enough to sight fish to some cruising musky. They were tiger musky (>30") and appeared to be "making rounds" in a cove on the northern portion of the lake in clear water. I saw one fish three separate times, then the last sighting was two fish, paired up cruising. I must admit that my heart was pumping so hard on the first sighting that I had a tough time casting :-D Things got better on subsequent sightings though. On all occasions, the fish had little to no interest in my offerings. Could have been a lot of different factors.

So I go to thinking, will "cruising" musky feed? I know some other species will not when they're in this mode. I do also know that we're dealing with musky here, so in all reality, they make the "rules" and eating is on their terms.

This looks like a good time to stalk the "toothies" from the shoreline!

 

[Fishidiot]

Seeing paired muskies cruising shorelines is common this time of year and is likely a function of spawning instinct (even the sterile, hybrid tigers do it).

There's a school of thought that such cruising fish won't strike. Ditto with the often seen summer muskies that appear to just be lolly-gagging on the surface with their backs above the water line. However, many serious muskie guys regard fish in both situations to be catchable. Heck, if you see a muskie, cast to him! If they follow, by all means stick with 'em.

Yep - they're muskies so, as you said, they make the rules.

 

[PACOFRANSICO]

If there purebred and paired I do the ethical thing and not cast to them. But I've done well sight fishing for cruising fish. My two cents throw a intermediate line. Make your cast intercept the Muskies path. When it hits leave it sink if the fish sink outta sight with your fly he's game to at least follow. If he does this give your fly acouple hard strips with some long pauses.

The other method I use is cast your fly long and and hand over hand it as fast as you can retrieve right past his nose. Some time it's all it takes is to invade there space. These fish don't have hands so to investigate warn or bully they use there mouths. Try to put that fish into a situation were the pressure is on them to eat or not. Wether it's burning your fly or keep your fly swimming in front of them.

Also fishing the margins of the day. Last hour of daylight and first hour of dark is THE time!

 

[wgmiller]

Great feedback! They were tigers; had they been purebred, I certainly wouldn't have hassled them. The side barring was very pronounced and the water was clear. There's no joy in being an unethical angler when it comes to harassing spawning/paired up fish of any species.

I was actually fishing an intermediate line (and getting a little frustrated that I wasn't getting down fast enough). I gotta say that trying to keep it together when sight fishing for these fish is a real challenge. While I didn't have a follow or strike, I consider any day that I see a musky a successful day on the water! I've had so many outings "blind fishing" and not seeing anything that just observing is exciting in its own way.

I'll have to give the "margins" a shot now that I know where they are. It removes a bit of the sight game from it, but with any luck, a violent strike will make that a moot point!

 

[CPRASAP]

I'm with Fishidiot on this one. If I see a Musky, I cast to them. Half of the challenge is locating a fish, so if I see one, I'm gonna at least give it a try. From what I've seen, the fish that I believed were in spawn mode wanted nothing to do with the fly. Its not like they were protecting a bed like a bass might do, so a couple of casts and then I move on.

The "cruisers" come in a few different varieties that I've seen. You can definitely get some of them to eat. My favorites are the ones that actually have their snouts breaking the surface and just cruising along. I have a few experiences where I found myself chasing some of these fish all over the water trying to get them to bite, in the early Fall especially. Like wgmiller said, it can certainly get the blood going.