METRO MUSKY HUNTS - MINNEAPOLIS MUSKIES

Despite a warm September, and first couple of days in October, musky fishing has been outstanding here in the Minneapolis Metro area. Currently, we're getting multiple opportunities each trip to boat fish. It continues to be a great shallow bucktail bite, with a lot of fish holding on the green cabbage beds, on top of structure, or around shallow shoreline breaks. I'll continue to pound the water in these areas, but it won't be long before these fish will start to transition into fall patterns, which means chucking big rubber. Until then, we're still on the bucktail and topwater grind!

Fishing has been hot on my lakes here in the Minneapolis metro area. Water temps are abnormally warm for this time of year, but the fish don't seem to mind, they are still following their typical fall transition patterns. Lots of fish are up shallow right now, and big ones are starting to show themselves with a little more regularity now as they seek out these shallow structures and flats where the bait fish are roaming. This past weekend was a full guide schedule and we were able to get a couple of first ever muskies in the boat, which is my favorite thing about guiding! All my guests fished hard and kept hteir head in the game, and made it count when the opportunities came. It's been a fantastic bucktail and topwater bite, as expected for this time of season. The fish pictured came on a topwater on the very first cast of the morning, tough to beat that!

The musky action has been on fire lately, most outings resulting in multiple fish hitting the net. This stormy morning was no different. The night before we moved a few really nice fish on some great looking shallow cover so hopes were high when we hit the water the next morning, with the incoming storms we knew we had to work fast to get our fish in before we got forced of the lake. The first spot yielded the fist fish of the morning, right as light was starting to peek through the trees. We were on the board and ready to find another one, so we decided to go back on the bigger fish we had follow the previous night. As we pulled into the second spot, a small cabbacge bed on a large shallow sand structure, the wind was blowing over it and we just knew something had to be ready to eat. About five casts into the spot the lead caster in the front gotrocked by something big, all that made it to the boat was a Chaos Tackle Medussa with giant tooth gashes in its side. We were bummed that the fish didn't get hooks, but we were confident that there would be another fish near by. A few short casts later I hooked into a sporty 40 inch fish that took me for a ride with some crazy jumps right next to the boat. With my Tackle Industries 10 foot XH rod absorbing all the headshakes and acrobatic jumps perfectly, I was able to direct the fish right into the net. After cutting hooks, a few cool pics and a successful release, we got back to work. Time for a different spot, this spot is a complex reef system with high spost, points, inside turns and saddles, all in a relatively small area. We saw a 47 - 48 inch musky here the night before and the wind was blowing hard and straight into it just right, making it great comnditions to chase this fish again. We made it almost to the end of this spot without a follow, right when we were about to move spots, the second caster in line had a dandy 45 inch class fish follow to the boat on a bucktail, but she turned and waved goodbye to us just as quickly as she appeared. After a couple more spot changes and approaching storms, we eventually got forced off by lightning strikes. It was a short 2.5 hour morning but we had some action and got two fish landed, so that's a success in my book!

The muskies are going insane right now, it's been a very strong and consistant bite for the last 10 days or so. With incredible conditions, I knew the muskies were going to be on fire on this September morning. This day started with a first light musky eating in the figure 8 on a black bucktail up in sparse weeds off the inside weed edge. I really like how this structure sets up, it's a big underwater point that is pretty wide so there is a lot of room to hold many muskies. It's about 4 feet of water on top and it's pretty bare with sand/gravel and small patches of green cabbage weeds mixed in. On the sides it has a thick weed bed that goes all the way around it, forming a really nice inside and outside weed edge. With most musky anglers fishing the outside edges, I tend to stay right on top and target the inside weed edge and small cabbage patches.

After catching the first musky and working the area pretty thouroughly, we made a move. The second spot is a complex structure that comes off the side of an island. It's a big flat with multiple underwater points, inside turns and high spots. There was some baitfish hanging around the biggest high spot so we first checked around there, but nothing showed up. So I decided to work in towards the island and fish the biggest part of the flat. It didn't take long with a nice low 40 inch musky following in but it just wouldn't commit. We made it a little further and another fish showed up behind a topwater, following it all the way to the boat and finally deciding to eat on the first turn of the figure 8, INCREDIBLE strike and fight boatside and I was able to scoop it up with the big Clam Collosus Musky Net. The Tackle Industries 10 foot XH rod made quick work of this fish, being able to make big turns boatside to trigger the strike, and having a long rod to absorb the furious headshakes. We proceeded to move a couple of other fish throughout the morning, incuding a really clean and pretty 4 footer, and a 45 inch class fish. Unfortunately they didn't commit to our baits.

It's that time of year when the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting cooler. We just went through peak water temps and things are starting to cool down, which means, SHALLOW WATER MUSKIES. Fish will be moving into shallow areas where they are easy to access, and they are willing to bite. And depending on how long the hot water period lasted, some of these fish haven't been pressured for up to 4 or 5 weeks, so they can sometimes be pretty easy to fool. This is my favorite time of year, without a doubt. This 50 inch fish was 1 of 3 caught on this cold front day, they pushed up onto shallow flats just like they were supposed to and they were actively chasing topwater baits. What I look for is a shallow shoreline flat near structure and deeper water, a lot of times the flat close to an inside turn can be a key location. The fish will be in heavy cover, but I like to look for areas that are sandy with less cover, and find smaller weed patches and weed points that the fish can relate to. When muskies are up on shallow flats like this, I prefer cloudy days over sunny days, especially if it is calm. My choice for topwater baits is a Lake X Fat B or Cannon ball Jr. These baits move a ton of water and they are a huge profile, making it an easy target when a musky decides to explode on it. My prefered rod for topwater is a 9' 6" XH telescoping Tackle Industries rod. The 9' 6" is long enough to make big boatside maneuvers, yet it's not too long to where it will jamb you up next to the boat. When it comes to boatside maneuvers, there is no room for error, so make it count.