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MN Muskie Expo Is Here
The biggest Musky Expo of the year is coming up this weekend, Feb. 27 through March 1. The Minnesota Muskie Expo is being held in conjunction with the Minnesota Anglers Boat Show and with 155 booths this year, it takes the cake as the biggest show of the season.
The musky community has in-person shows all over the place these days, which is awesome. We make it out to many of them, but the Minnesota event is a can’t miss for us here in our home state. It’s a great opportunity to rub shoulders with other musky-obsessed folks you might not have met otherwise.
If you’re planning on making it out, be sure to stop by and say hello. Josh will be hangin’ out at the Musky Insider and Angling Revolution booths, which are right next to each other, when he’s not on the seminar stage.
Speaking of seminars… seems like the lineup is always extra stacked at this event, and this year is no exception. They’ve got 10 seminars lined up with all the bases covered including TV personalities, tournament champs, and an impressive list of A+ guides.
Check out this lineup! 👀👇
Not gonna lie, this seminar lineup brings the heat 🔥 and the topics this year are legit.
A little insider nugget for you… a big chunk of this lineup is made up of Musky Insider PRO instructors. Cochran, Kramer, Gibson, Herbeck, Ronnestrand, Thomas, and Josh will all be on stage throughout the weekend.
If you’ve been inside PRO, you already know the caliber of info these guys bring. If not, this is a great chance to see them live and in person.
Don’t miss this. 👀 👉 There’s a new location for this year’s show. It will be held at Canterbury Park Expo Center in Shakopee, MN
In addition to the stacked seminar lineup, the expo features musky retailers, resorts, tackle manufacturers, guides, factory reps, boats, graphite replicas, a Kids Zone, and more. You can find all show info here. It’s a can’t miss event.
If you live out east in the Pennsylvania area of the musky range, the Muskie Maxx show is also happening this weekend at Thiel College in Greenville, PA.
Can Fish Hear Sonar?
At least that’s what the science says… Forward-facing sonar gets most of the heat these days. But this question applies to all of it.
2D sonar.
Side imaging.
Down imaging.
Forward-facing sonar.
Can muskies actually detect any of it?
Recently, a detailed argument made in a Facebook post suggested fish cannot detect sonar because most fish cannot hear ultrasonic frequencies.
If you’re an Insider PRO member, this isn’t new. We’ve covered it with Insider PRO instructor and fisheries biologist Dr. Sean Landsman in one of our sessions.
And if we’re strictly talkin’ about hearing the advertised sonar frequency as a tone, the science seems pretty clear.
Most fish, including muskies, hear best at low frequencies. Generally under 2 to 3 kHz. Traditional 2D sonar commonly runs at 50 to 200 kHz. Side imaging and forward-facing sonar often operate between roughly 400 and 1100 kHz.
That’s not even close.
So if the question is, “Can muskies hear 800 kHz the way you hear someone clapping?” the answer is almost certainly no.
That part appears solid.
But here’s where things get interesting.
Hearing range and behavioral detection are not the same question. Most of the research being cited focuses on auditory thresholds. Pure tones. Controlled conditions. Lab measurements.
It does not directly test whether muskies behaviorally respond to a running sonar system mounted on a boat in real-world fishing situations.
And sonar systems are not just one clean frequency.
When a transducer fires, it produces pulsed signals. That pulsing creates envelope patterns, mechanical vibration, and potentially structure-borne noise through the trolling motor shaft or hull.
The “tap tap” humans hear when a sonar unit is running is not 200 kHz. It is almost certainly pulse repetition and mechanical vibration. Those frequencies can fall in the tens or hundreds of Hz. That is well within detection ranges for many fish.
Fish detect not only sound pressure but also particle motion.
Very close to a sound source, the water movement field can get funky. Particle motion can be stronger in the near field. The lateral line system is especially sensitive to low-frequency particle motion.
That does not suddenly turn muskies into ultrasonic detectors.
But it does mean the story is more nuanced than “they can’t hear it, case closed.”
Now let’s bring this back to what anglers are actually seeing.
Some muskie guides who historically logged hundreds of close-range follows per season and routinely caught 20 to 50 fish per year in the figure-eight right next to the boat have reported dramatic declines in boatside follows since adopting forward-facing sonar full time.
In some cases, figure-eight catches have gone from dozens per season to almost none.
That’s not a tiny shift. That’s a big behavioral swing.
Is that proof sonar is being detected?
Not exactly.
Could confirmation bias play a role?
Yup.
Could anglers be fishing differently when staring at a screen?
Very possible.
Could increased efficiency and fishing pressure be shifting behavior through associative learning?
Also very plausible.
Fish behavior is complex. Genetics matter. Environment matters. Fishing pressure matters. There may even be bold and shy personality types within a single population.
When we reached out to a couple fisheries biologists about this topic, their response was clear.
This is an exceedingly complex issue involving physics, underwater acoustics, fish physiology and behavior. Much of the discussion remains speculative on both sides.
Science rarely gives airtight answers. It builds toward the most likely explanation based on available evidence.
Right now, the evidence strongly supports that muskies cannot hear ultrasonic carrier frequencies.
What it does not conclusively answer is whether muskies might detect secondary cues associated with sonar operation under specific conditions.
Those are different questions.
And the bigger issue might not even be whether fish detect sonar beams at all.
It might be whether increased efficiency and fishing pressure enabled by modern sonar is altering fish behavior more broadly.
At that point, the conversation shifts from acoustics to fisheries management. And that means actual field research.
📸 Credit: Kamden Glade
The jury is still out. There are studies underway looking at sonar and fish behavior in some systems. But technology evolves quickly. Fisheries science moves slower.
In the meantime, a little humility goes a long way.
Anglers should be cautious about declaring, “Fish definitely feel sonar.”
Scientists should be cautious about declaring, “Fish cannot detect it, case closed.” Both perspectives bring value. Both require openness.
And if there’s one thing everyone reading this hopefully agrees on, it’s this:
The resource comes first.
If sonar truly has no meaningful behavioral impact beyond efficiency, that’s important to understand.
If something more nuanced is happening, that’s even more important to understand.
Either way, this topic deserves serious study and hopefully clearer answers down the road.
Maina Tips from Insider PRO
We covered a lot of ground with Pete Maina during our Insider PRO Live Q&A last week. Two themes kept surfacing:
1. The fish will tell you everything.
2. Most anglers do not play with their retrieves enough on tough days.
Let’s start with the part that actually matters most.
The Fish Tell You If You Did It Right
While many anglers are focused on measurements and the perfect photo when they bag a ‘skie, Pete is focused on one thing . . . the swim-off.
If that fish does not leave upright and strong under its own power, something needs to change with what you did beforehand.
A lot of anglers run the exact same routine with every fish. But if that routine always includes out-of-the-water measurements and photo sessions, there will be situations where that simply does not make sense.
Pete hammered home the idea of cumulative stress. It is not one thing that hurts fish. It is the stack.
✅ Warm water temps
✅ Long fight time
✅ Multiple hooks or deep hook placement
✅ Head pinned high in the net bag
✅ Extra time out of the water
✅ Big rollers pounding the fish while you organize
It all adds up. The more of the above factors that c0me into play, the more you need to speed things up and consider skipping out-of-the-water photos and measurements.
Josh added something important here too. There is a key moment right before you remove the fish from the water where you need to pause and assess.
How long did everything take? How many stress factors were involved? Is the fish already showing signs of stress?
That’s a key moment in the process that gets overlooked by a lot of anglers, and it can completely change the outcome for that fish.
A couple other things Pete emphasized:
1. If you are dealing with big waves, that fish is not resting in the net. Everything needs to move faster.
2. If water temps are climbing, cut steps out. Skip the bump board. Take one quick shot or go water-release only. If it’s warm but still fishable, consider going barbless to speed up hook removal.
If you are doing everything carefully and fish are still leaving weak, Pete’s stance is simple.
That might be your sign to stop fishing.
Playin’ With Retrieves
When we asked Pete what he leans into on a tough day of slingin’, he was all about mixing up retrieves with baits.
Go painfully slow. Rip it. Extend pauses. Let sinking baits fall longer. Let floating baits rise longer.
He shared an example from a Quebec trip where fish would not touch a jerkbait worked on a normal cadence. Zero action.
But if he extended the pause and let that bait slowly float up backwards about a foot or more, they would hammer it.
Same bait. Different timing. Completely different result. And it stayed repeatable for days.
Those are the kinds of idiosyncrasies you never find unless you deliberately test extremes and truly tinker with your baits and retrieves.
Most anglers change spots before they change retrieves enough.
Small Differences Matter
Pete also touched on the idiosyncrasies of the baits themselves.
Two identical trolling baits can run side by side and fish will repeatedly choose one. Why?
Sometimes it is a subtle action difference. Sometimes it is a slightly different sound signature. Sometimes it is a tiny hardware variation that changes the kick.
The point was not to overthink every lure in your box. It was this . . . when you find “the one,” do not assume its twin behaves the same. And if you can figure out why, sometimes you can modify baits to duplicate it.
That converstation sent us down a rabbit hole on how some of Pete's lure mods came to be, including weighting 10 inch Jakes with cooking oil.
We barely scratched the surface.
We also got into vertically triggering fish, trolling with a mast vs planers in waves, low-density fisheries, night feeding differences between strains, and more.
If you’re a PRO member and missed it, the full replay is inside the member portal.
If you are not a PRO member yet, we’re keepin’ enrollment open through the Minnesota Muskie Expo. With Mike Lazarus coming up next month, this is a great time to get in.
This Week's Mashup:
Mashup time!
#1 – “This is what ‘Just one more lure…’ actually looks like.” Found this gem on the Aqua Beasts insta page. Pretty sure we all know that guy… and if you don’t, it might be you. 🙄
#2 – “Calm. Locked in. Zeroed on the fly. Then it crushed it right in the turn.” Couldn’t have scripted it better than Keystone Anglers Guide Service. 🎯
#3 – If you like your glide baits on the soft side, the Berkley Chop Block blends soft-plastic feel with a wide, sweeping glide. Ezoko has it in 3 sizes and 8 colors to match whatever mood the lake’s in.
#4 – When wood meets water. Paul Huebner sent in this cool musky carving by Rick Karcz of Mooseyard Carvings. We love how he used the character of the original wood to tell a story frozen in time.
– 2026 PMTT Deadline for Early Bird Drawing is March 1st (link)
– When MUSKIES GO CRAZY!! (NEW Bait Produces) (video) w/ Sportsman’s Journal TV
– Fall Time Warm UP - (video) w/ Mayhem’s 10,000 Casts
– Becoming a Musky Angler: Chase Gibson - Leech Lake (video) w/ Net Buddy
– Spring Tributary Muskies (video) w/ Keyes Outdoors Musky Hunting Adventures
– 5 Fish DAY!! June Musky Fishing!! (video) w/ Todays Angler
This Week's Monster Muskies:
Ryan Smits scored on this Pink Day beauty while fishing with Ben Beattie. Another one for the Pink Day highlight reel! 🎥
Jim Anger punched his new PB ticket on a September Pink Day last year, stickin’ this beauty on a crankbait over open water.
Check out the paint job of this PB tiger by Musky John. 👀
Eric Nygaard stuck this torpedo on a Mepp’s Musky Marabou.
Wanna be featured in Musky Insider? Send in your recent trophy musky photos by replying to this email. You might just see your pic in next week's newsletter. 🤙
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