Fall Turnover Lures – Neat Fisheries Info – DIY Tackle Box
Be the FIRST to see Musky Insider every week by signing up for the email version of this newsletter. It's 100% free and we will never sell your email address! Click here to sign up and never miss another issue.
Best October Turnover Baits
Some good info from the Back Lash Podcast "Fall Guide Panel" (Matt Seifert, Todd Schulz and Brad Hoppe) talkin' go-to baits for the fall turnover.
(If you're a turnover rookie, here's a full explanation + some turnover 'skie spots)
Here's their favorite baits for fishin' the flip:
Matt – "I'm going to go with gliders. Any jerkbaits really, but it seems like gliders get the nod because they are bigger and slower. I use the Beaver at turnover a lot, too.
"I also like super-slow-rolling 10/9 combos, and I'll even add extra weight to the front hook if the fish are deeper. The Heli Dawg can be great, too, fished slowly on a straight retrieve."
Brad – "If I have a glider that is almost like a count-down, I want it to sink. I want it to get deeper. Back in the day, I would grab a handful of Musky Buster Appealers. I would take them into the bathroom, pull the lid off the back of the toilet and drop them all in there and see which one sunk the fastest. That's the one I'd buy.
😂
"Another thing I've started doing this time of year is straight-cranking a Bull Dawg or a Mag Dawg very slowly. The reason why you're fishing it slowly is because you want to get the bait deeper.
"The other presentation I like is blades, whether it's a Double Cowgirl or a Super Model, same deal: slow movement so the bait gets down deeper."
Todd – "The first thing I'd go to is a JR4 or JR3 slow-rolled. The third bait might sound a little off-the-wall, but it's a Shallow Swimmin' Dawg that I fish with a pull-sink cadence. Let it drop, then flutter down. Sometimes I'll even add weight to the bait – I just prefer the presentation of the Shallow Swimmin' Dawg to the deeper running versions."
Matt and Todd use bell sinkers to weight their baits, but Brad mentioned he liked using the Stealth Tackle weighted leaders or the Chaos Deep Threat weights in certain situations.
(We shared some good info on choosing the right weights for the Stealth leaders in a previous writeup.)
Hopefully some of you will find that info useful. Best of luck this fall!
DIY Lure Storage
Musky anglers are a creative/resourceful/obsessive group. For every mass produced musky lure, there's probably 5 custom designs made in someone's garage.
Same deal for lure storage. There are lots of great boxes made by companies like Just Encase, Lakewood, Reck-N-Rack and some of the big box store brands.... but there's also an unlimited # of DIY tackle boxes in boats/garages/trucks all across the musky belt.
Here's a cool one from Colten Davidson:
Very clean design. You can add a cover to make it somewhat rainproof + you can stack 'em up nice and easy if you make a bunch of them for all your baits.
If you have any cool DIY storage designs, reply to this email and show 'em off. We'd love to share your ideas here in the newsletter 👍
Some Cool Science Deets
If you're a sucker for fisheries science, you'll probably enjoy this recent Echo Press writeup, featuring DNR fisheries specialist Nick Rydell out in western MN.
Most articles are light on the details, but this one was loaded with interesting info on a musky population study happenin' right now.
Here's a few tidbits that stuck out to us:
Why netting hasn't worked for estimating musky numbers in a lake:
"A total of 15 of the nets were placed in muskie waters that extended 100 feet from shore over the course of 10 days. Those nets were checked every day. Based on how many fish were caught, the DNR used a metric called catch-per-effort (CPE) that often fluctuated dramatically.
"What ends up happening is they might come up in the shallows and a cold front or storm front comes in and pushes those fish back out (based on) weather patterns in the spring. Our CPE metric would be anywhere from .08 muskies per trap net up to .68. Some years it would be half or double what it was four years before."
Well, that's not gonna work....
Instead of netting, they now utilize electrofishing to get a more accurate population estimate, but of course they can't shock EVERY fish, so they need to use some fancy formulas to get an estimate.
How they calculate musky numbers via electrofishing:
"We captured 169 unique fish and examined all of those fish to see, do they have a tag from 2019 or not? Then based on how many we tagged the first year to a proportion of fish tagged the next year, it’s more complicated than that, but we can determine roughly how many muskies are in the lake. That’s where we came up with that 757 number, but there’s some error to that. It’s give or take a couple hundred fish on each side of that."
One thing we love about science and sampling is seeing the size distribution in different lakes.
Here's the % of trophy-sized fish in their sample:
"In the past, that trophy number of 50 inches or greater on this lake has varied anywhere from 1% to about 5%. A 50-inch muskie is still a rare muskie no matter where you go. Right now, we’re sitting at about 8% of the adult population is 50 inches or greater. That’s a pretty high percentage."
Rydell also mentioned that muskies in this system could potentially grow to 50 inches in just 11 to 12 years. 💪
"We have male muskies that we’ve sampled just in this study that were up to 48 inches, which is ridiculous. That is not typical."
Anytime we talk about science, I think it's important that we continue to spread the REAL information that continues to support muskies NOT hurting other sport fish species – here's more confirmation:
"When we compare muskies to northern pike, to largemouth bass and to walleyes in this sample lake, there is very little overlap. Muskies are not consuming the same prey at the same sizes that other species are."
Muskies are even keeping the hammer-handle pike at bay on lakes all across the state of MN. #BonusPoints
"Clear water and vegetation benefits pike, not walleyes. Walleyes like more turbid water. We’ve seen an increasing trend throughout the entire state for northern pike other than in our muskie waters. So our muskie waters, northern pike numbers actually have remained stable, and it’s likely because they are consuming pike and keeping them in check."
We've said it a million times, but muskies aren't eating tons of walleye or negatively impacting their populations. It has a LOT more to do with environmental issues (higher water clarity, etc.) and more advanced fishing pressure. 🤷♂️
This Week's Mashup:
Mashup time!
#1 – Sweet beauty shot of a Michigander musky in the net from @intothewildflyfishing 🔥
#2 – Excellent underwater footage of Llungen's .22 Short SS, which is a killer downsized musky crankin' option with a squarebill lip (clip via Musky Shop)
#3 – Something a little different.... Check out this framed velvet musky Tony T. picked up at a flee market a couple years ago:
#4 – An update from Musky Hunter on their new app and why it's going away.
There’s lots of commentary about this on social media, so I don’t think we need to touch on it, but we thought it was worth sharing so folks know.
The musky industry right now....
QUICK HITTERS:
– Walkoviak/Rix win Muskie Shootout (link)
– Full moon musky fishing w/ Todays Angler (video)
– Gregg Thomas speaking at Brainerd Muskies Inc, Oct. 11th (link)
– Nice last-light musky w/ Cast & Conquer (video)
– Patterning big fall muskies w/ Gord Pyzer (link)
– Lakemaster has new map chips (link)
THIS WEEK'S MONSTER MUSKIES:
Feast your eyes on this absolutely massive 55.5 inch monster from Nolan Koepp out on Green Bay:
Really nice nighttime musky that hit the net in a video from DC Bronzies #porker
Nice north-of-the-border 'skie from Erik Jacobson during a big blow from the east. He nicknamed the big gal "Apple Cheeks" 🍎
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. 🤙
Want to see more from Musky Insider? Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram for bonus content throughout the week!
Send all business inquiries to josh@muskyinsider.com