Muskies in 180+ feet – Floating Weeds Fix – Canada Opening Soon?
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Dealing w/ Floating Weeds
Anyone who's ever trolled busy waters with plenty of boating traffic knows that floating weeds can be a real pain in the butt....
Here's 3 quick tips from Bill Schwartz – the head dude at Slammer Tackle – that will help you keep your baits running clean in these conditions:
#1 – "Where I do most of my fishing, I’m allowed 3 lines per angler, but often the 'less is more' approach is better when the floating weeds are really bad. Personally, I would rather run one or two lines and have confidence that the lures/leaders are clean of any weeds vs. running more lines that are likely fouled up with weeds."
Agreed, but best of luck trying to convince musky anglers that the simpler solution is the better solution 😂
#2 – "When choosing a rod holder, pick one that will allow the rod to angle down into the water so the tip of the rod is 2 or 3 feet below the surface. I’ve been using Folbe rod holder and have been happy with them."
The third and final tip is the one you'll find the most fascinating:
#3 – "Choosing the right rod can make a big difference, too. The beauty of having a custom rod built, is you can build them for very specific purposes and techniques.
"I recently had two new trolling rods custom made by Thorne Bros. I really like their F-90M trolling blank. It has a nice soft tip section and plenty of back bone along the mid-section of the blank. The standard blank length for the F-90M blank is 9’ but Thorne Bros will cut it to whatever length you desire. In the past I’ve had them shortened to 7’6” for down-rods and also had them add to the “Butt” section and stretched out to 9’6” for out-rods.
"These latest rods were built specifically to deal with floating weeds. I use them as an in-between down/out rod, and I'm typically running smaller baits on them. I had 2” taken off the tip, and then the butt was cut down so the overall length was 8 feet long. This length spreads the rods out off the side of the boat a bit and still allows the tops to be 2 or 3 feet under the surface."
Now here's the most interesting/unique part of Bill's rod build:
"For the rod that will go on the “Port” side of the boat (left side) I had the eyelet closest to the reel positioned in a normal/straight position, and from there to the rod tip, the rest of the eyelets are slowly rotated clockwise 90 degrees along the rod blank. For the rod that will go on the “Starboard” side of the boat (right side) the eyelets rotate counterclockwise.
"I also had them put on oversized eyelets on to help grab weeds and stop them from sliding off the rod and down to the leader/lure. Both the size and the position of the guides on the rod help collect weeds on the rod instead of the lure."
Here's a closer look at the rods:
"To help with keeping the rods on the correct side of the boat, the “Port” side rod has red colored guides and accent wraps and I have a red reel seat to match. The “Starboard” side rod is done in Green (just like your bow nav light on your boat).
As you can see from the photo, Bill's got color coordinated rod holders, too. His setup is 100% dummy proof 👍
"Lonnie and the crew at Thorne Bros went above and beyond with these rods. I’ve been using them for over a month now, and they've worked great for keeping my lures running clean!"
REALLY cool idea from Bill – might have to order a couple of these before all ya'll read this newsletter 😉
Canada Opening Soon?
Sounds like Americans might get to chase some Canadian (musky) tail sometime within the next month or so:
From the Seattle Times:
"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday Canada could start allowing fully vaccinated Americans into Canada as of mid-August for non-essential travel."
I'm sure there are a TON of people reading this newsletter that are excited to hear there might actually be a light at the end of this crazy long tunnel....
Once things officially open up, the line at the border is gonna be worse than Monday afternoon at the DMV 😂
Also thought this tidbit from the article was worth sharing:
"The U.S. Travel Association estimates that each month the border is closed costs $1.5 billion. Canadian officials say Canada had about 22 million foreign visitors in 2019 — about 15 million of them from the United States."
#ouch
Muskies out DEEP 🤯
Chip Porter forwarded us this photo last week from the crew at Resolute Charters on Lake Michigan straight outta Kenosha:
The 'skie was caught during a salmon trip, running 250 copper line around 55 feet down over 188 feet of water on a Pro King Spoon. Crazy! Doesn't look like a Green Bay fish either....
Chip figured "the fish must have been mesmerized by the endless alewife buffet and followed the food from wherever he came from."
A few days later, Bill Schwartz shared this photo on Facebook from one of his salmon fishin' buddies, also on Lake Michigan:
This one was caught near Milwaukee in 190 feet of water on a spoon runnin' 50ish feet down on copper wire. Pretty darn similar to the fish above!
Makes you wonder how many 'skies sneak out to the middle of the lake to chase deepwater forage on Lake Michigan. 🤔
It's pretty interesting to hear about muskies being caught in these conditions, even though the fish probably didn't survive due to barotrauma. Apparently, this is a very, very rare occurrence for the salmon guys.
"Electric Boats" Coming?
With giant car companies dumping oodles of dollars into electric vehicles (GM recently committed $27B), it seems like electric is the way of the future.
I always figured electric outboards would be somewhat mainstream eventually, but maybe we'll see a viable product sooner than you think. 👀
Introducing the Cyber Boat:
Just kidding!
But in all seriousness, I was reading through a press release from Brunswick Corp (the company that owns Mercury/Lund/Crestliner) when this line caught my eye:
"Mercury and Advanced Systems Group together will launch five electric propulsion products by 2023, with the first one launching in 2022.... Brunswick Boat Group will have launched electric boats in four different segments by 2023."
Things could get interesting here....
QUICK HITTERS:
– Luke Ronnestrand on tuning musky crankbaits (video)
– 5 bite day chasin’ muskies w/ Todays Angler (video)
– Topwater breakdown & tuning w/ Burnin Eights (video)
– River musky fishing w/ Grind All Day (video)
– Not muskies….but really cool footage of smallies spawning (video)
THIS WEEK'S MONSTER MUSKIES:
We're going with the #KeepEmWet theme this week in the big fish section 👍
Let's kick things off with a killer release shot from Pete Maina:
Release photos are always better when the fish is a true mega monster! This beauty from Dan Joseph went 54.25 x 25.5” 🤯 Look at the head on that bruiser!
Lovin' this boatside water release shot from Capt. Chris Van Iten 🤙
Last up, we've got an A+ boatside hold next to one of the coolest boat wraps in the musky fishin' world from Jody Marler at Fishcamp Creative.
Wanna be featured on 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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