New Baits to Look For – Cool Dyin' Dawg Tips – Advice for Guide Trips
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.
Dyin' Dawg Tips
The Dyin' Dawg is a lure that's found it's way into the arsenal of many hardcore musky anglers over the past few years.
It's action is quite unique and folks have found different ways to use it.
We recently had Chad Harmon on to talk with our Musky Insider PRO members, and we briefly discussed the Dyin' Dawg, specifically how Chad likes to work the bait and his weighting strategy.
Here's a quick tidbit from the members-only chat:
"There are very specific times of year when I use bigger baits where I fish in Ohio, and one of those big baits is the Dyin' Dawg (13 inches).
"I never run them without weight, to be honest with you. I don't care if I'm fishing in one foot of water or 30 feet. I will always have at least a 1/2 oz weight on there, but I like to run a 1.5 ounce weight on the front hook hanger in most situations."
Chad has a buddy who pours weight for him that are similar to the Chaos Tackle Deep Threat Weights.
"The weight gets the nose to dive downward. The line tie is on the top of the nose, so when you give the bait a hard slack line *POP*, it pushes a ton of water instead of swimming through the water."
Chad has found that modifying the bait to have it push more water has been key to getting more musky strikes.
Our chat with Chad was jam-packed with great info, and that tip was just a couple minutes from a longer two hour discussion on many topics. We're excited to have Luke Ronnestrand on next later this month!
Baits to Eye 👀 at the Show
The Chicago Muskie Expo is next weekend....
There's ALWAYS a ton of cool stuff to see at the musky shows every year, but here's a few baits we know musky-heads will be lookin' for on Friday at 2pm 😂
First up, we have the Quad Dawg. There's been a LOT of chatter and social media discussions on this bait. It's gonna be a red-hot item at the Expo.
Here's one of the show colors "Wisconsin Walleye":
ngling Revolution has a couple new sizes in "The One" bucktail.
From left to right, they have "The Big One" which has a standard thickness #10 blade and a #10 hex blade (3.6 oz). Then there's "The Big Heavy One" which has heavier components and a double thick (0.04) #9 Hex blade paired with a standard thickness #10 blade (4.4 oz). Both baits have double skirts, along with front and rear 7/0 treble hooks.
Chaos Tackle has some new baits and custom colors this year, but we 100% needed to feature this extra-sexy custom color "Gold Digger" 👀 👀 👀
Another bait that's will get some attention this year.... check out Mayhem's new Monster Grenade. The bucktail is 17 inches long and weighs 6.9 ounces (nice).
It's built on .062 stainless steel wire and has five skirts, two #10 blades, and two 7/0 treble hooks. It's a BIG bait!
It's pretty easy to tell if you follow MuskyFrenzy's social media accounts that their new IC7 bucktail put some big muskies in the net this year. They'll be a popular item at the show next weekend 🔥
There's a new beaver in town!
Brian's releasing a brand new Baby Lake Edition Beaver this year. It has a two ounce head and a fall-rate of two feet per second.
Here's a look at it underwater:
That ☝️ is gonna catch some big 'skies!
One of the bigger "attractions" of the musky shows is the plethora of custom colors that companies trot out specifically to get folks to their booths.
Maybe we'll highlight a bunch of cool custom show colors in the future, but for now here's one from Llungen called "Payroll" that will get some serious traction with the southern reservoir and stained flowage musky chasers:
Btw, if you need any more info on the Chicago Muskie Expo, click this link 👈
DIY Bait Storage
Running outta wall space to hang your musky lures?
Check out this slick DIY system from TC Jack:
In theory, using a "cabinet" system like this could double the amount of storage space you have on the wall.
I could also envision having a bunch of these in the garage/basement, labeled for different bait categories:
This would be the PERFECT project to keep you busy during this week's nasty cold spell. But only if you have a heated garage! 😅
This Week's Mashup:
Mashup time!
#1 – Looks like Barbarian Braid is jumping into the musky rod market. Last week, they announced the "Barbarian Braid Spear Musky Trolling Rod".
The only place we can find 'em for sale online is over at Ezoko. We obviously haven't seen them in person yet, but they look sharp:
#2 – Whether you're a guide or the guided, there's some great advice in this discussion with the Musky Factory crew about getting the most from a guided musky trip:
#3 – Not gonna lie, this wouldn't be the craziest thing we've seen someone do to retrieve a lost bait....
#4 – We thought this was a funny little video from Denis St. Clair:
QUICK HITTERS:
– Late December musky fishing w/ Todays Angler (video)
– Northern WI opener float outing w/ Keyes Outdoors (video)
– The Fall Transition w/ Musky Hunter TV (video)
– Melton Hill muskies w/ Mayhems 10k Casts (video)
– How to make a bucktail last longer w/ Joe Bucher (video)
THIS WEEK'S MONSTER MUSKIES:
That's 55 inches of Lake of the Woods musky goodness! Awesome fish for Frank who was fishing with guide Brendan Walker 💪
Big congrats to Jackson Harris on joining the 50 incher club with this super impressive 52 inch fall 'skie!
We gotta get out to Pennsylvania to musky fish one of these days. There are some healthy musky populations over there and some nice 'skies hitting the net, like this big beauty outta Adam Listopad's boat.
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