Firsthand Field Report -- Northwest Ontario, Canada

Prohibiting angling at night might produce positive benefits, Bastable thinks. It was banned years ago on Eagle Lake as a strategy to protect the walleye fishery, but according to Bastable, it has paid unexpected benefits for the lake’s muskie population. Might expansion of the regulation produce similar results elsewhere in the region?

Tactical Changes

Finally, what about tactical changes? Are more muskies being seen and caught today because the average muskie angler is much better-educated in seasonal tactics and techniques and better equipped than ever before? There’s no doubt about it.

“Almost ever year there’s a new hot lure,” Johnson says. “Recently it has been the double-ten bucktails. These big in-line spinners have two #10 Colorado blades and they give you a great workout. Some have flashabou, some marabou, and some are rubber-skirted, but the fish think they’re food.”

Johnson also favors noisy topwater lures because they’re easy to use and create the heart-stopping action that’s so much a part of muskie fishing. And he continues to catch a pile of big fish trolling. “It seems like they still can’t tell the difference between a Jake or a Believer and a tulibee,” he says.

One of the tactical keys on Eagle Lake, according to Jaeger, is to be out on the water early, when the sun’s just coming up, and again when it’s just starting to set. He also says it’s critical to know how to figure-eight properly. “I probably catch 75 percent of my muskies on the figure-eight,” he says. “As a rule, muskies like to strike coming up, so whenever I see a fish following, I jam my rod tip as far as I can into the water and then rip the lure to the surface at the end. You can make a mammoth muskie eat your lure that way.”

Bigger baits are better on Lac Seul, according to Colin Gosse. Whether it’s a gigantic, double-bladed in-line spinner or a humongous topwater, Gosse is convinced big baits attract and trigger big muskies to strike. And like Johnson, he’s sold on trolling, especially late in the season.

The very newest lure and hottest technique is one most muskie anglers have likely never seen or practiced. The bait is called the Trainwreck and was developed by muskie aficionado and lure maker, Don Schwartz.

Schwartz fashions the massive 16-inch-long tandem spinnerbaits using #8 and #10 Colorado blades, a 1.5-ounce minnow-shaped keel-style head, and tinsel and silicone skirt. And while you can catch muskies casting the giant heavyweight lure, it comes into a league of its own when you deliberately troll and smash it into rockpiles, boulders, and sunken logs—hence its name—at speeds ranging from 2 to 9 miles an hour. Nature Vision is manufacturing the Trainwreck, available to anglers the first half of 2008.

And, if the tradition continues, some muskie angler somewhere is going to buy one, snap it onto the end of his leader, and catch a gargantuan fish of a lifetime in one of Northwestern Ontario’s marquee muskie waters, proving once again the importance of being in the right place at the right time.

*In-Fisherman Field Editor Gord Pyzer has been working with the In-Fisherman staff for over a decade.

Contacts: Gord Bastable, vbay@drytel.net; Colin Gosse, muskyguidegosse@hotmail.com; Scott Jaeger, muskymanor@drytel.net; Doug Johnson, dougj@wiktel.com; Leonard Skye, leonard.skye@kpdsb.on.ca.