Rubber Bait Tweaks – Next Week Looks ???? – Musky Bites Off Too Much

Category: article

Jun 20th, 2021 by Keith Worrall

Modified Jun 20th, 2021 at 10:35 AM

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Biggun’ Incoming!
There’s gonna be some BIG fish caught next week….

Next week could be a stellar week for musky fishin’ thanks to a convergence of a few key events. Here’s a quick look into the crystal ball with MN guide and Musky Insider co-owner Josh Borovsky:

“We are coming up on the first set of Pink Days for the musky season, June 21 through the 26th.

(Click here for a full rundown on “Pink Days”)

“This should help moonrise and moonset be even more critical than usual for a big fish feeding windows. These events will occur near sunrise and sunset, which coincide with food chain events, such as bug hatches and times of day when baitfish are riding higher in the water column.

“It looks like it’s all coming together nicely for some excellent big fish conditions. I would expect there to be a good open water bite, both casting and trolling on many of bodies of water across Musky Land…. especially ones that have tullibees.

“If you’re intimidated by the thought of locating muskies in the vast open water basin, one tip I would recommend is looking for hard-to-soft bottom transitions. This strategy seems to be pretty consistent no matter where I fish for open water muskies.

“Sometimes a picture is worth 1000 words…. I love this message & pic I recently received from one of our class attendees from the Cutting Edge Open Water Tactics class:

“From this photo you can clearly see that this fish is precisely positioned on the edge of this hard-to-soft bottom transition. (Brighter = hard and darker = soft)”

Sharpen your hooks and start marking those bottom transition areas, and you’ll be ready for some potential big fish action next week!

A couple housekeeping items:

1. Sounds like Josh had some primo dates open up due to cancellations, including some Pink Days next week. Definitely a killer opportunity to potentially stick an early summer monster!

2. If you’re lookin’ to up your game this season, check out our virtual musky classes. We have some excellent recordings available on a variety of topics, including targeting muskies in open water.

Both #1 and #2 make great Father’s Day presents if you’re one of those last-minute gift buyers! ????

Tuning Rubber

This might be old-hat for some of you, but if you’re new to musky fishing, listen up!

Dougie Wegner recently shared a video on how to tune your rubber baits (Bull Dawgs and Medussas) that some of you may find helpful:

He shares some tweaks you can make to your baits to get them running correctly, whether they’re swerving left/right or rollin’ over on their side.

He also shows you how to make your bait run higher in the water column when you’re fishing in shallow water or over weeds.

Btw, how spicy ???? are these Thorne Bros customs??

Rootbeer/Orange Walleye (left) and Hot Whitefish (right)
Metro Tourney Recap
The 2021 Metro Musky Tournament is officially in the books! ????

Big congrats to Tim Willems on taking home the gold ????with a trio of cookie-cutter Minnetonka muskies measuring 41, 41, and 40 inches:
Tim was the only angler to put three muskies in the net, but big fish honors go to Jesse Mishler with this 47.5 inch Forest Lake ‘skie:

My favorite part about this tourney is getting to see the lake-by-lake breakdown.

And as you can see, Minnetonka saw the majority of the action with 10 of the 15 purebred muskies caught (sounds like 60+ percent of the field was fishin’ Tonka), but looks like there was some solid action on Forest Lake, too.

Btw, you can click here to see results/photos for all three of the divisions.

Also, we just added the “Metro Musky Mastery” class to our website, if you’re interested in some helpful info that will help you catch more ‘skies in the Twin Cities area (including some A+ lake-specific stuff).
Don’t bite off…. more than you can chew!

Muskies are famous for eating BIG meals (stuff around 1/3 of their size), but this Wisco ‘skie took things a little too far:
Thanks to Tommy Howell for sending the link – it came from TikTok where we don’t spend much time for whatever reason…. ????‍♂️

BTW, TikTok put this warning above the musky/pike video:

“This video may contain disturbing content. Viewer discretion is advised.”

Because apparently animals eating other animals (AKA “nature”) is disturbing?

Now if you want to see something that’s REALLY disturbing:
QUICK HITTERS:
– Ontario musky season opening this weekend (link)

– Humminbird officially announces MEGA Live (video)

– River musky chasin’ w/ Todays Angler (video)

– Jeremy Smith’s must-have baits for northern Ontario muskies (video)

– Western MN musky report from this week (link)

– Northern WI opener w/ Angling Anarchy (video)

– Quick update on the WV warm-water mortality study (link)

This Week’s Monster Muskies:

Big props to Curt Lambert on stickin’ this half-blind mega-monster on the first turn of the figure-8, fishin’ with Doug Wegner on Green Bay.
Jake Batic tricked this big, long gal into snappin’ a new Musky Mayhem prototype (photo) on opening weekend in Minnesota ????

Nick Franta is going to have a tough time crackin’ this new PB – congrats man!

Nikki was finally able to put her first musky in the boat and it was a REAL dandy (52.5 inches) ???? The smile says it all….

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. ????