Piney 5/16

“Tiger Musky: The Fish of One Thousand Casts.”

My rear end!

I fished Pineview from about 8 this morning till 7 this evening. The first cast of the day, off the shore, mind you, I had my first Tiger of the day. A beautiful 35"er. He slammed a #5 Blue Fox Vibrax in Firetiger colors. Released him, and went on my way.

Hit Spring Creek for a couple hours. Slow. That about discribes things. One crappie that hit a 3 1/2" tube jig I was pulling through the timber. Nice fish. 14". Only fish I saw boated there.

Headed over to another no name bay. Fished a long, long, long shore line getting into it, and the bay. Every bit of brush along the way, too. That’s about 7 hours worth of pitching tubes into the thickets. It paid off, though. Ended the day with SEVEN Musky between 25-38". Another 15 cut offs because I was only using 8# line with a 20# leader. Shoulda gone heavier, but it’s all I had. I was planning on fishing crappies and smallies. Oh well.

Also put around 20 big Crappie on the yellow toonerino. Every fish hit various colors on 3 1/2" Gitzit Tubejigs. Brown with red speckles, salt and pepper, and pale green seemed to work best, but I caught fish or had bites on every color I had. I got checked by the fish and game cops about 5. At that time I’d had the best day they’d seen with the 5 crappies I kept, and the four reported tigers. Doubled the musky count in a little over two hours.

Those tigers go nutty over the tubes. It’s definately finess fishing, but, it works. I honestly think most people spook them with the bigger lures. Oh, and best of all! A couple pictures. Nothing from on the boat, though. New phone = NO WATER! lol

Awesome report… I’m JEALOUS! Since you like finesse fishing the muskies… try using Senkos or the Maniac sticks, or other stick-type soft bait. They seemed to work very well when the fish were spooky or when the sun was high in the sky. This year I’m gonna rig them with steel or heavy (40#) mono leaders instead. 15# test was no match for those razorblade teeth!

That is sweet! Nice work on puttin’ the smack down on the fish.