Foot-long jerk baits are flying through the air again on Minnesota lakes, thrown by muskie anglers happy to be back in season.
This year's opening day arrived Saturday, the earliest possible date under the first-Saturday-in-June regulation set by the Department of Natural Resources.
Two longtime muskie enthusiasts said Tuesday that early results have been good based on feedback from their networks of fishing friends.
"We've had a late spring and the fish are biting right now,'' said Mike Kramer, owner of Kramer Bros. Tackle in Moorhead.
Kramer is a full-time maker and seller of muskie baits and a part-time fishing guide in the Detroit Lakes area. This time of year he's primarily fishing two separate habitat areas.
Near shore, he's casting over weed beds that were productive last year. Muskies are hanging out in those areas, especially near spawning grounds.
"The weeds aren't quite coming up yet, but they are still holding fish,'' he said.
Just as effective now, Kramer said, he'll cast and troll over muskies prowling for tullibee or other bait fish in open-water basins. His boat might be in 80 feet of water, but his baits don't need to be any deeper than 15 feet.
"It's sort of a nomadic way of fishing because you think you should be casting over rocks or other structure,'' Kramer said. "But the fish will digress from shallow water into these basins where there's a suspended forage base.''
He said it's common for muskie anglers to troll and cast with smaller baits during the early season — a tactic especially suited for metro area muskie anglers who are fishing in the shallows.
But it's not too early for him to throw his largest baits if he's trying to locate muskies in open-water.
"I'm already using big baits, really big baits … some up to 14 inches,'' Kramer said.
John Underhill, co-chair of the Minnesota Muskie and Pike Alliance, said he's hampered by a leg injury, unable to fish. But his social media accounts are full of big muskie photos submitted by friends and associates who have had plenty of good weather.
Underhill lives in southeastern Minnesota south of Spring Valley. His early-season advice for muskie anglers is to troll and retrieve casts a little slower than during the peak. He'll keep spinner baits in heavy rotation this time of year, but also mix in smaller glide baits, jerk baits and dive and rise baits. Areas near spawning grounds are good, but experiment with different approaches, he said.
"Some of the guys are catching them in typical [summer] areas right now,'' Underhill said. "But the beauty of muskie fishing is that there is actually nothing guaranteed. The more time on the water, the better chance of catching fish.''
Muskie regulations are geared toward catch-and-release. All fish under 54 inches in length must be returned to the water. In many metro area lakes where tiger muskies live, anglers are allowed to keep one over 40 inches.
