Night fishing is by far the most consistent bite I've had going lately. On an average night, we will land two to four muskies, lose two or three more and catch anywhere from one to seven walleyes. Our best night so far this year was six muskies between three people. The pictures from that night are stuck on an SD card. For what-ever reason, I can't down load off of an SD card, only MMC cards. Considering that we rarely spend more than three hours fishing after dark, those numbers don't seem to bad.
Catching a musky is no longer considered a fluke or incidental catch. We full expect to catch several on each one of our excursions.
Saturday night I spent a few hours with Tom Meyer & his son Cody. Tom was the person who I learned most of what I know today about night fishing. The knowledge & experience gained from those night wading trips we shared years ago have proved to be invaluable and have accounted for many of my best fishing experiences.
On this night, I had a hit on my first cast but lost that fish within seconds. On my second cast, I hooked into a 37 incher. Shortly after, Tom hooked up with the best one that we have pictures of this year. A very chunky & healthy 42" female. This beautiful fish was quickly released unharmed after a couple quick pictures & measurement.
A short while later I hooked up with a nice walleye that went right around 21 inches. We have been catching an unusual number of walleyes in the low 20's this year. Most of our walleyes run right around 17" mark with about one out of every six or seven going over the 20" mark. I have not landed a "pig" walleye this spring yet but I always feel like it could happen any cast now.
I've stopped measuring many of the smaller muskies for a couple of reasons. My hands get cold being out of the gloves, it takes longer to get the fish back in the water & it's hard to measure a musky when you're fishing by yourself and while standing in a foot of water. So if you don't see a measurement with the photo, that's why. If your wondering why Tom doesn't just take the photo for me, it's because in many cases, he's 50 or more yards down stream and it's to big of a pain to come back for a fish that won't stretch the tape to the upper 30's or more. In those cases, I put my camera on the tri-pod, then set the timer for 10 seconds. Next I get a grip on the fish with one hand, push the shoot button and hold the fish up. I never remove the lure from there mouth until after all the photo's are taken. I shove the rod under my arm pit and allow the fish to swim around while I get the camera ready. That took some practice at first but now it seems to work pretty well.
My best baits are still #8 Husky Jerks & F-11 Rapalas or similar type stick baits. Most of our fish hit in less than 10' of water but it is not uncommon to get hit in less than two feet or more than 15' of water. It may be hard for some people to believe, but we have caught both muskies & walleyes near the surface in 15' of water at night and we have of course caught them near the bottom in that deep of water. You just never know where there going to be. Not only on any given night but at different times of the same night.
