For you Crazy People

[SteveP]

Ok so I am taking on a new challenge... I have a medium sized body of water (30ish acres) not far from my house (about 15 min. drive), that has a very good population of tiger musky in the 35-50 inch range. I've just finished building a very stout 10wt rig and nowI'm wanting to tie some flies... for the musky.

So my question being, who out there is just nuts enough to try and catch one of the giant beasts on a fly??? If you do happen to have the same mental instabilities as me what might you lash to a hook to try and dredge one of these guys up from the deep? I'm looking for some subsurface patterns as I have about 50 of the largest perfect poppers they make and I have a hand full of some smaller salt water poppers (8"-12" long) but I need some ideas other then tying a whole rabbit skin and a full hank of flashabou to a hook bigger then my head and the try to false cast it!

Steve

[Eight Thumbs]

Hi Steve,

You have set a real challenge for yourself. Don't they call Muskies the "Fish of 10,000 casts?" On a fly rod, it may have to be called the "Fish of One Million Casts." Anyway, good luck with your new endeavor. You may tangle with some very impressive bass on your way to catching this muskie..

For subsurface flies, I have two suggestions. One, borrow shamelessly from saltwater fly tying methods, particularly those flies that are designed to imitate bunker which are big, heavy, full-bodied fish. Convert these designs for freshwater use by changing the colors to look like perch and other native fish. BTW, I don't think that you can go wrong with a big Deceiver in native colors.

Two, tie up the biggest, meanest Woolly Bugger that you can throw in browns. black and olive to look like suckers or bullheads. Good luck. 8T

[scubatim]

What are you nuts? LOL All kidding aside that sounds like fun....nuts but fun. Good Luck and keep us posted.

[dudley]

I've never fished for musky, but I often use a 10wt in the salt and occasionally for pike.
I've seen people attempt to throw some pretty hefty streamers, but for me that's not only not much fun, I feel it's overkill
In my opinion, you only need so much size to attract the attention of a large game fish.
The largest I go now is a 3/0 deceiver of about 7-8"
That's a mouth full for any fish, salt or fresh, and a hell of a lot easier to cast all day than any 12' dust mop.
For pike, I tie them in red over yellow and all black
I the salt I use all yellow or chartreuse over white

[Flyrodde]

Musky will eat smaller offerings, too. Try a Clouser, sparse with synthetic to make it between 4 and 6 inches and some krstal flash or flashabou. Chartruse and White, Red and White and Black and Orange are good combos. Good luck and always remember to have a long pair of pliars.

[fishbum]

Not crazy at all. Well, maybe a little. The big decievers, clousers, bucktail streamers, double bunnys and most of the stuff you use for bass both surface and wet will work. Not mentioned yet, use a piece of 20# mono 8 - 12 inches long for a bite tippet. These guys are not leader shy. In fact make your leader with a butt of 30#, a mid of 20#, a tip of 15#, and a bite tippet of 12" of 20#. Make the whole mess around 10 foot long.

Good luck and have fun

fishbum

[J Castwell]

Why go deep? Target them when they spawn in shallow water like steelheaders do.

[William Fitzgerald]

Google -- "Tube Flies" and "Snake Flies" Big flies with smaller hooks easier to cast or troll. When the big fish strikes the fly goes up the leader and its just fish and hook. I tie the tubes on hollow Q tips use a short plastic coated wire leader, single double or treble hooks. BILL

[Normand]

GOOGLE "musky flies"!!

http://www.google.com/search?q=musky...ient=firefox-a

[jcntheriver]

just wanted to add that if you tube fly it your best tube is the empty bic pen ink cylinder just cut in half for 2 flies. I use old guitar strings for leaders on musky,pike, pickerel,bluefish, and shark ,tough stuff. I get mine from friends who play the guitar.
Jcntheriver