Anyone fly fish for Musky?

I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population and some consider it
the best Musky lake in our state. My brother "accidentally" caught
one big one while we were fishing for Crappie (he had an ultra-light
spinning outfit with 4-pound test and no leader). And now I'm
thinking of tying some King-Kong sized Musky flies and giving it a
go.

Is an 8-weight too small for Musky? My (maybe crazy) thinking is that
I might build an 8wt rod that I could use for Bass AND Musky on this
lake. What do you think?

"mdk77" wrote in message
ups.com...
I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population and some consider it
the best Musky lake in our state. My brother "accidentally" caught
one big one while we were fishing for Crappie (he had an ultra-light
spinning outfit with 4-pound test and no leader). And now I'm
thinking of tying some King-Kong sized Musky flies and giving it a
go.

Is an 8-weight too small for Musky? My (maybe crazy) thinking is that
I might build an 8wt rod that I could use for Bass AND Musky on this
lake. What do you think?

Your thinking is not bad. I've caught pike on my 8 wt. with no issues and it
should cross over as a nice bass rod for throwing the large bass flies.
Consider a decent reel with a disc drag and plenty of backing... I assume
Musky are like pike, when caught, they go ballistic. If I had to compare
pike to another species on a fly rod, I would compare them to Steelhead.

Fun stuff,
JT

mdk77 wrote:
I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population and some consider it
the best Musky lake in our state. My brother "accidentally" caught
one big one while we were fishing for Crappie (he had an ultra-light
spinning outfit with 4-pound test and no leader). And now I'm
thinking of tying some King-Kong sized Musky flies and giving it a
go.

Is an 8-weight too small for Musky? My (maybe crazy) thinking is that
I might build an 8wt rod that I could use for Bass AND Musky on this
lake. What do you think?

I'm gonna wait until I actually catch a muskie before I
confess to fishing for them. ;-) I came close this spring
but couldn't overcome muscle memory.

When you set the hook on a muskie you have to keep the rod
tip low and set the hook with a violent horizontal sweep of
the rod. If you raise the rod tip, like I've been doing for
40 years, you just slip the fly right out of its bony, toothy
mouth, which is of course exactly what I did.

The best muskie lake in Illinois is Lake Kinkaid. The water
is way too hot right now, muskie season down there is November
to early June.

An 8wt would work, a 9wt is better. You want something that
can chuck a quarter of a pound of wet rabbit leather so pick
a fast blank.

This guy is arguably *THE* muskie on a fly rod expert:

http://www.wetieit.com/

you can get an idea of the flies etc from his web page.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Aug 17, 12:15 pm, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
snip
This guy is arguably *THE* muskie on a fly rod expert:

http://www.wetieit.com/

you can get an idea of the flies etc from his web page.

--
Ken Fortenberry

That 8-inch streamer looks mighty big. Thanks for the info Ken.

- Dave

On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:15:53 -0500, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

mdk77 wrote:
I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population and some consider it
the best Musky lake in our state. My brother "accidentally" caught
one big one while we were fishing for Crappie (he had an ultra-light
spinning outfit with 4-pound test and no leader). And now I'm
thinking of tying some King-Kong sized Musky flies and giving it a
go.

Is an 8-weight too small for Musky? My (maybe crazy) thinking is that
I might build an 8wt rod that I could use for Bass AND Musky on this
lake. What do you think?

I'm gonna wait until I actually catch a muskie before I
confess to fishing for them. ;-) I came close this spring
but couldn't overcome muscle memory.

When you set the hook on a muskie you have to keep the rod
tip low and set the hook with a violent horizontal sweep of
the rod. If you raise the rod tip, like I've been doing for
40 years, you just slip the fly right out of its bony, toothy
mouth, which is of course exactly what I did.
[...]

If you have the presence of mind, keep the rod tip low and use a line-hand
set. This has the added advantage of keeping the fly in the immediate
neighborhood of the fish, should you miss the initial set...

/daytripper (highly useful when bonefeeshing)

daytripper wrote:

If you have the presence of mind, keep the rod tip low and use a line-hand
set. This has the added advantage of keeping the fly in the immediate
neighborhood of the fish, should you miss the initial set...

/daytripper (highly useful when bonefeeshing)

I call it a strip-strike -- very useful in sal****er flyfishing, but
difficult to break that years-old trout-fishing habit of using the rod
to set the hook.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

Fly fishing for Musky - now that sounds like a tough row to hoe.

" On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:15:53 -0500, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

mdk77 wrote:
I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population

Indian Joe suggests--you might need a metal leader of some sort----spent
last week on Rainy Lake {Minn} fishing for walleye but caught a few 25-35
inch northern pike on spinning gear. They usually cut line before I got
them in.
Fished close in next to rocks in canoe for small mouth bass with 6 wt but
stayed confused as wind was moving canoe around anchor. So I put cooler
full of water in front of canoe to keep bow down then could not get to
cooler to store fish!!! Think you need two folks in a big canoe to ff on a
windy lake. Jeff you might want to buy some of my marobou muddlers as I got
two hits from northerners on fly rod but both jumped once- bit line- and
swam away.
But if you just want to catch wall eye on spinning gear get you a rich son
in law who rents a 55ft houseboat-tows his bass boat -a canoe- a kayak- and
spend a week playing with technology--depth finder- fish finder- computer
showing reefs etc---and you can get tired of eating fish each night. Joe

rw wrote:
daytripper wrote:

If you have the presence of mind, keep the rod tip low and use a
line-hand
set. This has the added advantage of keeping the fly in the immediate
neighborhood of the fish, should you miss the initial set...

/daytripper (highly useful when bonefeeshing)

I call it a strip-strike -- very useful in sal****er flyfishing, but
difficult to break that years-old trout-fishing habit of using the rod
to set the hook.

We're all describing the same thing and yeah, it's real hard
not to lift the rod tip when you see your fly get hit. By now
it's instinctive. I missed my first shot at a muskie and I
imagine I'd do the same fool thing the first few times I ever
tried to catch a bonefish.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:21:32 -0500, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

rw wrote:
daytripper wrote:

If you have the presence of mind, keep the rod tip low and use a
line-hand
set. This has the added advantage of keeping the fly in the immediate
neighborhood of the fish, should you miss the initial set...

/daytripper (highly useful when bonefeeshing)

I call it a strip-strike -- very useful in sal****er flyfishing, but
difficult to break that years-old trout-fishing habit of using the rod
to set the hook.

We're all describing the same thing and yeah, it's real hard
not to lift the rod tip when you see your fly get hit. By now
it's instinctive. I missed my first shot at a muskie and I
imagine I'd do the same fool thing the first few times I ever
tried to catch a bonefish.

Have either of you tried long-shank circle hooks? They are essentially
"self-setting" (keep tension on the line rather than "setting" the hook)
and while they aren't appropriate (or necessary) for all quarry, they
are useful for many of the "hard mouth" species. And if you intend to C
& R, they greatly reduce gut- and deep-hooking. A Google search should
turn up quite a bit of info on them - probably much of the info will be
on the standard-shank "bait" models (for tuna, snapper, etc.), but the
theory of operation is the same and Mustad, etc., makes 2X for flies.

As to "muscle memory" and trying to set with the rod rather than the
line, you might try simply spending some time "practice setting"
immediately before you actually try to fish.

TC,
R