When Dumb Fish Wise Up

When word of a hot fishery spreads to the masses, uneducated muskies don’t stay that way long. Here’s how to adjust to the new ‘normal’

- Spencer Berman

Have you ever heard someone talk about the “glory years” of a fishery? How it used to be so easy to rack up big numbers of big muskies on a certain lake. Nearly every lake has had such a heyday sometime.

Knowing this, you have to ask why the big bite ended. What changed? occasionally it’s due to stocking or a shift in the lake’s ecosystem, but the vast majority of these changes are due to fishing pressure on the lake. although others may have different opinions, i think the decline in catching is most often linked to the education of the fish by being caught over and over again by anglers. as muskies become accustomed to fishing lures and our techniques, we need to adapt to succeed.

The Rush 

In most cases in the musky world, new lakes are developed due to DNR stocking. during the beginning of this stocking, muskies are planted into a new system year after year. in the beginning, no one fishes this system because few want to fish a lake containing only small fish. the new lake is normally completely ignored, meaning the first several stocking classes are allowed to grow to their maximum length without seeing much, if any, fishing pressure. 

It’s once the first several year classes reach their full potential when the lake attracts the attention of musky anglers. the success of the first musky hunters to visit the lake is virtually guaranteed and many try to keep a “lid on it” for as long as they can. However, this seldom lasts long and before you know it the word gets out and the lake’s popularity is established seemingly overnight.