MuskieFIRST | Small & Deep Shield Lakes » General Discussion ? (2024)

Message Subject: Small & Deep Shield Lakeskylesaric

Posted 8/17/2024 9:33 PM (#1030341) Subject: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 2

I get to fish a tiny shield lake in Quebec once a year for a week, usually the first or second week of August. Usually, I rack up pike on spinners, a double 8 bucktail and a mini medussa but I'm looking to expand my arsenal to catch more muskies. This year I got lucky with my first 2 Muskies - 1 from trolling a Jake and 1 from a dead-dropping bucktail while I was fixing a bird's nest lol.

Now that I know they're here I want to target them more heavily but I'm not sure how. I think the problem is depth. There are so many pike in the shallow areas that I feel I need to jig deeper with a bondy or bondy mini wobbler for muskie + lake trout.

This is a depth chart and as you can see, it is quite deep. Most fishing spots are 15-20', a dropoff I caught a muskie at trolling was 50' and it goes down to 108'.
https://fishing-app.gpsnauticalcharts.com/i-boating-fishing-web-app/...

Any suggestions of what or where I should fish to target muskie? The only place I haven't really tried is around the island but no one catches much there anyway.

North of 8

Posted 8/17/2024 10:26 PM (#1030343 - in reply to #1030341) Subject: Re: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Went a seminar by Pete Maina a number of years ago on vertical jigging for musky. While saying he liked Bondy baits, he had used Fuzzy Duzzit blade baits for years for vertical jigging and had started using Bull Dawgs as well. With Dawgs he would slowly follow a river channel, a rock ledge bouncing the dawg off bottom and up a foot or two. He stressed that with the long rods we use, you can get carried away with how high the bait rises. Had some good videos of he and folks in the boat having success doing that.
But after the seminar when talking to a couple of us he admitted that while it is a great technique, he really struggled to do it consistently. He said in fish per hour, he did better jigging but he still loved casting.
One video was of him on St. Clair with bass fisherman Mark Zona. Zona was whooping and hollering after catching a big one jigging a dawg. He was raving about what a great technique it was and Pete is shown nodding but you can tell he is not as excited about it as Zona. chuckski

Posted 8/18/2024 8:17 AM (#1030345 - in reply to #1030341) Subject: Re: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 1302

I'm a big fan of both the Bondy's and fuzzy Duzzit's (both sizes) along with the countdown cranks and plastics. Fishing vertical and counting down can be time consuming but well worth it. It's a good way to catch the larger fish in a given system. EsoxWanderer

Posted 8/18/2024 8:51 AM (#1030346 - in reply to #1030341) Subject: Re: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 54

Interesting, I didn’t know the inland Quebec lakes up there had musky.

So it looks like a deep basin without a ton of structure, as you mention.

I’ve fished a couple of inland Ontario lakes that are kind of like that.

Trolling might be your best bet. Funny enough that island on the north end is the spot that jumps out to me from the map. It looks like it has a nice bar extending south of it. Looks like the lake also has a couple of big submerged points. You might also get some bigger musky and pike working the steep break lines around the deepest water. Any cabbage weeds in the lake?

Looks like it’s probably a tough musky fishery but good for you for already catching two. Do post an update on how you do!

Masqui-ninja

Posted 8/18/2024 9:21 AM (#1030347 - in reply to #1030341) Subject: Re: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 1231

Location: Walker, MN

Personally I would troll to locate the most baitfish, and possibly mark muskies on side imaging. Then I would drift through the most productive looking areas casting a big medusa or bull dawg. Is the water clear? If so, a large pull/pause rubber lure will draw fish in from a very long ways away. I would try paying attention to baitfish, and ignoring structure/spots and see if that could be the ticket. kylesaric

Posted 8/18/2024 9:22 AM (#1030348 - in reply to #1030346) Subject: Re: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 2

I think you're right about the island. Everyone I know that fishes there always seemed to disregard them but I'll pick through them next year with a dawg or a suick or something.

I've only had cabbage on my line a couple of times, it's so deep I rarely would have my medussa get down there (which is why I'm looking more at dawgs now). There is definitely a lot of milfoil and it gets really thick in a couple of these bays.

In the image, the black points are where a musky has been caught. I usually troll down the red line to get to the red circle where there are usually schools of baitfish and tons of pike with some pretty good weed structure.

The number of hours that my cousins and I have put in trolling has only ever yielded 2 muskies and I'm not confident I could get another even if I trolled the entire week next year. I feel like if I spend more time jigging and casting the dropoffs instead of speeding over them, I might be more successful. Does this make sense?

PS: sorry for the poor image quality it wouldn't accept the upload so I had to keep zooming out lol.

Edited by kylesaric 8/18/2024 9:29 AM

Attachments
----------------
Screen Shot 2024-08-18 at 10.26.50 AM.png (88KB - 14 downloads)

BillM

Posted 8/22/2024 9:48 AM (#1030411 - in reply to #1030341) Subject: RE: Small & Deep Shield Lakes

Posts: 181

Depending on water temps I'd be fishing the north end of the lake where there's a bit more structure and shallower depths.