MUSKELLUNGE AND ARTIFICIAL LURES 



Acquainted with the water, possessed of a knowl- 

 edge of the habits of the fish, the muskellunge angler 

 should be afloat with the first hint or sign of light in 

 the morning. He should hold to the deep water, cast- 

 ing shoreward, lairward. The ability to lay a long line 

 and throw an accurate lure is tantamount to spelling 

 the word "strike." I think the reader will under- 

 stand me when I say that to be able to handle 150 

 feet of line is more than 50 feet in excess of 100. In 

 fact, every foot of controlled line beyond 100 has all 

 the value of two feet below the century. But note, I 

 am always talking of controlled line. To be able to 

 get out 1 50 feet of line, without being able to place 

 the lure in the proper spot, is without value. Always 

 cast from deep water to lair — obstruction and weed- 

 bed — . Then, if a fish is hooked, the angler is in a posi- 

 tion to coax his capture away from menacing obstruc- 

 tion out into clear fighting water. Furthermore, better 

 casts can be made from the vantage ground of open 

 lake or river. I have found the hours from earliest 

 light to six or seven o'clock the most successful in 

 fair weather. While August is not the best month of 

 the year by any means for muskellunge fishing, still 

 even August may be made to yield a goodly fish or two, 

 if the angler is abroad by three o'clock of a hot morning. 



Next in importance to the morning hours are those 

 from six o'clock — evening — on to dark, sometimes be- 

 yond. One of my largest fish was taken from a lake 

 out from State Line, Wisconsin, just at dusk the last 

 of August. That fish was captured from the shore. 

 We had been casting around the lake from a boat, 

 and though we had worked from six o'clock on, not a 

 single muskellunge had come to our lures. Running 



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