Muskies on the Rocks
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By Ted Takasaki and Scott Richardson
Lee Tauchen likes hanging out with walleye guys when he guides for muskies at Lake Mille Lacs in northern Minnesota in late summer and autumn. His choice has nothing to do with their personalities. It has everything to do with their location.
Tauchen loves to fish for muskies on the rocks, so he targets the same reefs that walleye anglers prefer. Muskies are there, too, and for the same reason. The reefs are loaded with bait fish later in the year and from mid-August through ice-up, the muskies are there to fatten for the approaching winter.
Tauchen, 33, lives in Madison, Wis., where he works as a multi-species guide early in the year. He spends March and April catching walleyes from the Wisconsin River. May and June, its walleye and musky from the Madison chain as well. But, muskies in Madison are generally not of the size he craves. He wants big fish, very big fish, or “monster fish,” as he calls them. That’s why he moves his business to Mille Lacs, Minnesota, in July.
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It’s a pretty awesome body of water,” said Tauchen, whose clients had boated five muskies over 50 inches by mid-August. (They included a 51_-inch fish Ted caught while researching this story.) Two of the five reached 55 inches.
One of the mammoths left droppings behind in the boat. Tauchen noticed they contained feathers. “It ate a bird of some sort. Muskies that are big enough to eat birds are the right ones,” he said.
Tauchen got his start muskie fishing when he hooked into a 36-inch fish while fishing for smallmouth bass with four-pound test. The fight that followed addicted him to ‘skies.
His favorite spots to fish ‘em includes Lac Seul and Eagle Lake in Northwest Ontario. He likes the solitude of Canada. He may also be biased because he caught a 54_-inch fish there.
But, he made the decision to move his business from Packerland to Viking country for the latter part of each year after he fished Mille Lacs in the fall of 2004. His biggest muskie of the season was 53 inches. He and his friends had six fish in one three-hour period on a frigid November day when only die-hards ventured on the water, “Even when fishing is tough, it helps to know that the very next cast could be that 50 pounder,” he said.
The word is out, and the fishing pressure can be high. But, that doesn’t bother him. “I’m willing to put up with the crowds because of these pigs.”
Tauchen credits the hefty fish present in big numbers to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources’ stocking program that began in earnest 20 years ago and to the catch-and-release practiced by most muskie anglers today. Rather than taking a fish to mount, the vast majority are shooting a picture, taking measurements for a graphite replica and releasing the fish to be caught again.
That’s not to say the fish aren’t in the weeds in late summer and even later in the year. Like most muskie fishermen in the Northwoods, Tauchen certainly targets vegetation during portions of the calendar. (The day before he caught the monster 51-1/2 incher, Ted caught a 48-inch muskie using an M/G Muskie Tandem spinnerbait in the weeds on a small lake near Brainerd.) But, by mid-August, Tauchen checks out the reefs to see if muskies have moved out of vegetation to the rocks. The massive muskies in the “fleet” that cruise open water much of the summer in search of tulibees become concentrated on the reefs as summer turns to autumn, he said.
He also believes that muskies in weeds are in a “comfort zone”. They are there to digest food, so they are lazy and therefore harder to make strike, he said.
The rock pattern Tauchen uses works on any muskie lake that has rock reefs in them. At Mille Lacs, he targets the rocks that rise out of 20 to 30 feet of water and that top out at an average of 5 to 10 feet.
Some reefs are massive. Tauchen cuts his search time down by focusing on peaks where the rocks top out at 5 feet. A sonar and GPS are great tools. Find a peak, set a way point, drift more, find another peak, set another way point, catch a fish, set another way point. Pretty soon, the productive portions of the reef are mapped out.
The fish can bite anytime. “They’ve got to eat. They get into moods where they get stupid,” Tauchen said.
But, the rocks seem most active at low-light times like sunrise and dusk or when wind creates wave action that cuts light penetration. Tauchen lets the breeze move the boat along as he and his guests cast downwind to cover the most water. You can also use a Drift Control drift sock to slow your boat down and keep the boat from swinging around in the wind.
Tauchen’s basic equipment consists of 7_ to 8_-foot rods (he prefers longer rods), 80-pound braided line and 80-pound flourocarbon leaders. Shorter rods are for jerkbaits, longer are for everything else.
We like a little shorter rods, like the 6-foot, 2-inch St. Croix Musky Avids for jerkbaits, 7-footers for crank baits and 7 foot, 6-inch for bucktails.
He doesn’t trust snaps with the size of fish he’s after. So he puts a heavy-duty triple split ring on the end of the leader and attaches it to a triple split ring on the bait.
Tauchen is also extremely attentive to the sharpness of his hooks. One touch of a rock, a missed fish, a caught fish, anytime he changes a bait, out comes the file to hone the tips like a razor once again. “You just can’t give them any chances,” he said. “I won’t let a bait go out of the boat unsharpened.”
Tauchen’s license plate gives a strong hint as to what his favorite lures are. It reads, “Top H20,” the name of the bait he designed and distributes through Lee Lures. (Ted caught the monster fish on one.) The lure is segmented with a lip at the front and a spinner blade at the back that makes the Top H20 slither across the surface like a snake. All you have to do is reel slowly. Tauchen also likes his Chopper, a prop bait, even when water temperatures plummet.
“Topwaters work a lot later in the year than people think they do,” he said. “We’ve caught them on surface baits in 38-degree water. …The only rule is that there are no rules.” In general, though, topwater lures seem to do best when the wind is blowing or during low-light conditions like night time or cloudy.
Tauchen also likes regular Bulldogs. Muskies prefer to attack from the front so he jerks and pauses, jerks twice more and pauses, so a trailing muskie can anticipate the next move and intercept what it thinks is prey.
Days may wear on, but don’t let your guard down. The biggest fish of his life came on the final day of week-long trip when he hadn’t seen another fish.
And, stay excited. “If you don’t shake when you catch a fish, don’t do it. It’s not fun. I still shake every time.” Give Tauchen a call at (608) 444-2180 for a chance to catch one of the biggest fish of your life! |
