“Spence, come here. Cast 60 feet at about a 1 o’clock angle. Now let it sink… and start reeling! Hit freespool for a couple seconds, let it drop a little more, and then start reeling fast again. Here it comes!”

A split-second later, my rod doubled. I was sure it was the 50-incher that Calix and I had raised earlier off the same spot. I was using a walleye-colored Savage Gear Burbot that my friend and super guide Steve Herbeck had lent me, which had been a hot muskie lure. As I pulled the heavy fish toward the surface, Calix, my partner John MacDonald and I were all leaning over to get a look at the big muskie coming in… but it wasn’t a big muskie! Rather, it was a giant walleye that was super fat and 32 inches long!

I was really bummed, and I cursed for about 30 seconds. I just caught my personal best walleye, and according to my guide Calix, the biggest of the year in camp—at least 13 pounds. But I was ticked off!

Let me give you a little background about this trip. I was staying at Andy Myers Lodge on beautiful Eagle Lake in Ontario. I started going up there in the late ‘70s when there was talk about a gas shortage and rationing. The Guercio family owned the lodge then and offered weekly bus trips going up there. I started hosting some of these trips several times a year.

After several years, the Guercio’s bought a lodge on the other end of the lake and I switched over there. One of the employees at the new lodge was Julian Kalka, whom I became friends with. I generally drove up instead of taking the bus, and when the bus left Friday late afternoon, I would fish that evening with Julian and drive home Saturday morning. Just about every year, Julian and I would catch a muskie or two, including a few real big ones. The first muskie he ever saw in the boat was a last-light giant, about 35 or 36 pounds, that I caught on a bulged 700 Bucher Tail.

Years passed, and I heard that Julian bought Andy Myers lodge from Steve Herbeck. I ultimately switched back to fishing at their lodge and was greeted by Julian, wife Nicki, son Calix and twin daughters London and Paisley. Julian’s son Calix was crazy about fishing, and he wanted me to take him out. This was before the border closings and the COVID crisis.

Although Calix was only in his early teens, I could see that he was going to be special. He absorbed everything like a sponge—no backlashes—and he knew right where the “spot on a spot” was to make the best casts; sometimes casting over me to reach the spot—a habit that was quickly cured. In the two years we fished together, he caught his personal best each year—a 46-, and then a 47-incher. But more importantly, it helped light a fire in him to be a muskie fisherman.

Turn the clock forward a few years. Calix had just turned 19, and I hadn’t been up to Eagle for a few years. Julian was dying for me to fish with Calix, who had turned into a fish-catching machine. He had become very skilled at using a Lowrance Active Target forward facing sonar (FFS).

He and his partners, Treven Oullet for muskies and Ryley Desautels for walleyes, have done very well in tournaments. They have never finished lower than top 10 in any one they fished. Twice they won the Wabigoon Muskie Classic and won the Dryden Walleye Masters. So, Julian was very proud of him and wanted me to see how far he had come. I, too, was looking forward to fishing with one of the young, rising stars and seeing how FFS works on muskies.

The big walleye I got would have never been caught without the use of FFS. For starters, it took the perfect cast and manipulation of the retrieve to catch that fish. Plus, it was 3 pm, dead calm and sunny, and we were fishing in a clear-water area of the lake. That is something I would not have been doing.

My next FFS experience came while fishing with guide Nick Ysen. We pulled into a small, somewhat shallow bay with scattered weeds. Early on, I had a nice strike from what I thought was a mid-40-inch muskie. On the hookset, I moved the fish sideways a few inches but didn’t hook up. The fish followed the Buchertail to the boat and butted it again.

A few minutes later, Nick said it was right under the boat, as he could see him on the sonar. I jigged my lure right over the side and the fish came up and smacked it again. I think we had another bump or two from the fish which seemed to be pretty fired up. My partner John tossed out a big, white, Red October tube and the muskie finally saw something it liked. John quickly landed the 49 3/4-ncher which was his personal best.

One day, I was able to go out on my own… old-school style! We fished some clear water early, medium clarity for a few hours, then worked our way into dark water. We were high-speed trolling a shallow weed line with Shallow Invaders when I had a jarring strike. A chunky 45-incher virtually swallowed the lure, with the nose of the bait several inches down its throat. I had to go in under the gill plates and cut the hooks with a bolt cutter.

About an hour later, I hooked a bigger fish on a double-8 Bucher bucktail in Goldilocks pattern on a wind-blown flat with scattered weeds. The fish ran under the drifting boat and jumped on the other side. I was able to bring it around the motor and put it into netting position. The fish jumped, spun around and cut the braid on his gills or teeth. That’s the second time that happened to me on Eagle; the other fish was a 50-incher.

We fished with Calix a couple more times and caught a few more fish that were the direct result of using FFS. I had two more instances where he called me to the back of the boat and told me where to make the cast. On one encounter, we drew a blank; on the other, another disappointment: a 15-pound pike.

On several spots, Calix would spot muskies holding deep off a structure. He claimed that he has seen them come up out of deeper water to crush a topwater lure, but we rarely got any action from fish holding deep.

Here is where our muskie fishing game plan really varied, which we will get into a little later.

We had several more encounters with muskies spotted on FFS. Calix threw a big, white, Red October tube at one and it followed it to the boat. He did about as good a figure 8 as I have ever seen at the side of the boat, getting the muskie so excited that it crushed the big plastic lure. Calix is tall, young, with long arms and a big reach, and he knows what he is doing.

One evening, we returned to a big flat where we had seen several muskies earlier. We threw to several fish seen on the sonar, with no takers. But Calix had a trick up his sleeve that he didn’t really tell anybody about… until now!

In the livewell, he had a few lively suckers in the 6- to 7-inch range. Plus, he had a rod rigged with a heavy fluorocarbon leader, a mid-sized hook and a weight about 2 feet up the line. When the next muskie was spotted, he tossed the rig at the suspended fish and hit the freespool on the reel, letting the sucker go to the bottom. Within seconds, he shouted, “Got him” as he set the hook! The fish was quickly netted and the hook popped out.

While the fish was still in the net, he re-baited and tossed back at another fish. Same scenario: Let the bait sink to the bottom; the suspended muskie follows it down and pins it to the bottom. Hookset, fish on! We still had the first fish in the net and thought we were going to have two good ones in the bag, but the second fish cut the line.

Having a 1/4- to 3/8-ounce weight on the line takes the bait to the bottom; the muskie follows it down and pins it to the bottom. Calix says an unweighted sucker doesn’t work as well. Also, the bottom should be hard, not weedy. Two fish in two minutes: It works for me!

Earlier, I mentioned how Calix’s and my muskie fishing gameplans differ. For starters, we have over 50 years of muskie fishing experience against 5 years. Usually brighter conditions, and calm, clear water make for tougher fishing. It’s not that you can’t catch a big one under these conditions, but I believe that your odds are much lower. For me, muskie fishing is an odds game. The better your odds, the more fish you’ll catch. Let me first say that Calix is the best young fisherman I have ever fished with, and I could tell he was going to be special at an early age.

I love Eagle because of its diverse nature. The water color ranges from clear to stained where you can’t see your lure a foot down, along with every kind of structure and cover situation possible. Having produced three world records, the lake is a muskie angler’s paradise where my method of attack usually works well.

I generally stay away from clear water unless it’s early or later in the day, windy or overcast. My biggest fish have come out of clearer waters on this lake, but it has been under what I call good conditions. I am not going to spend much time in clearer water unless conditions are favorable.

Let me give you an example. We fished a favorite spot of mine during what I call unfavorable conditions. Four muskies were seen lying close to the bottom and we tried a variety of presentations. Nothing. This spot had a shallow rock bar extending out to the north that dropped down into deeper water. Other than one time, I never saw or caught a muskie off this spot unless a strong wind was hitting this rocky point, or it was near first or last light. In my mind, it was a waste of time to fish this spot unless better conditions existed.

And here was our major difference in our muskie fishing tactics. With FFS, I think too much time is spent on trying to catch fish that are near uncatchable! Now, I could be wrong because I have limited experience fishing with FFS. And perhaps more fish were caught on clear-water spots during less-than-favorable conditions than I thought. I would have liked to fish one day with Steve or Danny Herbeck who combine years of muskie fishing experience with using FFS.

I generally start off the day fishing big-fish spots in clearer water, and then adjust to wind and weather conditions. Winds and clouds are a plus. Also, knowing your spots is a big bonus. I only fish a lot of my spots under certain wind conditions. Often, not only is wind necessary on shallower spots, but it must be a strong wind to move a fish onto the structure. The biggest muskie I ever saw out of Eagle came out of a shallow slot with cabbage between two islands that the wind was pounding.

I had just caught a big pike on a 700 Buchertail, released it and was taking the hooks out of the net. I noticed the pike was floundering near the surface and the water around it was moving. I told my buddy Mike to cast over there and he had a tremendous strike that bent out several hooks on his bucktail.  I quickly cast over to the struggling pike and got a hit: a small pike. But as I was reeling in, a giant muskie followed it in and then turned at the boat.

I have had a lot of big muskies in my boat up to 55 1/2 inches, and this one was bigger! We retrieved the still-alive 40-inch pike, and it had wide teeth marks on it where the muskie had grabbed it. Now, that was a once-in-a-lifetime fish! I have never seen another muskie off that spot unless a strong wind was whipping through it.

Some spots such as islands may have several fingers or extensions coming off them that hold fish. I generally focus on the ones that are hit by the wind, unless a very strong wind is pounding the spot. Then, I look for a secondary, wind-related edge that the wind curls around; that’s often where they set up. Another reason to play the water color game is that, while the clear-water bite is often best under low-light conditions, the best action in stained-water areas may not begin until the sun starts beating down on the water.

My initial thought about FFS is, basically, how it is being used. Some users search for muskies and only cast when one is spotted. This can be especially productive on suspended fish. My feeling: This is not true muskie fishing, but more like playing a video game. It works, but I am old school, and it’s not for me. But it might be an option as I get older and can’t cast for long periods of time.

I like the way that Kyle Tokarski (715-340-2288), a super muskie guide on Green Bay, does it. He has the unit on while making controlled drifts across prime muskie areas. If he sees one while drifting, he will say, “Make a cast over there.” The overwhelming majority of muskies that my partner Mike Pavlick and I have caught with him have been on “blind casts,” and we have taken them up to 56 inches.

During my stay, we put 8 or 9 muskies in the boat, and most were caught using FFS. We definitely got some that we would not have caught without FFS. But… I usually get than many with my old-style way of muskie fishing. Looking at my records, on most of my Eagle Lake trips, we had 9 to 15 landed with lots over 48 inches, and quite a few 50- to 54-inchers. I think that if we combine the old-school approach with new-school electronics, we would have a winner. Use the “scope,” but mostly when fishing under conditions that are more favorable to the fish biting.

Since I was only there for a short time, I may be wrong about some fish being uncatchable. Perhaps the fact that you can see them, make a perfect cast and see their reaction makes them more likely to bite. I guess that I need to do some more research, so I have already booked my week for next year. It’s a dirty job, but somebody must do it.

I know this was all about muskies, but this place also has world-class walleye, pike, smallmouth and lake trout fishing. Some of the guys had a few “slow days” where they only caught 30 to 40 walleyes, but catches of 75 to 100-plus were more common. My friend John Muszinski went up in September last year and had three smallmouth days of 91, 100 and 100 fish. And there are plenty of 40-inch-plus pike.

The fishing here is world class, but so is the operation. They’re great people who treat you like family, with clean rooms, good food, and excellent boats and motors. It’s my favorite place to go. Also, this is best group of multi-species guides that I have ever seen: Steve and Danny Herbeck, Calix, Scottie, Muskie Mike, Nick, and the walleye-catching machine Gordie. These are only the ones I have fished with, but they are all great!

For more information: 888-727-5865 or info@andymyerslodge.com.