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MidWest Outdoors - Fishing, hunting, helping you enjoy the outdoors

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Muskies

MidWest Outdoors has a full selection of Muskie fishing articles, straight from our magazine!
Muskie fishing has momentum in and around Chicago, but the future hinges on carefully handling and quickly releasing your catch.
Joel Michel, of Racine, Wis. caught and released this plump 49.5-incher from the Fox Chain in spring, 2006. This was one of the first truly large specimens I saw near the Chicago fishing scene.
This is a whopper muskie for forest preserve district standards, and quality for anywhere within the muskies range. Found on Facebook, this estimated 30-pound fish was boated by a client of Micah Langkamp’s, a Hayward-based muskie guide who also operates in northern Illinois from the late fall through the early spring months. Source / Langkamp’s Fishing Guide Service
Rob Miller, IL DNR with 46-inch muskie from Heidecke Lake, 2016. The largest fish, a gravid female, weighed in just shy of 30 pounds. Source / Illinois DNR
Little is known about this catch from Shabbona Lake in DeKalb County, Illinois. Source / MuskieFIRST

Chicago Muskie Chronicle

Esox fishing around the Windy City is for real Chicago Muskie fishing is finally coming of age. Most anglers observe […]

This 48-incher dashed out of the thick weeds in 5 feet and on top of a reef to hammer a firetiger 1-ounce tandem spinnerbait.
Smutka with a big bass. These can be a bonus fish in the shallow, thick weeds in August.
The tools for this technique are pretty simple: a typical muskie rod, reel and line combo with a double hook (left) or single-hook 1-ounce tandem blade spinnerbait.
Nate Smutka got this 46-incher in 3 feet in early August. Weeds with current coming in were the ticket for this fish.

Go Small and Shallow for Late-summer Muskies

“That didn’t take long,” I said, followed by, “Get the net!” My first cast in the shallow, weedy area we […]

Pete Maina says muskie anglers are different because they’re willing to fish for long hours for the chance at catching a monster. Here he fishes with the namesake of John Gillespie's Waters & Woods television show and Rusty Lilyquist last September.
This picture from 1991 is the same year the expert started Musky Mania Tackle.
Maina credits his mentor Doug Johnson for teaching him a lot about muskies.
Maina says the allure of muskies is their ‘shock value.’ After hours of casting without seeing anything, seemingly from nowhere a toothy beast can appear.

Pete Maina: The Allure of Muskies

They say that keeping anger bottled up can lead to health problems, and if that’s true, then it’s doubtful that […]

The two rods starting on the left are designated muskie rods while the one on the right is a heavy bass rod. If you are giving fishing for this species a try, don’t invest in muskie gear at first. Instead, use your heavy bass equipment to start. (Left to right): Daiwa BG 5000 Spinning Reel; St. Croix Premier Musky Spinning Rod; the 8-foot Heavy Power/Fast Action and 1- to 5-ounce lure; Daiwa Lexa-HD 400XS-P 8.1:1 Gear Ratio; St. Croix Premier Musky Rod; the 8-foot Heavy Power/Moderate Action rod and 1- to 8-ounce lure; Ardent Apex Magnum 6.5:1 Gear Ratio; Bass Pro Shops’ Extreme Casting Rod; and the 7-foot, medium-heavy rod with 3/8- to 1 1/2-ounce lure.
A rather inexpensive start-up box to test the waters for bank fishing muskies: the Plano 3700. The box contains leaders and baits.

Muskies, of all Things, From the Bank, of all Places

I dabbled in muskie fishing from that little front seat of a cabin-rental Lund in the Northwoods when I was […]

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