Ice is finally starting to cover our lakes up here in Northwestern Ontario, but open water conditions still prevail in southern Ontario, especially in and around the Great Lakes.  Combine that with an extended muskie season in many parts of the country, and anglers have one last chance to catch the fish of a lifetime.

 Which is precisely what buddy, Wally Robins has been doing lately.  But how Wally is catching the big toothy critters may surprise you.  He is using bass jigs.



"It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction for most muskie anglers," Wally said the other day when we were discussing his methods, "to think that you have to always use big baits to cover miles of water in order to catch big fish in the fall.  And I can understand this rationale, because it makes good sense. A big meal is a more energy efficient way for a top-line predator to chow down in cold water. And, we all “know” there aren’t as many muskies in a lake or river as there are walleye or smallmouth bass, so fishing fast to strain acres of water makes sense, right?"

Then, Robbins quickly answers his own question, "But what do you do when the “feeding window” closes up as tightly as a drum?"

 Robins says the answer is counter-intuitive to many, if not most, musky anglers.  They need to fish with smaller presentations at dead slow speeds.  It is a pattern that has produced countless muskies for him over the past half-dozen seasons, when the big toothy critters have wanted no part of chasing the big Suicks, Cowgirls or other oversized baits he has been throwing.

 "How small is small?," Wally asks, reading my mind.  "Believe it or not, my go-to baits right now, are a 5- to 7-inch tube jig rigged on a ¾-ounce Kalin head and a ¾-ounce flipping jig adorned with a Mogambo grub or 6-inch shad body trailer. I fish these baits the same way I would if I was targeting largemouth with lockjaw in cold front conditions - dead slow on the bottom.  In fact, when most anglers see me fishing this way, they just assume I am a hard core bass addict trying to scratch out one more jumbo bucketmouth on a cold, blustery, late fall day."

By the way, if you're wondering why bass style jigs fished slowly on or near the bottom produce so well for big late season muskies, Robins says it's a combination of fundamental science and basic fish behaviour.  


"Cold water reduces energy expenditure levels in most fresh water fish," he says.  "If the water temperature is in the 40s, so too is the fish’s body temperature. As a result, they are adverse to high levels of activity, except for very isolated and short periods - the “feeding window” phenomena.  As a result, muskies spend most of their time on or near the bottom lying virtually motionless.  So do suckers, bullheads and other prime musky forage.  It’s a best of all possible worlds for the toothy predators  – a ready supply of slow moving snacks that don’t require much exertion to capture."

 On his home southeastern Ontario waters, Robins says he primarily targets big late season muskies focussing his attention on deep weedlines, rock structure, breaklines and even boat docks.  The key criteria is that the cover and structure has to lie close to deep water.

"What’s particularly exciting for me," says the top notch muskie stick, "is how a giant musky hits a jig. All you feel is a gentle ‘tick”, much like you would expect to feel from a walleye. But when you set the hook, your rod doubles over and you know immediately that you’re not playing with a walleye or bass."

Robbins also points out there is an added bonus to using the bass style jigs he favours. His hook-up ratios are off the chart and the single hook makes  it a breeze to release the fish. Virtually every musky is hooked in the corner or roof of the mouth, he says, with no damage done to the fish.

But, how does he present the little baits to the big fish?

"I love my G.Loomis SWBR 955 rod for this application," Robins explains. "My Loomis MUR 964 works well too. Couple one of these sticks with a Shimano Curado 300 DSV reel spooled with either 30 pound test mono or fluorocarbon, or 65 lb Power Pro, and you’re holding the perfect jig delivery system for muskies.  Of course, I always attach a foot long fluorocarbon  leader testing between 80 and 100 pounds to prevent bite offs."

It is a tried and true, time-tested technique that has worked well for Robins wherever he has fished for late season muskies.  Which means the next time you hear the late fall muskie window slamming itself shut, you need to snap on a jig and plastic combination, slow down your retrieve to a crawl and fish the same way you would for late season largemouth.

"The “tick” you feel," says Robin's with a mischievous wink and a smile, "could turn out to be the monster muskie of a lifetime."