MuskysAnonymous

I have a new hero. First round is on me..

BassMrs.ster, great catch and great job holding your own against some of the bullies and their insane comments on your thread. You’ll never rationalize with them so you did a great job not engaging. Not all musky fishermen are Nazi’s about what you do with your fish. Especially a factory generated sterile fish which is stocked in the 10s of thousands every year. Kudos to you and nice job.

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If you search "Lake Durant Fishing" in a Google search engine and click images, you will see a sample of some of the large fish caught in Lake Durant. 40+ inches, ~20lbs. Many are caught ice fishing. You can catch them in Lake Durant on giant minnows...I guarantee it. Its just like Whetstone Reservoir, you can cast Whetstone for hours, days, and nothing. Use giant minnows, and you can catch 8-10 in a single day. I seen this 'phenomenon' at a few ADK lakes; cast artificials and it produces nothing. Go back with live bait, the lake is on fire. Never understood the mechanism behind it. However, I guarantee if you go back to Lake Durant and set up with live bait and wait, you will get giants in there. Kayuta lake is the same way. The Tigers which were stocked in there back in 2008 were caught handily with live bait, trolling and casting was very difficult. If you want one more tip, try Horseshoe lake or Soft Maple reservior next. Local guys I speak to on the job are showing me pictures of absolute monsters..47-48 inches just this summer alone in Soft Maple. Mostly on live bait...however they are truly giant fish.

You can tell the 2 biggest in the photos..they were just under 40. The rest are between 29 and 37.5. Unfortunately we battled with 2 giants but were not able to bring them in the boat.

You can find them in channel, sporadically, in the early season. They will stack up in old forge pond if the weeds are in and move out of the channel as it warms up; you can find them in the channel then. For the best opportunity, time your trip with good weather conditions for musky fishing, lots of water and plenty of places for the fish to hide in that system. You can also get some great Pike action in between each Musky, so its a good place once you fish it 3-4 times and find your go-to spots on it. Plus, the local residents despise the Tigers and Northern Pike so they dont fish for them which makes it under fished for people like us who target them. Honestly, the key until you figure out the casting/trolling method, bring live bait and set up in the bays off the edge of weedlines and hold on to the rod!

Start at old forge pond and work towards 3rd lake. If you are going to troll, then 4th lake above 25 feet targeting the water column between 8-20 feet. Target all SAV and any natural structure away from the developed shoreline. If you want to guarantee at least one, bring large shiners or sucker minnows and look for inlet channels or bays and set up there. Studies in the scientific literature revealed Musky, Pike, and Hybrids prefer prey 1/3 their body length so if you want a 40 inch fish, use 11-13 inch minnows...never failed me yet.

Haha. Thanks man.

A friend of mine wanted to catch Tiger Muskys, I said I know where to get some. Went to Fulton Chain and raised over 25 fish, landed 10. All the fish were released unharmed before folks start criticizing him for the vertical hold. He was excited so as fish were lifted out of net, we paused, took photo, then released immediately.

Despite my conversations with 2 members of the Kayuta Lake Association Board as an aquatic biologist and employee of the DEC, they refused to accept that Tiger Muskys preferred pickerel as a prey source over bass in Kayuta Lake; even ignoring the evidence. Regardless, very large, thick tiger muskys were caught on Kayuta between 2011-2013 by trolling and using large (10 inch) sucker minnows over 5-8 foot SAV beds. Now the few which remain (probably 20-40 based on survival rates and harvesting of the original 500 stocked) would be all in the 42-46 inch range. The best lake now based on stocking rates and square acreage is North Lake in Forestport. Nearly 5000 fish are stocked each year in a lake which is only 307 acres. To put this in perspective, Otisco Lake gets 10,000 each year and is 2100 acres. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your point of view, there is a small boat launch and getting more than a 16 foot boat on North Lake is very difficult. There is another lake north of Boonville, Whetstone Reservoir, which is also excellent. Small lake, 10 foot max depth (not counting dam), high stocking rates and fish up to 48 inches. Soft Maple reservoir is also excellent with enormous tigers caught directly below the dam and in the reservoir itself. Lake Durant is a great fishery with great stocking rates, small lake, 12 foot max depth and nearly 12,000 fish stocked in the last 4 years.

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The biggest was 39.5 inches, 15.5 pounds. Saw bigger fish at the boat; the Muskies were incredibly active throughout the day.

Otisco continues to impress. Fish caught on 7/9/2015