Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
Summer musky are active and spread out, so the job is covering water. Start with a full intermediate line on a 10 or 11 weight, a natural-colored 9 to 12 inch fly, and burn it back to the boat to find an aggressive fish. Follows and figure eights tell you where a fish lives; come back at sunrise or sunset.
Dan Donovan is a Wisconsin musky specialist and co-owner of a musky-only online fly shop who guides and fishes for musky on rivers and lakes throughout the season.
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Why are summer musky harder to find than fall musky?
Warm water raises a musky's metabolism, the weeds are up and forage is everywhere, so summer fish are genuinely active. The catch is that they are spread across every type of water instead of concentrated. That is the blessing and the curse of summer: the fish will eat, but locating them takes an aggressive search rather than a milk run of known spots.
What line and rod weight suits summer musky fishing?
The bread and butter setup through summer is a full intermediate line on a 10 or 11 weight rod, moving up to 12 weights later in the season when the flies get bigger. That intermediate is the neutral starting point that lets you change depth and speed all day while you search, rather than committing to a deep sinking line or a floater before you know where the fish are.
How fast should you retrieve a summer musky fly?
Start fast and aggressive: burn the fly back to the boat to move a fish rather than to hook one, and let the fish tell you when to slow down. Even a whole day of nothing but follows is useful, because musky are homebodies. Once a fish has shown itself, it is still there - the return trip at sunrise, sunset or a major solunar window is when it becomes catchable.
What fly sizes and styles cover summer?
Nine to twelve inches is the summer range. Two flies handle most of it: a streamlined minnow pattern that can be burned back fast, and a bushy deer hair head fly - a Buford or bigfoot style - whose big head pops open and walks the fly side to side. Deer hair heads may be considered old school, but they belong in the box in every season.
Why fish a topwater musky fly on an intermediate line?
A large foam-headed fly is too buoyant to sink, so an intermediate line pulls it under on the strip and lets it wobble back up on the pause, making noise the whole way - the fly equivalent of a loud floating jerkbait. Straight floating line works too, with popper heads reversed and worked as sliders or divers. Either way, topwater musky presentation is about water disturbance, not subtlety.
Where do summer musky sit in rivers versus lakes?
On rivers, summer means fishing the whole canvas: timber, weed pockets, mid-river structure, bends, deep water and pocket water. One summer-specific lie is a musky sitting behind a boulder in genuinely swift current, which is not where they will be in fall. On tannic stained Wisconsin lakes, vegetation is the primary fish locator - put the boat in about fifteen feet of water and fish the fly all the way up into a couple of feet among lily pads, milfoil and cabbage.
What water temperatures turn musky on and off?
Fishing starts to be worthwhile around 55 degrees in spring, which usually signals spawning is finished. The 60s are productive on both the spring rise and the fall drop, and action holds through the 60s and 70s. Above about 77 degrees musky get lethargic as dissolved oxygen falls, and at 80 they should be left alone. Below 40 degrees in late fall they pile up and are easy to locate but need repeated coaxing - the same fish may show five or six times in a day before it eats.
Key takeaways
- Run a full intermediate line on a 10 or 11 weight through summer and move to 12 weights later in the season.
- Burn a 9 to 12 inch fly back to the boat to locate an aggressive fish, then let the fish dictate a slower presentation.
- Treat a follow or a figure eight as location data: musky are homebodies, so return at sunrise or sunset.
- Fish a buoyant foam topwater fly on an intermediate line so it dives on the strip and rises noisily on the pause.
- On stained lakes, work weed edges and inside bends near rocky drop-offs, fishing from about fifteen feet of water into a couple of feet.
- Stop fishing for musky once water hits 80 degrees, and expect lethargic, repeat-showing fish below 40 degrees in late fall.
