May 8, 2024 • 55 mins
Uncover the captivating world of musky fishing in this comprehensive episode of the Backlash Podcast, featuring expert angler Bryan Schaeffer from Schaeffer Outdoors. We explore the dynamics of musky fishing, revealing tell-tale signs of a promising fishing season, boat management, and the impact of various weather conditions on an expedition. Dive deep into Bryan's experiences and the wealth of wisdom he has to share to enhance your fishing skills.
Learn about the art and science behind one of the most thrilling sports, musky fishing. From understanding the behavioral patterns of fish to selecting the most productive spots for fishing based on a variety of factors. Discover the intricate strategies and techniques used to lure muskies and how to adapt with the unpredictable nature of fishing conditions.
Journey into the nuanced realities of a fishing expedition from dissecting social media perceptions to the inevitable disappointments in the process. This episode is more than just about fishing; it shines a light on the skills, patience, and unpredictability that epitomizes the art of fishing.
The episode blossoms as we delve into the geographic differences impacting fishing in Northern and Southern Wisconsin, discussing the unique influences of each region. Get first-hand knowledge on the varying strategies required for differing weather conditions, water temperatures, and bait options. Learn from our expert about the fascinating fish migration patters post-spawning season.
Finally, listen as Bryan discusses the value of preparation before the fishing season, including the use of the right equipment and understanding various water conditions. Benefit from Bryan's rich experiences and trusted advice, irrespective of your angling skills. This episode is a treasure trove of insightful information and practical advice designed to enhance your love for fishing and your skills on the water.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Music.
(00:05):
Welcome to another episode of Backlash Podcast.
This week we're going to talk to Brian Schaefer, Schaefer Outdoors,
and we're going to talk about southern muskies in Wisconsin,
northern muskies in Wisconsin, and that's pretty much what we cover.
We talk about what happened this past weekend, which was, spoiler alert, not that great.
And we talk about what we can maybe expect moving forward based off of what
(00:29):
Brian saw on the water this weekend, which is, it's just good to be talking
to people that are actually out fishing, Brad.
I mean I'm super excited about this upcoming season
I think it's going to be a good one for a lot of reasons I know
it didn't start out with a bang for many anglers it seems but
I think all that will change in the coming weeks I think we just got to get
(00:49):
on track and I think it'll be a great start a great season I'm very hopeful
for that I'm not very hopeful for my time on the water but you know that's that's
a whole different problem like that's one issue at a time right Yeah, absolutely.
But, you know, it's kind of interesting. I mean, I've talked to a few different
people that were out during the Southern Opener. And honestly,
(01:12):
I would say that the majority, it looks like it was pretty tough all in all.
But ultimately, I mean, there's always a few guys catching fish.
And that is something that you can say on the same body of water on any weekend, right?
Somebody's always into the fish. And it's interesting to listen to Brian's perspectives on it.
And he's done it for a long time, right, Jeff? So with some of his mechanical
(01:36):
problems and everything else, but at the end of the day, he learned some stuff
on the water this weekend. He's going to share it.
Yeah. It's like you said, he's been doing it for a while. I mean, things change.
I'm just, it's interesting to me how it had, we'd done a podcast specifically
on what we thought was going to happen for the Southern opener.
(01:56):
I'm sure that we would have all agreed back in, I don't know, early March.
That things would have been way ahead of schedule but i
mean i i don't feel that they're that far ahead of
schedule they're slightly ahead maybe and i think
that potentially caused things to be slightly tougher
because lately people have been dealing with we'll call them pre-spawn
(02:17):
muskies and now we're dealing with spawning
muskies i would say in many cases so created a
few different difficulties i believe for many anglers but yeah
give it a week two weeks that that'll be
past it and life will be good again yeah it
doesn't surprise me in the least honestly uh it's
something that i know i've said in the podcast the last couple weeks because
(02:39):
mother nature always evens the keel right i mean it you might say this or that
but at the end of the day it always seems to come full circle so quite quite
bizarre how it works but that's what they've played.
I mean like i said it's just good to be
talking to people that are out chasing muskies now and we're not i
(03:01):
mean we would have to talk to people that were fishing in iowa indiana kentucky
blah blah blah all that stuff pennsylvania and now we can talk to people in
and because the majority of our listeners are listening in wisconsin and minnesota
and illinois and so and and that's what we can talk to half of wisconsin's ready
to go illinois has been fishing for a while northern Northern Wisconsin opens
(03:21):
up here shortly and we go,
what, a week or what do you, is that what it is?
A week after the Northern opener for Wisconsin, we go to Minnesota opener.
Is that right? First weekend in June?
That is correct. It's always the first Saturday in June.
And then from there, I mean, you're right into the Canadian opener a week later.
(03:42):
So it's tough. It's happening, man. It's knocking on the door, right?
Yeah. Well, it's, it's crazy. and i'm sure
if we rewound other podcasts we've done you just
think about time and how fast time goes like it's felt like
you know early december and we're worried about show
season here we are we're like into the muskie season now it's unbelievable how
(04:04):
fast time goes and then i mean next thing you know we're the next thing we're
talking about spawning muskies now and in a blink of an eye we're gonna be talking
about turnover just that quick it's it's it seriously is mind.
It truly is, Jeff. And I think that's the importance.
A season can flip by really quick. So you can't waste any time.
(04:26):
You got to be on the water and that's how you catch these fish.
You know, it's time on the water and make the best use of your time.
Make sure you get out there and pound that water and you're going to put fish in the boat.
Hopefully you are unless you're me come on all
right i'll try to do the best i can make use of this season
i know it's gonna be a little sporadic here to start the season out but i
(04:48):
do have a few things you know a few trips
we'll call them they're not real trips but i'm gonna go up to my camper and
i'm gonna go fishing with a couple guides and so it'll life will be good here
at some point in june i just got to do it during the week because my weekdays
are weekends are scheduled with baseball so i opened up the camper this past
weekend brad so that was fun i mean i I was up there and cleaned up a couple
(05:10):
of mouse, a couple of mice,
a mouse and some, some feces.
That was fun. That's pretty typical for spring up there, but it's good to have it going.
At least now, if I, you know, when the season opens, I'm ready to go.
We can, we can head on up there. I'm going to try to get up there one more time
yet and do a little more cleanup on the exterior.
So we're a hundred percent ready to go, but yeah, things are looking good up there too.
(05:33):
It's water wise. They've gotten a lot of water up in Northern Wisconsin. That's for sure.
Did you end up putting the boat in or no? No, I don't even have,
I couldn't even get my boat out of the garage right now if I wanted to.
I was just kind of curious if you've seen a water temp and kind of what's going on there.
I will say that Terry and I made it out yesterday and we were just kind of cruising
(05:57):
around doing some pan fishing.
I would say that the weed growth looked very, very promising and that's good news, I think.
It's definitely going to play to a couple different things for our opener here in minnesota so.
Anyway we'll see where that goes in the next couple weeks i will
keep everybody clued in on what i'm seeing on the
water as i'm out and we'll go from there and you can guarantee that we're going
(06:21):
to do a podcast or two with some people from minnesota we're obviously going
to find a couple people to highlight northern wisconsin opener obviously we
did a little bit of it today but we'll wait a we'll wait another week or so
we'll definitely be doing some previews on all
those openers we'll preview the canadian opener kind of what to expect try to get people,
excited for those openers as well but brad
(06:43):
i think let's just quick do our 30 seconds this week
of you know what they can where they can find some gear and then
we'll jump into our conversation with brian so if you're
looking for musky fishing gear go check out team
rhino outdoors.com that's your source for everything musky
related if you want the latest gear year check us
out rods reels nets tackle boxes custom lures you can find it all there and
(07:06):
brad jump into musky mayhem tackle yeah real quick and easy musky mayhem tackle
the originator flashabou big bladed bait and you can check us out at mutackle.com
all right style up this week's conversation.
All right. Our guest this week is Brian Schaefer, Schaefer Outdoors.
(07:29):
Many people would also see him on Keys Outdoors.
Brian, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk muskies with us.
And in this particular case, we're going to talk about what did or didn't happen
for the Southern Muskie Opener that just took place a couple of days ago.
Well, thanks for having me again, guys.
Yeah. I mean, I actually did a little bit of homework. It's been since episode
(07:51):
184, which was August 24th of 2022 since we talked to you. So we're long overdue
to hear from you. So thank you.
So that was not the one with Key?
No, I think that was by yourself. The ones I saw that we did with you and Keys,
those were even farther back than that.
They were like episode 30, 20, 30, somewhere in there. Gotcha. Oh, okay.
(08:16):
So let's talk about it a little bit. You know, we just got off the Southern Opener.
And from the reports i had heard it seems a little spotty i wouldn't say i didn't
see anybody or hear of anybody or talk to anybody that had a really phenomenal
opener let's talk about it with you how was yours,
(08:39):
I was in the same boat. Actually, I'll get a little personal there, how my opener started.
In the morning, I was kind of running a little late on Friday.
We wanted to get to the river and just check it out, check the appearance,
check the water flow, the colors, a couple of spots, check them out.
And I ended up stubbing, slipping, stubbing my toe and breaking,
(09:01):
probably breaking my pinky toe.
So that kind of angered me. And so I finally got on the road,
literally just cleaned up the bow, had it all darkened, running down the road.
There's some construction just south of Tomahawk here. I took the wrong turn
and ended up going down that muddy road for three miles where you couldn't even
see the color of my boat anymore.
(09:22):
So I'm pretty happy about that. And then by the time I finally made it to the
fluid, I put the boat in, she started right up. I've had it all quite a few
times this year while I was fishing in the river up there.
Everything was working fine. She started right up. I parked her on the dock,
walked up, parked the truck, walked back down, and she was dead.
(09:44):
I had that thing running, sure. Fred started her up, she went in, doing her thing.
So I'm thinking a pump or an intake or something.
I'm going to hook it up to a computer and see, but she was dead.
That's a yeah that's a real kick in
the balls yeah so i got the fifth with
(10:05):
my chicken motor and a trolling motor all these days kind of stayed pretty
close obviously yeah so there's a bunch of us we fished the central wisconsin
flowages there and you know from highway 10 south there's 10 dams below the
highway 10 on the south river there so there's quite a few flowages of fish
we We concentrated on some of the bigger ones up there,
(10:27):
and this past opener,
she was tough. It was a tough opener.
So between the 10, 12 bullets we had there, there wasn't one legal fish caught.
So that killed her. Oh, she was with us.
I heard a couple different fish being caught through the systems and all that,
(10:49):
but they were all pretty small males.
And even everyone I talked to throughout Southern Wisconsin,
you know, I didn't get too many decent fights there. A lot of smaller ones.
Well, do you have a hypothesis as to, you know, what was going on here?
I would have to say we were starting our dead snack in the middle of spawn.
(11:12):
We had, for water camps, we were having anywhere from 56 to 61 degrees.
And they just weren't moving.
We moved a few fish and,
Lost one on Saturday, but the few, even the guys that had gifts,
they're all just small mix, and they're all small mills.
(11:32):
But yeah, I'm thinking it was just Mack Mineral, the small thing.
They're both water temps, you know, that's mid-50s. 51 was when it was.
You know, sort of, you know, thought it was like 75 there.
There and i mean that being the surface and all
those flowages you know amberbell shallow water
(11:53):
so they warm up very quickly but it's still the surface that
that was at 61 well i would assume you
know we've gotten a lot of rain recently and we did have
a bunch of cool nights so i'm assuming that didn't help but i would
actually say like this is maybe i don't
know we'll call normal kind of because of the fact that like
we've had so many late springs that i'm thinking a lot of
(12:14):
these openers you guys are actually fishing like pre-spawn muskies and
that's why some of these larger fish are showing we're you know we're
showing up in previous seasons because we kind of talked about a little
bit i mean you've actually had better when you
have a cold spring you actually have better southern openers right you're
100 correct and i'll say that every year i mean
a lot of guys like oh it should be going up i personally
(12:35):
love cold springs cold springs and then i always we
always get into that pre-spawn and that's the time to get the pre-spawn i'm
not you know you know all the larger
fish i've ever gotten starting open on the openers
down there have been really cold springs and cold water temps
so i guess on the plus side moving forward to northern wisconsin because i would
(12:56):
assume that those fish i mean we have you know we have this division between
north and south but realistically water temperatures in a lot of cases aren't
that much different especially this year because we lost ice so early everywhere that i I mean.
I would imagine there's not a huge difference. Is that probably what you've seen?
Because you said you've been on the water walleye fishing up north.
Is that kind of what's going on up there? I mean, water temperatures are similar? Right.
(13:20):
Well, I was on the river here in town, and it was pretty similar.
You're correct. But, I mean, I'm sure it's been a little deeper to the lakes and a lot cooler.
But by the time I open up, you know, they're going to still be fairly close on the darker waters.
It's still clear waters. That'll be, you know, quite cooler.
And that, those are your chance that didn't maybe a pre-spawn fair,
(13:42):
you know, on a northern opener too.
Right. Some of that deep at carry water. Yep. That's going to be really good.
It scares a lot of people away, but it can be good.
Yeah. I would imagine if you're fishing, you know, smaller, darker bodies of
water up north, it'd probably likely be past the spawn by the time we get up
there, which I mean, that's, you know, in, in most cases, I'd say that's probably a good thing.
(14:05):
Right. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. It generally always is right at the tail
end of spawn or right after spawn. Unless, again, it's a very cold spring.
Then we get caught in spawn. But very rarely on normal lakes up in northern
Wisconsin do we get free spawn.
And lots like that ship don't deep for everybody's water.
So since you had 12 boats out with very little success.
(14:29):
There's some. I mean, but it happens, right? I mean, that's the. No, it happens.
Real life. I was going to say, unfortunately, that's the cruel reality of muskie fishing.
It's not all, you know, large fish pictures like you see on Instagram and Facebook.
You know, like it's good to get the reality of it, right?
I mean, and this is a dose of reality. You don't catch them every time you go out fishing.
(14:50):
There was a lot of good to fix out of those 12 bullets too. So it was tough. It was a tough bite.
You got to fish it. It's lucky for you. Good job.
But let's talk about baits. you know what
kind of baits did you guys had have out there and like what
was the thought process behind what you guys were choosing to throw well
it seemed like this pad week and glide bait with a
(15:12):
ticket and small fares but generally i
look at cooler weather i always
think you do better on glide baits and then the warmer
the spring i seem to have better action on
twitch baits this year obviously it
was a little warmer but it was kind of
backwards from what i thought the glide weights were out
(15:32):
fishing the twitch bait at least for everyone in our group so but just past
weekend smaller tails we had all of our action the fish we lost with them was
on small tails actually jackrabbit and the fingernails and riddle okay and then
glide base the blunt nose nose.
If you want to get the, my glide rate, I like to use on this really since the,
(15:55):
uh, the guide, the one hole, those get a little deeper.
And then the phantoms, if you
want to keep your bait up a little higher in the column, use a phantom.
And then if you want to get it a little deeper, use a blunt nose.
Same action between the two, but the phantom, he's thin, a little higher in the water power.
And the biggest deal with using with the glide baits is that you really want
(16:18):
to do very erratic with that.
And almost that, you know, if you have twitch baits and all baits,
you really need to be a little erratic, a little slow erratic,
but keeping it at a pause. That's the key.
Well, let's talk. So you were talking twitch baits versus glide baits.
A lot of people would say, yeah, those are kind of similar.
But what do you think the difference is? I mean, is it because,
(16:39):
like, on a glide bait, maybe you're throwing longer pauses in?
Like, what's the cadence, I guess, on the two of them that makes a difference? Right?
For quick bait, I'm kind of popping them down and let them float up,
popping them down. And I think the glide baits is just that side-to-side action.
Even, like, on topwater baits, you know, you get a cold front,
those walk-the-dog topwater baits seem to shine.
(17:02):
And I think it's the same with glide baits, too, in the cold weather,
you know, the cold springs.
Just that side-to-side action just triggers
them and then if you get it erratic with a pause in there that generally they'll
just come up and just suffer down so and
then for twitch baits in the spring i'm kind of just popping them down and you
know twitch let them float up popping them down and it's just i think it's just
(17:26):
that action so but in the past like i said twitch baits warmer strains of blood
baits always find but this year is kind of different but it's not,
we didn't have a ton of action so I can't guarantee you know all it was so but
in our boat and a few other guys I thought there was some thing.
And generally when we're getting more action on bucktails too that's kind of showing you,
(17:50):
Smaller bucktails showing that they're going. Little dicky things,
you know. The muzzle of which is what?
One inch. How big is that jack rat?
It's probably about five inches. Wouldn't you say, Rich?
Yeah, probably four and a half or something like that. I mean,
it all depends on the marabou ties.
(18:11):
A lot of times that marabou stacks up and it kind of pushes up against the wire.
So it just depends. But yeah, right in that same ballpark.
I do know that I talked to Herbie a little bit yesterday, and he mentioned that
he was throwing jackrabbits as well, and he's had some success.
I know he caught three or four different fish on.
(18:31):
So that one was a good one, which kind of made me happy because it's not normally
what you hear for the Southern Wisconsin opener.
So that's good news. I mean, it sounds like the blade bite was pretty decent.
Yeah, that's what we lost the fish on. so they followed the glide bay we i had
(18:51):
the one up on i think it was a blunt nose and then we came back down the window
and it struck the tail that next to the boat kind of jumped and it was off so,
i heard the dams are going to be really hot you
want to cast on a dam all day yeah that's
i was just going to say you got to be one of those guys that really wants to
(19:12):
hang out or own a dam all day i don't that's not if you
if you're on a river system and they have a dam on the
river system that's a perfect place to go to try to catch a
muskie assuming you want to hang out there all day exactly and
you know you hang out there all day but it's not sure if they're there
it's a matter of time so but i'm not i'm not i don't dig the dam so you know
(19:33):
in those damn situations they're there for a reason right i mean a lot of times
they're there to feed and so you You just got to wait for a lot of those instances
for active fish to come in and feed and have your bait there at the same time.
I mean, and like you said, you want to hang out there all day long.
You could probably catch one doing that.
That's good. You know, and they're, they're you around too. You can always catch fish.
(19:56):
It's not for me. It's not the type of fishing I like to do.
But it was a little tougher for us this year. You know, obviously I had the,
oh, I went to throwing more than a triple mortar.
So I didn't really get, cause I had all my slots kind of stayed pretty close.
In return it actually makes you fish a little slower in the early pound areas
so what was the structure that you were trying to attack at this point in the season structure,
(20:21):
generally when we're fishing these flowages any cut
type of wood down trees stumps you
know just any gut tree laying in the
water it always don't fit it's a
current break your one thing and it warms up
and so that was our number one ticket
for finding fish and that's kind of held steady
(20:43):
through all of our boats here you know all the fish that removed are
saying we're around wood one of
one of the muskies we had were on a current break off a
point that's one thing i want to say about the dams right
or not the bands but the floor which is down there right now there's heavy
currents because all the rain we did have up north generally it
can snow but we had a lot of rain so they're crossing a lot
(21:04):
of water through there so areas that you couldn't even tell there was a current
this year you could have for a seed where the water moving through it so current
breaks we're looking for because that held a lot of bait we'd get to any kind
of plant break any point any tree that had some kind of break on it and it'll
just be piles of bait around there,
and then rip rap i didn't get the first handy because of course i didn't have a motor to get,
(21:28):
rip-rap, rocky walls, generally cold heat.
And there are a lot of fish actually cruising up on the sandbars.
So those would be the four areas I would look for.
And as far as the wood, the best wood we look for are dead old trees coming
down and if you've got some kind of deeper water channel, pull through to it.
(21:49):
So it's coming in and out into the deep water.
If we find it out and it's only a foot of water, you could find one there,
but the deeper structure next to the current breaks with the channel coming
right next to the wood, it's going to be the best trees you're going to find.
Those are by far the best structures we were looking for in the forages that we were fishing.
(22:14):
Every one has its own, you know, two or three or six, fifth is a little different,
but just timing that wood down trees with a channel next to it,
it's going to be a best bet.
Is that pretty typical year year to year brian yes yep that even when the cold
springs warm springs everything that that that wood goes down freeze next to
(22:36):
a panel of five five times best,
there's not a ton of weeds in those in those these areas it's all wood and and down trees so,
and the weeds you do have a lot of these origins are
kind of just crap you need that a newer shallow because the
water is dark is that tambo brown now is
(22:57):
that something that you look for too brian is that what you're
normally looking for i mean are you looking at water clarity is that why you're
going to a flood or i mean what is the option for you picking a spot to fish
on opener um well in years past i used to run south to uh pewaukee lake and
hit pewaukee because i I kind of grew up down there, so I fished Milwaukee a lot.
(23:20):
But then we started fishing the Florida up north, and I was just catching bigger fish.
So basically, more just the bigger fish, less boat traffic, less fishermen,
although it is starting to get a little more popular in those areas.
But there's still plenty of places to go where you won't see anybody.
But mainly just the fish size and just sitting away from boat traffic, fishermen.
(23:43):
But I don't really go there for—it's all pretty much the same world.
It's all 30, you know, it's all amber brown.
You get up to the Wisconsin River up in northern South and it's more of a root beer.
So it's not that I'm checking water clarity, but mainly I'm checking,
you know, the water temperature level, you know, just checking out,
seeing if I can see any spawning fish and how the structure is laid out.
(24:07):
Because every year, you know, the water rises, lowers,
and then stumps will move, trees will move, and just checking out if there's
new ones, old trees check them out there but yeah just for that reason basically
just bigger fish and bow trappers,
Now, does that affect kind of what you do throughout the rest of the season as well?
(24:29):
I mean, are you definitely trying to stay away from some of that boat traffic?
You know, as the weeks progress here, it always seems like opener is like the big team, right?
Everybody's a must-see angler on opener. Right.
So, or does that not really become part of the equation? Are you trying to escape that pressure?
Meaning throughout the year? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, in the next couple, three weeks here.
(24:57):
Well, my next couple, three weeks, I might not have a boat.
But generally, no, it doesn't really bother me all that much.
And even on the forage there, it really surprised me on how many boats that
were out there were just walleye fishermen when the walleye fishing then opened,
you know, opening around on the river there.
So it kind of surprised me. But there are, you know, I've been fishing there
(25:22):
since I was a kid also, and it's hard if you warm up, but that's true in everybody
longer nowadays, you know.
Even some of your quieter lakes have, you know, a lot of guys fishing it nowadays.
There's nothing to include anymore. I won't argue.
I won't argue that, that's for sure. But one of the things, I guess,
(25:43):
you know, as you go into the rest of the season or maybe even the Northern Open,
do you relate to what you learned here on the Southern Open for the Northern
Open, or does that not even play into the factor?
But if it does, you know, what are you going to do from that point? Right.
Really, normally it really doesn't, because things can change,
(26:06):
you know, in the meantime.
Time and it's just not in
northern Wisconsin until the central and even
southern Wisconsin is totally different totally different
you know as I said they all have their own characteristics and kind
of rivers and the forages up here and then I'll be fishing right so they're
going to dip it all up completely different the watercolor everything so what
(26:27):
happens in our southern opener I really don't carry through I mean some of the
baits the lure selections I will because dry baits and foot bait,
bucktail work year round, and especially in the spring, no matter where you are.
The only thing different, once I come up to northern Wisconsin,
I generally kind of up-size them depending on the spring and the weather conditions and water temps.
(26:54):
But this time, even in southern Wisconsin, I'll use bigger twitch baits and whatnot.
But generally in the northern Wisconsin and northern over there,
I'm using the same selection of baits, but just up, you know,
a little larger size baits.
But that answers your question for at least the spring openers.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just kind of curious, you know,
(27:17):
what you learned from that southern opener.
What I was wondering is if you relate that to choosing a different body of water
for the northern opener and so on and so forth. But I think you answered that pretty well.
I always generally start my opener to always start out some kind of flowage
a river and for the same reason I guess this is kind of goes right back to the
(27:39):
question that I find to catch bigger fish on the floor just early.
For some reason they're either they move on quicker after the spawn or you get
that pre-spawn you know i'm always hoping for pre-spawn and southern opener
and put the northern opener,
you're generally at fauna right after it and you got a chance with a decent sized fish too so,
(28:01):
but i always seem to get larger fish out of the forage systems in early spring,
now like i always said earlier today you know if you went to some of the deep clear lake.
You can hit pre-spawn if you're lucky enough, you know, if the brining's somewhat cool.
I'm even thinking if we keep up the way we're going, I'm thinking those legs
(28:23):
will be in the middle of spawn.
And we thought we had to end the spawn on most of the body's water.
I don't know what's happening there, so we're here.
You know, another thing that I think what's making little things tough,
this brine, too, is that yo-yo, very inconsistent weather.
I mean, we're getting these nights that are like Saturday night when we woke
(28:44):
up Sunday morning, we have frost on our cold cover in the truck.
I mean, the water temperature, it was 61, I think Saturday night and then 55, 56 Sunday morning.
Yeah, I can definitely believe that when I was up north this weekend,
it was, it wasn't very warm.
Well, I mean, first of all, you had a lot of rain up north on Saturday,
(29:04):
but you also had like cooler temperatures overnight. night and warmed up during the day on Sunday.
But you know, overall, it was definitely a cool temperature.
And like you said, I mean, it's weird because everybody was like,
oh man, everything's going to be so far ahead by the time we get to the season.
And here you are talking about still dealing with spawning fish come,
you know, come the opener. Right.
(29:25):
And I always said it too, everything evened out me in general,
a little one way that was evened out, weather wise and everything,
you know, all these floor just was super low all the
way you know everything was super low we didn't have any
snow throughout the year such a crazy winter but then
we got all that rain and everything chilled up and it kind of came back to normal
(29:46):
but you know warmed up really quick but it was like a yo-yo so it warmed up
then it cooled down wound up cool down and it just makes for a tough fight and
it's just they're kind of shattered
kind of scattered i guess so this year too all of a sudden i'm more,
current than i've ever seen out there so they must have had all the dams open.
Brian, how does it become real apparent to you that the fish are maybe still in spawning mode?
(30:10):
I mean, yes, you're seeing some males and you're not seeing the females kind
of participate in them or whatever.
But so that the average guy that isn't real certain, what is the best way to
find out if they're still in the spawn?
What would you say is the best way? Well, for me, I could see them on left side imaging generally.
On side imaging or if you got live, you see them there and off.
(30:33):
I mean, I don't know how many times I'll see them paired up on my side imaging.
You know, two musties swimming together.
But generally, water temp will pretty much tell you. If you get that mid to
upper 50s, you can pretty much guarantee you're going to spawn.
And it doesn't mean you can't catch a big fish, but you're generally going to
just get those smaller males to move.
(30:54):
But that would be my answer to your question, Brad, would be just mainly water
temp. And then if you're good with your side imaging, your lives,
you can see those fish paired up.
Well, you can see with your eyes along the shoreline too, you know,
they'll come swimming right by, they'll see.
But I mean, the number one thing is just the water can.
(31:17):
And those times I said, I would think, I don't know, must be scientists,
but I mean, that's like the starting and they can keep going on from there,
you know, They'll start coming.
So the rut, you know, they have different pods coming into the spawn.
And then especially when you get those different weather, up and down,
up and down, it just holds it.
(31:37):
Slows things down. It's a tough bite, but it's still fun being out,
you know. I'd say water temp would be my biggest.
So let's flip into, you know, after the spawn.
What's your typical idea or thought of fish movement after the spawn?
Well, after the fawn, I mean, this is what I'm finding.
(32:00):
A lot of the bigger females move out, and some of the males will hang out in that area.
We do a lot better on smaller baits. You could fish for walleye or bat,
and we catch a lot of small males.
The females move out, even some of the bigger males.
You can actually catch them, but I always notice, like in the northern part
(32:21):
of our state here, Some of my biggest fish, and I think this is what a lot of
them do to recover, they go out and they'll sit out in the open water to recover.
They'll come on, like on a fan flap or whatever, sun a little bit.
But the end of June, beginning of July, is when they just seem to put the feed
bait on those big females.
(32:41):
That's one of my best times for big females, and a lot of it's in open water.
You find that sand grass, and they're just sitting there putting the feed bait
on. for the moon fairs and all that's for me,
We get a lot of the largest females pretty late in the season.
And I just think they're out there just kind of recovering from the spawn.
(33:02):
But right after the spawn, it's just, you know, small baits and males.
And that's kind of the telltale sign with almost everybody. You know,
you don't see too many big fish after spawn.
I don't know about you, Brad, but you see nothing different.
No, it's always cool. Well, it's always cool to talk to you,
Brian, because a lot of what you do relates so much to what I do over here.
(33:27):
And I would say that you're non-typical when it comes to a lot of anglers throughout
your state, you know, and that's not a bad thing.
I mean, people go to where they catch fish, right? And I think that's important.
But it's always cool to listen and visit
with you about these topics because you do
(33:47):
a lot of the same stuff that i do over here and we've
seen it last year when we were filming in wisconsin for me and
since i was in cap we were going and fishing
kind of like exactly what we were doing here in
minnesota when we left here so i think
there's more similarities than people want to lead on
or believe and it's definitely
(34:09):
right on track to to my system that's for
sure all right awesome awesome but
yeah i don't know how many big
fish coming out of boat in that two-week period i mean
just the end of june and early spring
you know you can get lucky like going like this
weekend we we have caught a lot of big fish on opening
(34:31):
seven opener but every one of them has
been a very cold spring and then it then you got this pre-spawning i'd rather
personally have a warm spring just to enjoy the warmth but for spring fishing
and the opener if we can have a cold string and a pre-spawn i get excited it's
just an exciting time because i know you got a chance at a very big gmail.
(34:54):
Every fish over 45 inches we always
catch uh early season our opener has always been a very cold spring.
In fact, one of the best openers we've ever had.
I think we launched the boat and I seen the water temperature was like 42, 44.
I was like, wow, I've never seen it this cold. I said, this might be a tough weekend.
And I bet you it was my second cast. I lost one. And I think that weekend I
(35:18):
ended up catching like seven and 48 was the largest.
I think three of them were over 45.
So, and that was a cold spring.
Very cold. Obviously the water temperature is still 42, to 44.
You know, Brian, there's a lot of people that, you know, they've been hitting
up Iowa, they've been hitting up Indiana, Kentucky.
(35:39):
Do you get any chances to go chase muskies, any of those places,
before you hit up the Southern Open in Wisconsin?
I have with Keys. You know, we have. And we used to fish the PMTT,
so I would get Kentucky down there.
If we have, then Iowa. Yeah, Iowa.
But generally, lately, I haven't, no. Okay, nothing this season?
(36:02):
Nope, not this season. We talk about it like every year.
Just flies by. It's like, yeah, okay, well, not sure. Brad, you haven't thrown
any musky baits yet this season, have you?
No, actually I haven't. And the biggest reason was due to weather.
I was planning on going, oh, early April, I believe it was.
(36:24):
And both Ohio, PA, West Virginia, they all just got stormed out. I mean, it was nasty.
I'm glad I didn't pull the trigger and go.
I almost threw the dice and gambled on going.
Unfortunately, I didn't go because it got nasty down there.
They had tons and tons of flooding, and I wouldn't have been that happy.
(36:48):
It sounded like it was pretty bad. But I am going to be leaving here in about
a week or so to go try to make up some of that time.
I mean, I'm very anxious, so I will be heading southeast.
That's for sure well it sounds like brian's got some hot spots he can show you
in the in some southern wisconsin flowages absolutely no he's always talking about fishing that brad,
(37:11):
and it was last year i know it's bad brian i mean you've given me the invite
for how many years and i just never seem to make it it's just a weird time of
the year for us you know we're fulfilling filling a bunch of orders and i mean
you could have every excuse in the book right but ultimately,
it's a busy time of the year and so it
(37:34):
makes it a little bit tough but one of these years i'm going to take you up
on it that's for sure no i get it i mean you know the crossing over from winter
to spring if i can get your yard work done you know it's not like you don't
have any baits to make or anything for spring and my my yard work consists of
spraying roundup so i don't have to mow. And if you put in paint in the frayer,
(37:55):
And then, you know, you cut it one time, then you spray it with Roundup,
and you have paint in there, and then the yard just stays green all summer.
It's awesome. Nice. I'm excited.
I actually got a bunch of trees taken down in my backyard, so I don't have much yard left back there.
It's pretty much all grounded up and everything, so it won't be much cutting.
(38:17):
So, Brian, you know, you just went through the southern opener,
and obviously you're having some boat issues, which is no fun.
But if it was a typical season
where you were planning on you know getting
out for the northern opener which you'll probably still get
out on the northern opener either way but how is this spring going to depict
(38:39):
or how this last southern opener what is that going to make you go do on the
northern opener i mean is that part of the equation or is it just kind of i'm
going to go do the same stuff,
or do you think that the Northern Trish versus the Southern opener,
how big a change is that between the two? Hmm.
(39:00):
But, I mean, it all kind of flowed together.
So we're just weeks behind, you know, coming up there. And then obviously our
opener is a few, what, three weeks behind.
As far as what do I take from our spring up to our Northern,
not a ton, but since we are,
(39:21):
further ahead in the Southern opener than a lot of years in past year,
you know, I'm probably going to expect that from a Northern opener.
And with that being said, I'm going to start going into like early summer patterns instead,
of just that colder, you know, small, thinking small, small,
(39:42):
small, small, and sitting small stuff for, you know, in early season.
And I'm going to fix probably some larger bodies of water, and I'm going to
start working on a little deeper.
Than I would on normal spray. That's to start.
I actually will start trying everything, but right away, I'll start that off.
(40:04):
Outside from suspended fish, kind of driving around, look for suspended fish,
and just to find deeper water, deeper weed line.
By then, hopefully my boat's working and I'm out there and I'm doing some scouting,
checking out some weeds and other things, which I'll normally do before the
season starts, so I I would already know where the weed growth is and what's happening.
(40:27):
But theater, obviously, I won't. So I'll be doing that by my opener.
But I will be fitting early season patterns. And that would be using a lot more rubber.
And like I said earlier, you know, just larger baits, larger bucktails.
You know, I'll be using juniors, you know, triggers.
(40:47):
As far as twitch baits, I'll use, you know, 8, 10-inch. and then bigger glide
baits and then running into dive lines.
So, and I'll be fishing a lot, but early summer, deeper water and looking for bait pots.
And then on the flowages, basically, if I know everything's moved forward,
(41:07):
I'll start, instead of going to like my fawning areas where I'd start on a colder,
I'll start moving my way down the flowage going out towards the lake.
You're always going to have some fish, obviously, like we spoke before,
they'll stay up on the dams, but a lot of them will start moving down through
the flow of stable currents and I'll fish more of the break lines coming down,
(41:29):
dump flats on the flow ridges, I'll look at those dump flats,
down river from their spawning areas and even bridges,
any kind of bridges will hold fish as they're moving down,
cold, more of the cold towards the lake that'll hold them as a pit stop to do
a lot of big fish or they're not known to areas if that makes them that answers your question somewhat.
(41:57):
But generally on the lakes i'm gonna i'm gonna start with that really some of
the patterns even some top water but we've done good on top water even on cooler spins but,
once you get these warm things don't be afraid to throw a top water at all we
get that's quite a few fish on topwater.
You just work them a little slower. You don't even want those super aggressive,
(42:17):
whiffing in a loud topwater, which is more of a scuttle, even like flatbills.
Top-style ones, you're just moving real slow, just enough to get a little pop
on them. Is that kind of what you were looking for there?
Yeah, for sure, Brian. You know, one of the things, too, based off of what you're
seeing on that flow, it probably isn't going to be a really good factor.
(42:40):
But do you think that your weed growth is going to be a little bit ahead?
Because I was on the water this weekend as well. We just did some bluegill on.
But I will say that the cabbage looks better than it's looked in forever.
I mean, at this time of the year, it looks really solid. So I'm excited about that.
Do you think most of your water, the weeds kind of survive through the winter
(43:01):
and they're nice and green, or it can't do you itself?
That's a good point there, and most definitely, because I know we hardly had any snow,
so the light penetration was great all year round, with early ice,
you know, so the rivers I fished, because that's all I got to fish for,
the streams, were walleye fishing,
and then like I said, generally, I'll have the boat out on the lakes,
(43:23):
you know, the next few weeks, walleye fish and everything,
I'll see the weed, but so I haven't really traveled on the lakes in the area much,
but from what I heard the outlook in Bay and just from common
knowledge with no snow on the water like I just said and
sun penetration we should have good good wheat
growth this year like really good almost some likes to be scary but then again
(43:46):
you know if we have a really cold May here and it darkens up everything it could
even night out too so come right back to normal life I would imagine the weeds
are going to be really good really
good wheat growth I mean it just makes sense that the winter we had.
And the water, all the water levels are up to normal up north in the northern
(44:06):
west side from here. Should be pretty good.
I'm thinking the wheatgrass will be in there. Should be some nice wheat lines.
Just like you said, what you found. So I'm excited. I was excited to get out.
Hopefully, like I said, the boat doesn't take long and I will have plenty of
time to get out there before the opener.
And I actually have a couple friends that'll take me out.
(44:28):
Well, it's nice to have a couple of friends that are going to bail you out a
little bit, right, Brad?
Yeah, there's no doubt. You could always stop in at the TRO shop there and grab
a boat because, I mean, Jeff probably won't be fishing any.
No, sure. They're not being used. How many boats do you have, Jeff? I got two.
Really? Yeah. You have a Tuffy, right? I got a Tuffy and I got a Lund. Yep. Okay.
(44:52):
If you stop over, though, why don't you put a couple of new locators on the old Lund?
And they're they're sitting there in boxes right there on the floor just waiting to get put on.
Okay well if i don't get my box my boat back i need to
go make a trade i'll put them on there and i'll take it we're probably gonna
want to stick to some smaller water though i wouldn't go take it out on green
bay it might be a little too small for that but that one's pretty much ready
(45:14):
to go ordered up a new battery the other day and some steps for the front of
it i'm spending a little bit of money on that i'm getting old so i want some
steps to get into the boat now because Cause I'm old.
And so, and with the new locators, I figured, eh, probably should have a different
battery just for the locators.
Cause I don't really want to kill the starting battery and be in the middle of somewhere.
Well, I tell you what, two years ago, I put a ladder of steps on my boat.
(45:39):
Game changer. Love them. Yeah. Whenever I go up to fish up in Hayward with Steve,
he's got them on his recon and I'm like, I have to get a pair of these things.
Like it's, they're awesome. them like it's just so much easier getting in and
out of the boat right i got a 521 and i'm gonna,
climb out of that thing i'm like one of you guys one of
these games you're going down and they just buy the stairs put them in there
(46:02):
and it'll be much better and i'm so happy it's so easy to get in and out now
it's just it's unreal yeah definitely need them definitely need them but you
you have them on your boat yeah i put them on last year and the funny thing about that
is it took me about two months
to remember that they were on the front of the boat i kept jumping
(46:23):
out of the back every day but i'll
tell you what it is a lifesaver and it's amazing
how nice they are that's for sure yeah they're
nice they're very nice but so yeah i guess we could you know just for anyone
heading to the you know thinking about the northern opener don't be afraid advice
(46:44):
from you know some of the patterns to get back to what we were talking about
going off subject here but.
Definitely doing some summer pattern fish is not going to hurt.
And I think you've got a chance on a bigger fish too, because like I said,
the spawn will definitely be over by our northern, especially,
you know, looking at the two-week forecast here, nothing super cold.
(47:06):
I'm sure water temperatures are going to be, I would imagine the way we're going should change.
There are more than open also on many of the lakes, besides maybe the deep clear lakes.
The way we're going should be balling spawn.
Definitely don't be afraid to go into some summer patterns, you know,
even, you know, rubber-wise, where they've made dogs and where they do things,
(47:32):
you know, definitely bring your size up.
That's if you want to catch some decent-sized fish.
You can always, you know, use smaller basins, fish in the shallows.
There's always going to be smaller mounds in the shallows, you know.
We kind of always try to concentrate on the bigger fish. There's that same with
the flowages because we always have additional flowages there. So.
(47:56):
What's good, Brad. I'm looking forward to that, to get out there for the Northern opener.
I hope I can get on that Saturday. Cause that's Sunday. My daughter graduates
from high school, so I can't, I can't believe they have graduation on the Sunday
of the Muskie opener in the North, but I. We got a Friday night.
Okay. My stepson's Friday night. I think I'd rather have Friday night.
(48:16):
At least it doesn't screw up the whole weekend.
Like oh for sure sunday's terrible fun is kind of weird yeah it's not an issue
yeah i mean whatever when you only got 900 people in the place i guess you do
whatever you do whatever you want and put it out of sunday apparently.
Yeah, so for the northern opener, too, I kind of get together,
(48:39):
too, and have a bunch of boats.
And we have a get-together Friday night, and then Saturday and Sunday,
kind of have a little mini-tournament.
But it kind of helps getting to the games together, you know,
and figuring out where the fish are, because we all talk, so it's kind of a jump start.
I never really died on the opening weekend.
I have that little party, little mini-tournament kind of thing,
(49:00):
but it kind of helps me get a jump start and we figure them out pretty quickly,
between, you know, 10, 15 boats.
I think I remember talking to you after the Northern Opener one time and you
telling us about this too, that you had that going on up there.
It sounds like a pretty cool deal. Right.
It got pretty big there for a while. One time I put it on Facebook and it got out of hand.
(49:22):
I know we used to have, you know, big giveaways and everything because I think
you were donating, Jeff, and had a couple other looking donations on there but
then it started to be like almost like a job,
it was it took the fun out of it no more so i kind
of quit having it but now i just have kind of
what we call the old g's the original guys a bunch of
(49:44):
old friends and they can figure out a program
pretty good you know patterns come we all talk so yeah
definitely oh it's always good to have you know people you
can that you can trust and and rely on to get good
information out of we don't all have a good group
of people like that but it's awesome when you have it for sure
for sure it is and it does help because you know someone's trying something
(50:07):
somewhere else someone's searching this or i've seen a bunch of fish doing this
or we did that you know and even like this past weekend i know a boat that went
to a smaller body of water in central wisconsin and they had quite a bit of action,
and I would have thought it would have been kind of the opposite.
You know, I thought the forages would have been a little better to rip.
They had some pretty good action. I mean, they got one fish and seen a few other
(50:30):
ones, but I wouldn't even have thought of them going for that lake.
So it's kind of cool when you do have people to talk to and shoot things off,
and everyone's pretty honest.
Definitely network our subject team. I mean, honestly, if you're not networking,
you need to figure it out who you can trust, and definitely just kept the learning curve so quickly.
(50:51):
I mean, we all know that. But finding that kind of group of people is not always
easy, for sure. No, definitely not.
You can usually figure it out pretty quick, though, who's honest and who's just
trying to get information from that.
Absolutely. Wow, crazy. We've been doing it long enough so we know enough,
(51:12):
you know, to get them glad.
And you know the right people.
It's a huge benefit. There's no question.
So, Brian, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on the southern opener.
And obviously, we got a lot of northern opener, too. So, if you're fishing either
south or north, we got something there for you this week.
If people are looking to get in touch with you to come out fishing with you
(51:35):
this season, how do they go about doing that? You can contact me.
Actually, go right to my website, shearforoutdoors.com. And there's an email on that.
You can call me at 920-915-2650. to, and see if we can get you on some fish here.
Well, I mean, they're pretty booked up already, but you know,
(51:57):
we can make some time this time of year. So.
Well, Brian, I know that you're on them often, and so it'd be worthwhile for
many people to, to get in the boat with you this season, I'm sure it would help
shorten their learning curve if that's something they're into as well.
Want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in for another episode of Backlash
Podcast and we'll be back with a new episode again next week when.
(52:17):
Music.
Music.
(00:05):
Welcome to another episode of Backlash Podcast.
This week we're going to talk to Brian Schaefer, Schaefer Outdoors,
and we're going to talk about southern muskies in Wisconsin,
northern muskies in Wisconsin, and that's pretty much what we cover.
We talk about what happened this past weekend, which was, spoiler alert, not that great.
And we talk about what we can maybe expect moving forward based off of what
(00:29):
Brian saw on the water this weekend, which is, it's just good to be talking
to people that are actually out fishing, Brad.
I mean I'm super excited about this upcoming season
I think it's going to be a good one for a lot of reasons I know
it didn't start out with a bang for many anglers it seems but
I think all that will change in the coming weeks I think we just got to get
(00:49):
on track and I think it'll be a great start a great season I'm very hopeful
for that I'm not very hopeful for my time on the water but you know that's that's
a whole different problem like that's one issue at a time right Yeah, absolutely.
But, you know, it's kind of interesting. I mean, I've talked to a few different
people that were out during the Southern Opener. And honestly,
(01:12):
I would say that the majority, it looks like it was pretty tough all in all.
But ultimately, I mean, there's always a few guys catching fish.
And that is something that you can say on the same body of water on any weekend, right?
Somebody's always into the fish. And it's interesting to listen to Brian's perspectives on it.
And he's done it for a long time, right, Jeff? So with some of his mechanical
(01:36):
problems and everything else, but at the end of the day, he learned some stuff
on the water this weekend. He's going to share it.
Yeah. It's like you said, he's been doing it for a while. I mean, things change.
I'm just, it's interesting to me how it had, we'd done a podcast specifically
on what we thought was going to happen for the Southern opener.
(01:56):
I'm sure that we would have all agreed back in, I don't know, early March.
That things would have been way ahead of schedule but i
mean i i don't feel that they're that far ahead of
schedule they're slightly ahead maybe and i think
that potentially caused things to be slightly tougher
because lately people have been dealing with we'll call them pre-spawn
(02:17):
muskies and now we're dealing with spawning
muskies i would say in many cases so created a
few different difficulties i believe for many anglers but yeah
give it a week two weeks that that'll be
past it and life will be good again yeah it
doesn't surprise me in the least honestly uh it's
something that i know i've said in the podcast the last couple weeks because
(02:39):
mother nature always evens the keel right i mean it you might say this or that
but at the end of the day it always seems to come full circle so quite quite
bizarre how it works but that's what they've played.
I mean like i said it's just good to be
talking to people that are out chasing muskies now and we're not i
(03:01):
mean we would have to talk to people that were fishing in iowa indiana kentucky
blah blah blah all that stuff pennsylvania and now we can talk to people in
and because the majority of our listeners are listening in wisconsin and minnesota
and illinois and so and and that's what we can talk to half of wisconsin's ready
to go illinois has been fishing for a while northern Northern Wisconsin opens
(03:21):
up here shortly and we go,
what, a week or what do you, is that what it is?
A week after the Northern opener for Wisconsin, we go to Minnesota opener.
Is that right? First weekend in June?
That is correct. It's always the first Saturday in June.
And then from there, I mean, you're right into the Canadian opener a week later.
(03:42):
So it's tough. It's happening, man. It's knocking on the door, right?
Yeah. Well, it's, it's crazy. and i'm sure
if we rewound other podcasts we've done you just
think about time and how fast time goes like it's felt like
you know early december and we're worried about show
season here we are we're like into the muskie season now it's unbelievable how
(04:04):
fast time goes and then i mean next thing you know we're the next thing we're
talking about spawning muskies now and in a blink of an eye we're gonna be talking
about turnover just that quick it's it's it seriously is mind.
It truly is, Jeff. And I think that's the importance.
A season can flip by really quick. So you can't waste any time.
(04:26):
You got to be on the water and that's how you catch these fish.
You know, it's time on the water and make the best use of your time.
Make sure you get out there and pound that water and you're going to put fish in the boat.
Hopefully you are unless you're me come on all
right i'll try to do the best i can make use of this season
i know it's gonna be a little sporadic here to start the season out but i
(04:48):
do have a few things you know a few trips
we'll call them they're not real trips but i'm gonna go up to my camper and
i'm gonna go fishing with a couple guides and so it'll life will be good here
at some point in june i just got to do it during the week because my weekdays
are weekends are scheduled with baseball so i opened up the camper this past
weekend brad so that was fun i mean i I was up there and cleaned up a couple
(05:10):
of mouse, a couple of mice,
a mouse and some, some feces.
That was fun. That's pretty typical for spring up there, but it's good to have it going.
At least now, if I, you know, when the season opens, I'm ready to go.
We can, we can head on up there. I'm going to try to get up there one more time
yet and do a little more cleanup on the exterior.
So we're a hundred percent ready to go, but yeah, things are looking good up there too.
(05:33):
It's water wise. They've gotten a lot of water up in Northern Wisconsin. That's for sure.
Did you end up putting the boat in or no? No, I don't even have,
I couldn't even get my boat out of the garage right now if I wanted to.
I was just kind of curious if you've seen a water temp and kind of what's going on there.
I will say that Terry and I made it out yesterday and we were just kind of cruising
(05:57):
around doing some pan fishing.
I would say that the weed growth looked very, very promising and that's good news, I think.
It's definitely going to play to a couple different things for our opener here in minnesota so.
Anyway we'll see where that goes in the next couple weeks i will
keep everybody clued in on what i'm seeing on the
water as i'm out and we'll go from there and you can guarantee that we're going
(06:21):
to do a podcast or two with some people from minnesota we're obviously going
to find a couple people to highlight northern wisconsin opener obviously we
did a little bit of it today but we'll wait a we'll wait another week or so
we'll definitely be doing some previews on all
those openers we'll preview the canadian opener kind of what to expect try to get people,
excited for those openers as well but brad
(06:43):
i think let's just quick do our 30 seconds this week
of you know what they can where they can find some gear and then
we'll jump into our conversation with brian so if you're
looking for musky fishing gear go check out team
rhino outdoors.com that's your source for everything musky
related if you want the latest gear year check us
out rods reels nets tackle boxes custom lures you can find it all there and
(07:06):
brad jump into musky mayhem tackle yeah real quick and easy musky mayhem tackle
the originator flashabou big bladed bait and you can check us out at mutackle.com
all right style up this week's conversation.
All right. Our guest this week is Brian Schaefer, Schaefer Outdoors.
(07:29):
Many people would also see him on Keys Outdoors.
Brian, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk muskies with us.
And in this particular case, we're going to talk about what did or didn't happen
for the Southern Muskie Opener that just took place a couple of days ago.
Well, thanks for having me again, guys.
Yeah. I mean, I actually did a little bit of homework. It's been since episode
(07:51):
184, which was August 24th of 2022 since we talked to you. So we're long overdue
to hear from you. So thank you.
So that was not the one with Key?
No, I think that was by yourself. The ones I saw that we did with you and Keys,
those were even farther back than that.
They were like episode 30, 20, 30, somewhere in there. Gotcha. Oh, okay.
(08:16):
So let's talk about it a little bit. You know, we just got off the Southern Opener.
And from the reports i had heard it seems a little spotty i wouldn't say i didn't
see anybody or hear of anybody or talk to anybody that had a really phenomenal
opener let's talk about it with you how was yours,
(08:39):
I was in the same boat. Actually, I'll get a little personal there, how my opener started.
In the morning, I was kind of running a little late on Friday.
We wanted to get to the river and just check it out, check the appearance,
check the water flow, the colors, a couple of spots, check them out.
And I ended up stubbing, slipping, stubbing my toe and breaking,
(09:01):
probably breaking my pinky toe.
So that kind of angered me. And so I finally got on the road,
literally just cleaned up the bow, had it all darkened, running down the road.
There's some construction just south of Tomahawk here. I took the wrong turn
and ended up going down that muddy road for three miles where you couldn't even
see the color of my boat anymore.
(09:22):
So I'm pretty happy about that. And then by the time I finally made it to the
fluid, I put the boat in, she started right up. I've had it all quite a few
times this year while I was fishing in the river up there.
Everything was working fine. She started right up. I parked her on the dock,
walked up, parked the truck, walked back down, and she was dead.
(09:44):
I had that thing running, sure. Fred started her up, she went in, doing her thing.
So I'm thinking a pump or an intake or something.
I'm going to hook it up to a computer and see, but she was dead.
That's a yeah that's a real kick in
the balls yeah so i got the fifth with
(10:05):
my chicken motor and a trolling motor all these days kind of stayed pretty
close obviously yeah so there's a bunch of us we fished the central wisconsin
flowages there and you know from highway 10 south there's 10 dams below the
highway 10 on the south river there so there's quite a few flowages of fish
we We concentrated on some of the bigger ones up there,
(10:27):
and this past opener,
she was tough. It was a tough opener.
So between the 10, 12 bullets we had there, there wasn't one legal fish caught.
So that killed her. Oh, she was with us.
I heard a couple different fish being caught through the systems and all that,
(10:49):
but they were all pretty small males.
And even everyone I talked to throughout Southern Wisconsin,
you know, I didn't get too many decent fights there. A lot of smaller ones.
Well, do you have a hypothesis as to, you know, what was going on here?
I would have to say we were starting our dead snack in the middle of spawn.
(11:12):
We had, for water camps, we were having anywhere from 56 to 61 degrees.
And they just weren't moving.
We moved a few fish and,
Lost one on Saturday, but the few, even the guys that had gifts,
they're all just small mix, and they're all small mills.
(11:32):
But yeah, I'm thinking it was just Mack Mineral, the small thing.
They're both water temps, you know, that's mid-50s. 51 was when it was.
You know, sort of, you know, thought it was like 75 there.
There and i mean that being the surface and all
those flowages you know amberbell shallow water
(11:53):
so they warm up very quickly but it's still the surface that
that was at 61 well i would assume you
know we've gotten a lot of rain recently and we did have
a bunch of cool nights so i'm assuming that didn't help but i would
actually say like this is maybe i don't
know we'll call normal kind of because of the fact that like
we've had so many late springs that i'm thinking a lot of
(12:14):
these openers you guys are actually fishing like pre-spawn muskies and
that's why some of these larger fish are showing we're you know we're
showing up in previous seasons because we kind of talked about a little
bit i mean you've actually had better when you
have a cold spring you actually have better southern openers right you're
100 correct and i'll say that every year i mean
a lot of guys like oh it should be going up i personally
(12:35):
love cold springs cold springs and then i always we
always get into that pre-spawn and that's the time to get the pre-spawn i'm
not you know you know all the larger
fish i've ever gotten starting open on the openers
down there have been really cold springs and cold water temps
so i guess on the plus side moving forward to northern wisconsin because i would
(12:56):
assume that those fish i mean we have you know we have this division between
north and south but realistically water temperatures in a lot of cases aren't
that much different especially this year because we lost ice so early everywhere that i I mean.
I would imagine there's not a huge difference. Is that probably what you've seen?
Because you said you've been on the water walleye fishing up north.
Is that kind of what's going on up there? I mean, water temperatures are similar? Right.
(13:20):
Well, I was on the river here in town, and it was pretty similar.
You're correct. But, I mean, I'm sure it's been a little deeper to the lakes and a lot cooler.
But by the time I open up, you know, they're going to still be fairly close on the darker waters.
It's still clear waters. That'll be, you know, quite cooler.
And that, those are your chance that didn't maybe a pre-spawn fair,
(13:42):
you know, on a northern opener too.
Right. Some of that deep at carry water. Yep. That's going to be really good.
It scares a lot of people away, but it can be good.
Yeah. I would imagine if you're fishing, you know, smaller, darker bodies of
water up north, it'd probably likely be past the spawn by the time we get up
there, which I mean, that's, you know, in, in most cases, I'd say that's probably a good thing.
(14:05):
Right. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. It generally always is right at the tail
end of spawn or right after spawn. Unless, again, it's a very cold spring.
Then we get caught in spawn. But very rarely on normal lakes up in northern
Wisconsin do we get free spawn.
And lots like that ship don't deep for everybody's water.
So since you had 12 boats out with very little success.
(14:29):
There's some. I mean, but it happens, right? I mean, that's the. No, it happens.
Real life. I was going to say, unfortunately, that's the cruel reality of muskie fishing.
It's not all, you know, large fish pictures like you see on Instagram and Facebook.
You know, like it's good to get the reality of it, right?
I mean, and this is a dose of reality. You don't catch them every time you go out fishing.
(14:50):
There was a lot of good to fix out of those 12 bullets too. So it was tough. It was a tough bite.
You got to fish it. It's lucky for you. Good job.
But let's talk about baits. you know what
kind of baits did you guys had have out there and like what
was the thought process behind what you guys were choosing to throw well
it seemed like this pad week and glide bait with a
(15:12):
ticket and small fares but generally i
look at cooler weather i always
think you do better on glide baits and then the warmer
the spring i seem to have better action on
twitch baits this year obviously it
was a little warmer but it was kind of
backwards from what i thought the glide weights were out
(15:32):
fishing the twitch bait at least for everyone in our group so but just past
weekend smaller tails we had all of our action the fish we lost with them was
on small tails actually jackrabbit and the fingernails and riddle okay and then
glide base the blunt nose nose.
If you want to get the, my glide rate, I like to use on this really since the,
(15:55):
uh, the guide, the one hole, those get a little deeper.
And then the phantoms, if you
want to keep your bait up a little higher in the column, use a phantom.
And then if you want to get it a little deeper, use a blunt nose.
Same action between the two, but the phantom, he's thin, a little higher in the water power.
And the biggest deal with using with the glide baits is that you really want
(16:18):
to do very erratic with that.
And almost that, you know, if you have twitch baits and all baits,
you really need to be a little erratic, a little slow erratic,
but keeping it at a pause. That's the key.
Well, let's talk. So you were talking twitch baits versus glide baits.
A lot of people would say, yeah, those are kind of similar.
But what do you think the difference is? I mean, is it because,
(16:39):
like, on a glide bait, maybe you're throwing longer pauses in?
Like, what's the cadence, I guess, on the two of them that makes a difference? Right?
For quick bait, I'm kind of popping them down and let them float up,
popping them down. And I think the glide baits is just that side-to-side action.
Even, like, on topwater baits, you know, you get a cold front,
those walk-the-dog topwater baits seem to shine.
(17:02):
And I think it's the same with glide baits, too, in the cold weather,
you know, the cold springs.
Just that side-to-side action just triggers
them and then if you get it erratic with a pause in there that generally they'll
just come up and just suffer down so and
then for twitch baits in the spring i'm kind of just popping them down and you
know twitch let them float up popping them down and it's just i think it's just
(17:26):
that action so but in the past like i said twitch baits warmer strains of blood
baits always find but this year is kind of different but it's not,
we didn't have a ton of action so I can't guarantee you know all it was so but
in our boat and a few other guys I thought there was some thing.
And generally when we're getting more action on bucktails too that's kind of showing you,
(17:50):
Smaller bucktails showing that they're going. Little dicky things,
you know. The muzzle of which is what?
One inch. How big is that jack rat?
It's probably about five inches. Wouldn't you say, Rich?
Yeah, probably four and a half or something like that. I mean,
it all depends on the marabou ties.
(18:11):
A lot of times that marabou stacks up and it kind of pushes up against the wire.
So it just depends. But yeah, right in that same ballpark.
I do know that I talked to Herbie a little bit yesterday, and he mentioned that
he was throwing jackrabbits as well, and he's had some success.
I know he caught three or four different fish on.
(18:31):
So that one was a good one, which kind of made me happy because it's not normally
what you hear for the Southern Wisconsin opener.
So that's good news. I mean, it sounds like the blade bite was pretty decent.
Yeah, that's what we lost the fish on. so they followed the glide bay we i had
(18:51):
the one up on i think it was a blunt nose and then we came back down the window
and it struck the tail that next to the boat kind of jumped and it was off so,
i heard the dams are going to be really hot you
want to cast on a dam all day yeah that's
i was just going to say you got to be one of those guys that really wants to
(19:12):
hang out or own a dam all day i don't that's not if you
if you're on a river system and they have a dam on the
river system that's a perfect place to go to try to catch a
muskie assuming you want to hang out there all day exactly and
you know you hang out there all day but it's not sure if they're there
it's a matter of time so but i'm not i'm not i don't dig the dam so you know
(19:33):
in those damn situations they're there for a reason right i mean a lot of times
they're there to feed and so you You just got to wait for a lot of those instances
for active fish to come in and feed and have your bait there at the same time.
I mean, and like you said, you want to hang out there all day long.
You could probably catch one doing that.
That's good. You know, and they're, they're you around too. You can always catch fish.
(19:56):
It's not for me. It's not the type of fishing I like to do.
But it was a little tougher for us this year. You know, obviously I had the,
oh, I went to throwing more than a triple mortar.
So I didn't really get, cause I had all my slots kind of stayed pretty close.
In return it actually makes you fish a little slower in the early pound areas
so what was the structure that you were trying to attack at this point in the season structure,
(20:21):
generally when we're fishing these flowages any cut
type of wood down trees stumps you
know just any gut tree laying in the
water it always don't fit it's a
current break your one thing and it warms up
and so that was our number one ticket
for finding fish and that's kind of held steady
(20:43):
through all of our boats here you know all the fish that removed are
saying we're around wood one of
one of the muskies we had were on a current break off a
point that's one thing i want to say about the dams right
or not the bands but the floor which is down there right now there's heavy
currents because all the rain we did have up north generally it
can snow but we had a lot of rain so they're crossing a lot
(21:04):
of water through there so areas that you couldn't even tell there was a current
this year you could have for a seed where the water moving through it so current
breaks we're looking for because that held a lot of bait we'd get to any kind
of plant break any point any tree that had some kind of break on it and it'll
just be piles of bait around there,
and then rip rap i didn't get the first handy because of course i didn't have a motor to get,
(21:28):
rip-rap, rocky walls, generally cold heat.
And there are a lot of fish actually cruising up on the sandbars.
So those would be the four areas I would look for.
And as far as the wood, the best wood we look for are dead old trees coming
down and if you've got some kind of deeper water channel, pull through to it.
(21:49):
So it's coming in and out into the deep water.
If we find it out and it's only a foot of water, you could find one there,
but the deeper structure next to the current breaks with the channel coming
right next to the wood, it's going to be the best trees you're going to find.
Those are by far the best structures we were looking for in the forages that we were fishing.
(22:14):
Every one has its own, you know, two or three or six, fifth is a little different,
but just timing that wood down trees with a channel next to it,
it's going to be a best bet.
Is that pretty typical year year to year brian yes yep that even when the cold
springs warm springs everything that that that wood goes down freeze next to
(22:36):
a panel of five five times best,
there's not a ton of weeds in those in those these areas it's all wood and and down trees so,
and the weeds you do have a lot of these origins are
kind of just crap you need that a newer shallow because the
water is dark is that tambo brown now is
(22:57):
that something that you look for too brian is that what you're
normally looking for i mean are you looking at water clarity is that why you're
going to a flood or i mean what is the option for you picking a spot to fish
on opener um well in years past i used to run south to uh pewaukee lake and
hit pewaukee because i I kind of grew up down there, so I fished Milwaukee a lot.
(23:20):
But then we started fishing the Florida up north, and I was just catching bigger fish.
So basically, more just the bigger fish, less boat traffic, less fishermen,
although it is starting to get a little more popular in those areas.
But there's still plenty of places to go where you won't see anybody.
But mainly just the fish size and just sitting away from boat traffic, fishermen.
(23:43):
But I don't really go there for—it's all pretty much the same world.
It's all 30, you know, it's all amber brown.
You get up to the Wisconsin River up in northern South and it's more of a root beer.
So it's not that I'm checking water clarity, but mainly I'm checking,
you know, the water temperature level, you know, just checking out,
seeing if I can see any spawning fish and how the structure is laid out.
(24:07):
Because every year, you know, the water rises, lowers,
and then stumps will move, trees will move, and just checking out if there's
new ones, old trees check them out there but yeah just for that reason basically
just bigger fish and bow trappers,
Now, does that affect kind of what you do throughout the rest of the season as well?
(24:29):
I mean, are you definitely trying to stay away from some of that boat traffic?
You know, as the weeks progress here, it always seems like opener is like the big team, right?
Everybody's a must-see angler on opener. Right.
So, or does that not really become part of the equation? Are you trying to escape that pressure?
Meaning throughout the year? Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, in the next couple, three weeks here.
(24:57):
Well, my next couple, three weeks, I might not have a boat.
But generally, no, it doesn't really bother me all that much.
And even on the forage there, it really surprised me on how many boats that
were out there were just walleye fishermen when the walleye fishing then opened,
you know, opening around on the river there.
So it kind of surprised me. But there are, you know, I've been fishing there
(25:22):
since I was a kid also, and it's hard if you warm up, but that's true in everybody
longer nowadays, you know.
Even some of your quieter lakes have, you know, a lot of guys fishing it nowadays.
There's nothing to include anymore. I won't argue.
I won't argue that, that's for sure. But one of the things, I guess,
(25:43):
you know, as you go into the rest of the season or maybe even the Northern Open,
do you relate to what you learned here on the Southern Open for the Northern
Open, or does that not even play into the factor?
But if it does, you know, what are you going to do from that point? Right.
Really, normally it really doesn't, because things can change,
(26:06):
you know, in the meantime.
Time and it's just not in
northern Wisconsin until the central and even
southern Wisconsin is totally different totally different
you know as I said they all have their own characteristics and kind
of rivers and the forages up here and then I'll be fishing right so they're
going to dip it all up completely different the watercolor everything so what
(26:27):
happens in our southern opener I really don't carry through I mean some of the
baits the lure selections I will because dry baits and foot bait,
bucktail work year round, and especially in the spring, no matter where you are.
The only thing different, once I come up to northern Wisconsin,
I generally kind of up-size them depending on the spring and the weather conditions and water temps.
(26:54):
But this time, even in southern Wisconsin, I'll use bigger twitch baits and whatnot.
But generally in the northern Wisconsin and northern over there,
I'm using the same selection of baits, but just up, you know,
a little larger size baits.
But that answers your question for at least the spring openers.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'm just kind of curious, you know,
(27:17):
what you learned from that southern opener.
What I was wondering is if you relate that to choosing a different body of water
for the northern opener and so on and so forth. But I think you answered that pretty well.
I always generally start my opener to always start out some kind of flowage
a river and for the same reason I guess this is kind of goes right back to the
(27:39):
question that I find to catch bigger fish on the floor just early.
For some reason they're either they move on quicker after the spawn or you get
that pre-spawn you know i'm always hoping for pre-spawn and southern opener
and put the northern opener,
you're generally at fauna right after it and you got a chance with a decent sized fish too so,
(28:01):
but i always seem to get larger fish out of the forage systems in early spring,
now like i always said earlier today you know if you went to some of the deep clear lake.
You can hit pre-spawn if you're lucky enough, you know, if the brining's somewhat cool.
I'm even thinking if we keep up the way we're going, I'm thinking those legs
(28:23):
will be in the middle of spawn.
And we thought we had to end the spawn on most of the body's water.
I don't know what's happening there, so we're here.
You know, another thing that I think what's making little things tough,
this brine, too, is that yo-yo, very inconsistent weather.
I mean, we're getting these nights that are like Saturday night when we woke
(28:44):
up Sunday morning, we have frost on our cold cover in the truck.
I mean, the water temperature, it was 61, I think Saturday night and then 55, 56 Sunday morning.
Yeah, I can definitely believe that when I was up north this weekend,
it was, it wasn't very warm.
Well, I mean, first of all, you had a lot of rain up north on Saturday,
(29:04):
but you also had like cooler temperatures overnight. night and warmed up during the day on Sunday.
But you know, overall, it was definitely a cool temperature.
And like you said, I mean, it's weird because everybody was like,
oh man, everything's going to be so far ahead by the time we get to the season.
And here you are talking about still dealing with spawning fish come,
you know, come the opener. Right.
(29:25):
And I always said it too, everything evened out me in general,
a little one way that was evened out, weather wise and everything,
you know, all these floor just was super low all the
way you know everything was super low we didn't have any
snow throughout the year such a crazy winter but then
we got all that rain and everything chilled up and it kind of came back to normal
(29:46):
but you know warmed up really quick but it was like a yo-yo so it warmed up
then it cooled down wound up cool down and it just makes for a tough fight and
it's just they're kind of shattered
kind of scattered i guess so this year too all of a sudden i'm more,
current than i've ever seen out there so they must have had all the dams open.
Brian, how does it become real apparent to you that the fish are maybe still in spawning mode?
(30:10):
I mean, yes, you're seeing some males and you're not seeing the females kind
of participate in them or whatever.
But so that the average guy that isn't real certain, what is the best way to
find out if they're still in the spawn?
What would you say is the best way? Well, for me, I could see them on left side imaging generally.
On side imaging or if you got live, you see them there and off.
(30:33):
I mean, I don't know how many times I'll see them paired up on my side imaging.
You know, two musties swimming together.
But generally, water temp will pretty much tell you. If you get that mid to
upper 50s, you can pretty much guarantee you're going to spawn.
And it doesn't mean you can't catch a big fish, but you're generally going to
just get those smaller males to move.
(30:54):
But that would be my answer to your question, Brad, would be just mainly water
temp. And then if you're good with your side imaging, your lives,
you can see those fish paired up.
Well, you can see with your eyes along the shoreline too, you know,
they'll come swimming right by, they'll see.
But I mean, the number one thing is just the water can.
(31:17):
And those times I said, I would think, I don't know, must be scientists,
but I mean, that's like the starting and they can keep going on from there,
you know, They'll start coming.
So the rut, you know, they have different pods coming into the spawn.
And then especially when you get those different weather, up and down,
up and down, it just holds it.
(31:37):
Slows things down. It's a tough bite, but it's still fun being out,
you know. I'd say water temp would be my biggest.
So let's flip into, you know, after the spawn.
What's your typical idea or thought of fish movement after the spawn?
Well, after the fawn, I mean, this is what I'm finding.
(32:00):
A lot of the bigger females move out, and some of the males will hang out in that area.
We do a lot better on smaller baits. You could fish for walleye or bat,
and we catch a lot of small males.
The females move out, even some of the bigger males.
You can actually catch them, but I always notice, like in the northern part
(32:21):
of our state here, Some of my biggest fish, and I think this is what a lot of
them do to recover, they go out and they'll sit out in the open water to recover.
They'll come on, like on a fan flap or whatever, sun a little bit.
But the end of June, beginning of July, is when they just seem to put the feed
bait on those big females.
(32:41):
That's one of my best times for big females, and a lot of it's in open water.
You find that sand grass, and they're just sitting there putting the feed bait
on. for the moon fairs and all that's for me,
We get a lot of the largest females pretty late in the season.
And I just think they're out there just kind of recovering from the spawn.
(33:02):
But right after the spawn, it's just, you know, small baits and males.
And that's kind of the telltale sign with almost everybody. You know,
you don't see too many big fish after spawn.
I don't know about you, Brad, but you see nothing different.
No, it's always cool. Well, it's always cool to talk to you,
Brian, because a lot of what you do relates so much to what I do over here.
(33:27):
And I would say that you're non-typical when it comes to a lot of anglers throughout
your state, you know, and that's not a bad thing.
I mean, people go to where they catch fish, right? And I think that's important.
But it's always cool to listen and visit
with you about these topics because you do
(33:47):
a lot of the same stuff that i do over here and we've
seen it last year when we were filming in wisconsin for me and
since i was in cap we were going and fishing
kind of like exactly what we were doing here in
minnesota when we left here so i think
there's more similarities than people want to lead on
or believe and it's definitely
(34:09):
right on track to to my system that's for
sure all right awesome awesome but
yeah i don't know how many big
fish coming out of boat in that two-week period i mean
just the end of june and early spring
you know you can get lucky like going like this
weekend we we have caught a lot of big fish on opening
(34:31):
seven opener but every one of them has
been a very cold spring and then it then you got this pre-spawning i'd rather
personally have a warm spring just to enjoy the warmth but for spring fishing
and the opener if we can have a cold string and a pre-spawn i get excited it's
just an exciting time because i know you got a chance at a very big gmail.
(34:54):
Every fish over 45 inches we always
catch uh early season our opener has always been a very cold spring.
In fact, one of the best openers we've ever had.
I think we launched the boat and I seen the water temperature was like 42, 44.
I was like, wow, I've never seen it this cold. I said, this might be a tough weekend.
And I bet you it was my second cast. I lost one. And I think that weekend I
(35:18):
ended up catching like seven and 48 was the largest.
I think three of them were over 45.
So, and that was a cold spring.
Very cold. Obviously the water temperature is still 42, to 44.
You know, Brian, there's a lot of people that, you know, they've been hitting
up Iowa, they've been hitting up Indiana, Kentucky.
(35:39):
Do you get any chances to go chase muskies, any of those places,
before you hit up the Southern Open in Wisconsin?
I have with Keys. You know, we have. And we used to fish the PMTT,
so I would get Kentucky down there.
If we have, then Iowa. Yeah, Iowa.
But generally, lately, I haven't, no. Okay, nothing this season?
(36:02):
Nope, not this season. We talk about it like every year.
Just flies by. It's like, yeah, okay, well, not sure. Brad, you haven't thrown
any musky baits yet this season, have you?
No, actually I haven't. And the biggest reason was due to weather.
I was planning on going, oh, early April, I believe it was.
(36:24):
And both Ohio, PA, West Virginia, they all just got stormed out. I mean, it was nasty.
I'm glad I didn't pull the trigger and go.
I almost threw the dice and gambled on going.
Unfortunately, I didn't go because it got nasty down there.
They had tons and tons of flooding, and I wouldn't have been that happy.
(36:48):
It sounded like it was pretty bad. But I am going to be leaving here in about
a week or so to go try to make up some of that time.
I mean, I'm very anxious, so I will be heading southeast.
That's for sure well it sounds like brian's got some hot spots he can show you
in the in some southern wisconsin flowages absolutely no he's always talking about fishing that brad,
(37:11):
and it was last year i know it's bad brian i mean you've given me the invite
for how many years and i just never seem to make it it's just a weird time of
the year for us you know we're fulfilling filling a bunch of orders and i mean
you could have every excuse in the book right but ultimately,
it's a busy time of the year and so it
(37:34):
makes it a little bit tough but one of these years i'm going to take you up
on it that's for sure no i get it i mean you know the crossing over from winter
to spring if i can get your yard work done you know it's not like you don't
have any baits to make or anything for spring and my my yard work consists of
spraying roundup so i don't have to mow. And if you put in paint in the frayer,
(37:55):
And then, you know, you cut it one time, then you spray it with Roundup,
and you have paint in there, and then the yard just stays green all summer.
It's awesome. Nice. I'm excited.
I actually got a bunch of trees taken down in my backyard, so I don't have much yard left back there.
It's pretty much all grounded up and everything, so it won't be much cutting.
(38:17):
So, Brian, you know, you just went through the southern opener,
and obviously you're having some boat issues, which is no fun.
But if it was a typical season
where you were planning on you know getting
out for the northern opener which you'll probably still get
out on the northern opener either way but how is this spring going to depict
(38:39):
or how this last southern opener what is that going to make you go do on the
northern opener i mean is that part of the equation or is it just kind of i'm
going to go do the same stuff,
or do you think that the Northern Trish versus the Southern opener,
how big a change is that between the two? Hmm.
(39:00):
But, I mean, it all kind of flowed together.
So we're just weeks behind, you know, coming up there. And then obviously our
opener is a few, what, three weeks behind.
As far as what do I take from our spring up to our Northern,
not a ton, but since we are,
(39:21):
further ahead in the Southern opener than a lot of years in past year,
you know, I'm probably going to expect that from a Northern opener.
And with that being said, I'm going to start going into like early summer patterns instead,
of just that colder, you know, small, thinking small, small,
(39:42):
small, small, and sitting small stuff for, you know, in early season.
And I'm going to fix probably some larger bodies of water, and I'm going to
start working on a little deeper.
Than I would on normal spray. That's to start.
I actually will start trying everything, but right away, I'll start that off.
(40:04):
Outside from suspended fish, kind of driving around, look for suspended fish,
and just to find deeper water, deeper weed line.
By then, hopefully my boat's working and I'm out there and I'm doing some scouting,
checking out some weeds and other things, which I'll normally do before the
season starts, so I I would already know where the weed growth is and what's happening.
(40:27):
But theater, obviously, I won't. So I'll be doing that by my opener.
But I will be fitting early season patterns. And that would be using a lot more rubber.
And like I said earlier, you know, just larger baits, larger bucktails.
You know, I'll be using juniors, you know, triggers.
(40:47):
As far as twitch baits, I'll use, you know, 8, 10-inch. and then bigger glide
baits and then running into dive lines.
So, and I'll be fishing a lot, but early summer, deeper water and looking for bait pots.
And then on the flowages, basically, if I know everything's moved forward,
(41:07):
I'll start, instead of going to like my fawning areas where I'd start on a colder,
I'll start moving my way down the flowage going out towards the lake.
You're always going to have some fish, obviously, like we spoke before,
they'll stay up on the dams, but a lot of them will start moving down through
the flow of stable currents and I'll fish more of the break lines coming down,
(41:29):
dump flats on the flow ridges, I'll look at those dump flats,
down river from their spawning areas and even bridges,
any kind of bridges will hold fish as they're moving down,
cold, more of the cold towards the lake that'll hold them as a pit stop to do
a lot of big fish or they're not known to areas if that makes them that answers your question somewhat.
(41:57):
But generally on the lakes i'm gonna i'm gonna start with that really some of
the patterns even some top water but we've done good on top water even on cooler spins but,
once you get these warm things don't be afraid to throw a top water at all we
get that's quite a few fish on topwater.
You just work them a little slower. You don't even want those super aggressive,
(42:17):
whiffing in a loud topwater, which is more of a scuttle, even like flatbills.
Top-style ones, you're just moving real slow, just enough to get a little pop
on them. Is that kind of what you were looking for there?
Yeah, for sure, Brian. You know, one of the things, too, based off of what you're
seeing on that flow, it probably isn't going to be a really good factor.
(42:40):
But do you think that your weed growth is going to be a little bit ahead?
Because I was on the water this weekend as well. We just did some bluegill on.
But I will say that the cabbage looks better than it's looked in forever.
I mean, at this time of the year, it looks really solid. So I'm excited about that.
Do you think most of your water, the weeds kind of survive through the winter
(43:01):
and they're nice and green, or it can't do you itself?
That's a good point there, and most definitely, because I know we hardly had any snow,
so the light penetration was great all year round, with early ice,
you know, so the rivers I fished, because that's all I got to fish for,
the streams, were walleye fishing,
and then like I said, generally, I'll have the boat out on the lakes,
(43:23):
you know, the next few weeks, walleye fish and everything,
I'll see the weed, but so I haven't really traveled on the lakes in the area much,
but from what I heard the outlook in Bay and just from common
knowledge with no snow on the water like I just said and
sun penetration we should have good good wheat
growth this year like really good almost some likes to be scary but then again
(43:46):
you know if we have a really cold May here and it darkens up everything it could
even night out too so come right back to normal life I would imagine the weeds
are going to be really good really
good wheat growth I mean it just makes sense that the winter we had.
And the water, all the water levels are up to normal up north in the northern
(44:06):
west side from here. Should be pretty good.
I'm thinking the wheatgrass will be in there. Should be some nice wheat lines.
Just like you said, what you found. So I'm excited. I was excited to get out.
Hopefully, like I said, the boat doesn't take long and I will have plenty of
time to get out there before the opener.
And I actually have a couple friends that'll take me out.
(44:28):
Well, it's nice to have a couple of friends that are going to bail you out a
little bit, right, Brad?
Yeah, there's no doubt. You could always stop in at the TRO shop there and grab
a boat because, I mean, Jeff probably won't be fishing any.
No, sure. They're not being used. How many boats do you have, Jeff? I got two.
Really? Yeah. You have a Tuffy, right? I got a Tuffy and I got a Lund. Yep. Okay.
(44:52):
If you stop over, though, why don't you put a couple of new locators on the old Lund?
And they're they're sitting there in boxes right there on the floor just waiting to get put on.
Okay well if i don't get my box my boat back i need to
go make a trade i'll put them on there and i'll take it we're probably gonna
want to stick to some smaller water though i wouldn't go take it out on green
bay it might be a little too small for that but that one's pretty much ready
(45:14):
to go ordered up a new battery the other day and some steps for the front of
it i'm spending a little bit of money on that i'm getting old so i want some
steps to get into the boat now because Cause I'm old.
And so, and with the new locators, I figured, eh, probably should have a different
battery just for the locators.
Cause I don't really want to kill the starting battery and be in the middle of somewhere.
Well, I tell you what, two years ago, I put a ladder of steps on my boat.
(45:39):
Game changer. Love them. Yeah. Whenever I go up to fish up in Hayward with Steve,
he's got them on his recon and I'm like, I have to get a pair of these things.
Like it's, they're awesome. them like it's just so much easier getting in and
out of the boat right i got a 521 and i'm gonna,
climb out of that thing i'm like one of you guys one of
these games you're going down and they just buy the stairs put them in there
(46:02):
and it'll be much better and i'm so happy it's so easy to get in and out now
it's just it's unreal yeah definitely need them definitely need them but you
you have them on your boat yeah i put them on last year and the funny thing about that
is it took me about two months
to remember that they were on the front of the boat i kept jumping
(46:23):
out of the back every day but i'll
tell you what it is a lifesaver and it's amazing
how nice they are that's for sure yeah they're
nice they're very nice but so yeah i guess we could you know just for anyone
heading to the you know thinking about the northern opener don't be afraid advice
(46:44):
from you know some of the patterns to get back to what we were talking about
going off subject here but.
Definitely doing some summer pattern fish is not going to hurt.
And I think you've got a chance on a bigger fish too, because like I said,
the spawn will definitely be over by our northern, especially,
you know, looking at the two-week forecast here, nothing super cold.
(47:06):
I'm sure water temperatures are going to be, I would imagine the way we're going should change.
There are more than open also on many of the lakes, besides maybe the deep clear lakes.
The way we're going should be balling spawn.
Definitely don't be afraid to go into some summer patterns, you know,
even, you know, rubber-wise, where they've made dogs and where they do things,
(47:32):
you know, definitely bring your size up.
That's if you want to catch some decent-sized fish.
You can always, you know, use smaller basins, fish in the shallows.
There's always going to be smaller mounds in the shallows, you know.
We kind of always try to concentrate on the bigger fish. There's that same with
the flowages because we always have additional flowages there. So.
(47:56):
What's good, Brad. I'm looking forward to that, to get out there for the Northern opener.
I hope I can get on that Saturday. Cause that's Sunday. My daughter graduates
from high school, so I can't, I can't believe they have graduation on the Sunday
of the Muskie opener in the North, but I. We got a Friday night.
Okay. My stepson's Friday night. I think I'd rather have Friday night.
(48:16):
At least it doesn't screw up the whole weekend.
Like oh for sure sunday's terrible fun is kind of weird yeah it's not an issue
yeah i mean whatever when you only got 900 people in the place i guess you do
whatever you do whatever you want and put it out of sunday apparently.
Yeah, so for the northern opener, too, I kind of get together,
(48:39):
too, and have a bunch of boats.
And we have a get-together Friday night, and then Saturday and Sunday,
kind of have a little mini-tournament.
But it kind of helps getting to the games together, you know,
and figuring out where the fish are, because we all talk, so it's kind of a jump start.
I never really died on the opening weekend.
I have that little party, little mini-tournament kind of thing,
(49:00):
but it kind of helps me get a jump start and we figure them out pretty quickly,
between, you know, 10, 15 boats.
I think I remember talking to you after the Northern Opener one time and you
telling us about this too, that you had that going on up there.
It sounds like a pretty cool deal. Right.
It got pretty big there for a while. One time I put it on Facebook and it got out of hand.
(49:22):
I know we used to have, you know, big giveaways and everything because I think
you were donating, Jeff, and had a couple other looking donations on there but
then it started to be like almost like a job,
it was it took the fun out of it no more so i kind
of quit having it but now i just have kind of
what we call the old g's the original guys a bunch of
(49:44):
old friends and they can figure out a program
pretty good you know patterns come we all talk so yeah
definitely oh it's always good to have you know people you
can that you can trust and and rely on to get good
information out of we don't all have a good group
of people like that but it's awesome when you have it for sure
for sure it is and it does help because you know someone's trying something
(50:07):
somewhere else someone's searching this or i've seen a bunch of fish doing this
or we did that you know and even like this past weekend i know a boat that went
to a smaller body of water in central wisconsin and they had quite a bit of action,
and I would have thought it would have been kind of the opposite.
You know, I thought the forages would have been a little better to rip.
They had some pretty good action. I mean, they got one fish and seen a few other
(50:30):
ones, but I wouldn't even have thought of them going for that lake.
So it's kind of cool when you do have people to talk to and shoot things off,
and everyone's pretty honest.
Definitely network our subject team. I mean, honestly, if you're not networking,
you need to figure it out who you can trust, and definitely just kept the learning curve so quickly.
(50:51):
I mean, we all know that. But finding that kind of group of people is not always
easy, for sure. No, definitely not.
You can usually figure it out pretty quick, though, who's honest and who's just
trying to get information from that.
Absolutely. Wow, crazy. We've been doing it long enough so we know enough,
(51:12):
you know, to get them glad.
And you know the right people.
It's a huge benefit. There's no question.
So, Brian, I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts on the southern opener.
And obviously, we got a lot of northern opener, too. So, if you're fishing either
south or north, we got something there for you this week.
If people are looking to get in touch with you to come out fishing with you
(51:35):
this season, how do they go about doing that? You can contact me.
Actually, go right to my website, shearforoutdoors.com. And there's an email on that.
You can call me at 920-915-2650. to, and see if we can get you on some fish here.
Well, I mean, they're pretty booked up already, but you know,
(51:57):
we can make some time this time of year. So.
Well, Brian, I know that you're on them often, and so it'd be worthwhile for
many people to, to get in the boat with you this season, I'm sure it would help
shorten their learning curve if that's something they're into as well.
Want to thank all of our listeners for tuning in for another episode of Backlash
Podcast and we'll be back with a new episode again next week when.
(52:17):
Music.
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