River muskie setup

This answer goes with just about every place a person would musky fish. If your planning on throwing baits all day you will be very unhappy with a spinning set up.
 
Casting reels are in almost every situation the best way to go. With todays reels the excuse of "to many backlashes" is no longer valid, it is now almost seen as lazy to use that excuse. The advantages of casting so far outweigh spinning, I encourage when buying new gear to look at only casting if buying strickly for musky fishing with artifical baits. 
 
If your fishing with live bait, then a spinning setup will do just fine. Be sure to have good strong braided line 30lb absolute min. 50+lb line is better IMO, a good quality leader and quick strike rig to reduce deeply hooked fish that have a low rate of suvivoral.
 
A big challange for people to enter the sport of musky fishing is the cost of good quality gear, for a good casting set up on a budget your looking at about $250. Yes you can fish with lesser priced equiptment but at sometime when fishing you will find that it would have been ahead of the game to buy quality once than lesser quality twice
 
 

I'm not new to fishing muskies, I was just thinking that maybe a heavier spinning setup would work for the the smaller rivers up north.

The only plus I see for spinning reels is below freezing air temps with heavy mono because you are less likely to soak your hands.

i concur.
Baitcaster all the way. Pepper that downed wood all day with big flashy baits.

baitcasters win in every scenario you brought up though man.
have you ever tried to throw a jerkbait with a spinning setup let alone make it function correctly?
if your just using small mepps bucktails,jigs, rattle traps,ect... lures under two ounces then spinning gear would probably work just fine.

I fished muskies for 42 yrs in western NY and western PA.,  casting and trolling, mostly Chautauqua lake because I live here. The rivers mentioned I am not familiar with. Spinning gear does have it's place in muskie fishing. IMO it's the best choice for fishing jigs/reapers, lizards, or pork, 1/2 to 3/4 oz. jig heads, dressed or undressed. Lakes or rivers, anywhere jigs are a good choice,  what you want is a spinning rod  about 7 ft long rated for 1/2 to 1 1/2 oz lures. I prefer mono, 15 lb maxima ultra green for fishing jigs. Jigs are great muskie lures especially for cold water. Some rivers are well suited to fishing jigs, some aren't. Along weed lines, around rock piles, drop offs, etc. spinning gear, jigs will work.
 
Bait casting is the way to go for all  other casting applications. Rivers with a lot of brush where you're going to be fishing a lot of surface or shallow running stuff,  most definitely bait casting. This reply is kind of long winded. To sum it all up: Spinning only for fishing jigs. Bait casting for everything else; surface, jerks, glides, twitch baits, bucktails, soft plastic swim baits, etc. If you can afford only one rig for casting for muskies, definitely get a decent quality bait casting outfit. $300, maybe a bit more will get you there.
 

If you're looking at winter fishing the rivers, which I would imagine you are, a spinning rig with 17lb mono is the only way to go.  The eyes on baitcasting rods are too small and will freeze up causing you to waste half your time busting the ice out of them.  Braid also freezes and any mono I've tried over 17lb is too stiff.
 
I started years ago using a 7' rod but quickly came to the conclusion that it was too long, 6-6 1/2' is much better, preferably a heavy action with a long handle you can tuck under your arm to help with jerkbaits.  There is no problem using jerkbaits with a spinning rod as long as it's a nice heavy action.  Ugly stick saltwater rods work well.  The longer rods are tougher to cast in confined areas, give up too much leverage and are harder to use jerking from shore because you're not up above the water like in a boat.  When you're actually in the water the effect is even worse.
 
Okuma makes some pretty nice spinning reels for the money, pick one with a large capacity so you can get a lot of line on it.  A good drag is critical because it needs to be set so that you can get a good hookset but will let line out without breaking.  Cheap reels many times have drags that stick somewhat then smooth out (especially in the cold weather) which puts too much shock on your line.
 
You can use a baitcasting setup if it's above freezing but below that it's almost impossible.  You received some pretty good advice here for fishing 8 or 9 months out of the year but anyone telling you to use a baitcaster this time of the year hasn't done any winter fishing.  Another big advantage to the spinning gear, as was mentioned by another poster, is the ability to throw lighter lures.  I rarely throw anything larger than 6" in the winter and using something like a Rapala is almost impossible with a baitcaster.  Even if you can get it to work you will throw it twice as far with a spinning rod.

You could fish them with a cane pole too but it's certainly not the most efficient way of doing it.

I'm going for a musky this year, but I'm not just targeting musky alone. If I catch one, I catch one; if I don't, I don't. I'll be hitting Pymy and the Shenango River. I bought a cheap med. heavy spinning combo for $50 and I spooled it with 50# green power pro braided line. I'm going to use chubs at both lakes and rivers. I'm just going to play around with it and see what happens. 
 
A friend of mine told me to use bass fishing gear in the spring and into summer and then use Musky gear from late summer into the Fall. I'm not planning on fishing for them at that time of the year,so I'm not going to buy the larger stuff, unless of course I get into it, then I will. 

Guys I fish the Susky river in Central Pa. I have caught many muskies on 8lb and 10lb test. I just use a simple 7ft rod with a spinning reel(I wade). I don't mess with any leaders, fish won't bite with them on. A 6 dollar husky jerk HJ14 works most of the time. No need to spend a ton of money. Keep it simple and put your time in.

Targeting muskies with walleye/bass spinning gear and 8 lb line is just plain ridiculous. Sure, you can land, catch them on tackle this light but why do it?  Used to fish smallmouths, walleyes at Chautauqua some, especially in the fall, with light tackle and 8 lb mono. Caught some nice muskies doing this including a couple fat, fall 46 inchers, estimated at 25 or 26 lbs. on baby thunder sticks. It takes forever to  land fish this size on light bass/walleye tackle and not good for muskies intended to be released.
Muskies definitely will take small 3 to 5 inch bass/walleye lures. My all time favorite trolling lure for Chautauqua muskies is a J-13 rapala, barely 5" long, modified with 3/0, 2/0 VMC double hooks replacing the small rings and trebles that come on the lure.
 
 

NoPlace, I never said your setup was incorrect. But the difference is this thread was talking about a musky specific setup. You just said your a bass and walleye guy that gets the suprize musky. So you have gear that is set up for bass and walleye. The OP was talking musky, not an all around combo, thats why I asked if your setup was a recommendation to target musky.
 
I believe we are on the same page with our thinking, and if you were refering to myself as the one taking offence, turely I feel there isnt anything that was offensive in your post