Hello, I’m new here. My dad have been fishing most of the region’s bigger lakes and rivers from our boat for quite a few years now. The last two years we’ve been bitten by the musky bug pretty bad. Most of the time we troll since my dad is a little older and can’t cast aggressively for these fish. We’ve had a lot of success and know the lakes and rivers pretty well. From time to time we’ve bagged a few bigger fish, but a majority of the fish we seem to catch are in the range of 26-30 inches.

I guess my question is should we be approaching things differently for larger fish, or is this just the way it is in PA because they’re mostly stocked? I don’t want to complain about catching fish, but it just seems odd we get so many dinks. Lure size doesn’t seem to matter. We’ve caught big ones on smaller lures and little ones on big lures.

I’m a member of the local Muskies, Inc. chapter. Unfortunately, being a family man I don’t have much free time to get to meetings and meet other anglers to discuss this. As far as I can tell where there’s little ones there’s also big ones. It’s just a matter numbers. Meaning there’s just more smaller fish, which might also be more aggressive than the larger ones.

Anyway, I figured I’d see if there was anyone out there with any more insight or opinion on the matter.

I think the main thing to focus on is your majors and minors if you are truly trophy hunting for larger fish. In everything that I personally have read and listened to at seminars the bigger ones have a very short window for feeding and it usually is on a major or minor. I personally keep a note book for fish catches. I write the time down and then try and link it to a weather or moon phase. Most of the time there is something going on but other times I just think they bite for no reason other then aggression. By no means am I a professional Musky angler but this has helped me try and make some sense of what's happening so I can try and repeat it. TIGHT LINES!

Interesting. In some of my readings I’ve come across the moon phase topic a few times. Perhaps, that’s the next area I need to focus on and progress into. Like you said as well I think keeping a log would definitely help. The last two seasons we’ve been expanding our gear and learning how to tune and run the lures while also trying to figure out the patterns. Seems like this is logical next step. I have an app that do occasionally look at for the “peak times”, but it hasn’t been a focus. I appreciate the response. Tight lines to you as well!

There’s big ones out there just gotta fish for them. As for size range that’s what it is. Your going to get that anywhere. There’s big 50 in musky out there and they don’t get big for reason.

Stocking does not play into the ultimate length, genetics are genetics. the stocked fish are from the native strain from this area. The area tends to have favor more weight and girth than length once hitting the trophy class status. 
 
Keep in mind males rarely get much over 40"+ most are topping out in the upper 30s. With that half your population is already basically limited to what i consider average size. Then factor in what small percent of female that will have the genetics, food and age to reach 48"+ it is pretty small percentage. Yes it happens, but i believe the internet has made it seem these are common fish. Thats just not the case in our area.
 
I know a guy who caught over 700 before his first 50, i also know a guy whos 3rd fish was a 50. 
 
Put in the time, eventually it will come togther.

I appreciate the response! It’s kind of reassuring that the dinks are part of the game. At least we know that if we’re catching fish we’re still doing it right. Like another poster stated I definitely will start paying more attention to the majors and minors and keep a log. At the least it could tell something and be a fun thing to keep track of. When we got started in this I read so many books and watched so many professional fisherman videos. It’s kind of funny that you don’t see the small ones. Everything (almost) that they talk about is big fish related and then the catches they show are these trophy sized fish. I’ve been trying to find some stuff about how the behavior of younger and older fish, but haven’t found much out there.

I guess I was hoping there was some kind of
unknown (to me anyway) tactic for catching bigger ones.

Here’s to more time on the water!

Tight lines!

That’s super helpful and makes a lot of sense. Also, explains why some of the ones we caught around 40in have been absolute tanks. Appreciate the insight. Definitely helps keep the drive going to be on the water as much as we possibly can. I agree with what you said about the internet normalizing trophy fish. It’s also some what reassuring that as long as we are catching them consistently we’re on the right path or in the same area code anyway.