Where in the world can you catch more than a half-dozen muskies a day?

THE METHOD

This kind of trolling for muskies requires a fairly specialized set-up. First up, you need big planer boards (above) to get your baits far off to the side of the boat, about 40 to 50 feet. On our outing, three lines on both the port and starboard sides were attached to the planer board lines with a high-tension release. Vandewauwer also rigged a down rod (seen below) with a bait running much closer to the boat, about eight to 10 feet back in the prop wash. The majority of our baits ran in the top three to five feet of the water column in about 10 to 15 feet of water. When a fish hits, they pull the line from the release and start to run, essentially setting the hook on itself. “You [the angler] never set the hook on a trolling boat, that’s a myth, like bananas,” Fleming told me. Instead, after you pull the rod out of the holder, you feel for the tell-tale head shake and start reeling, always making sure to keep the line tight so the fish isn’t able to get any leverage and break off.