The Case for Big Baits

Muskie Innovations Magnum Bull Dawg

Among muskie anglers the use of cliché rises almost to an art form—my favorite: “We can’t throw lures too big for a muskie to eat.” That one’s near perfection, for it builds on the mystique of muskies as something larger than life, beyond mere fish (they get so big we poor humans aren’t physically up to the task), while simultaneously whitewashing our failure to catch the things (Muskies? On these puny little things? Please . . .)

If the speaker is a real artist, he follows up with a nugget from fisheries research, like: “Muskies are capable of eating forage that’s more than 10 percent of their body mass. Do the math on a 50-pounder—that’s a 5-pound sucker, Bro.”

What makes that favorite of mine a gem is that it’s wrapped tightly around a grain of absolute truth. Big fish are capable of eating prey far larger than any lure in the tackle box. For most of the modern era of muskie fishing, lures from 6 to 8 inches long were the norm. If you really wanted to get after the big ones, you threw a 10-inch Suick or Believer, or a big bucktail like an Eagle Tail.

Over the years there have been practical limitations to fishing larger lures. Muskie gear of not that long ago—short, stiff rods and Dacron line—made even standard lures tough to throw. Cast a 14-inch bait that weighs a pound with a 6-foot rod? Might as well try to fly.

If you did manage to flop a big lure out there, the lure itself was problematic. The few giant lures available generally were large-bodied and wooden. The mass of the body impeded hooking, as fish could sink their teeth into the wood. So, the physical characteristics of big baits combined with the equipment of the day made catching fish on such lures far less than an even-money proposition. With short, stiff rods, head-shaking fish often threw big baits farther than the angler did. But the fish certainly did bite the big lures, even in the old days.

Big Rubber Spurs a Trend

A trend to longer rods capable of tossing big baits, as well as the advent of no-stretch braids and materials like soft plastics, first allowed muskie anglers to experiment with giant baits.

It was developments in a relatively new genre of muskie lures—soft plastics—that spurred experimentation with bigger baits. The Muskie Innovations Magnum Bull Dawg was a “big” step forward. Although it measures almost 13 inches and has a large-diameter body, the soft-plastic body compresses when muskies clamp down on it, making it a lure that hooks fish well despite its overall size. Furthermore, since half of the Magnum Dawg’s length is sinuous tail, the lure appears larger in the water than it is.

If the Magnum Bull Dawg and, later, the Super Magnum Dawg started the big bait trend, the Double Cowgirl turned it into a full-blown revolution. Produced by guide and lure maker Brad Hoppe, of Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, this Musky Mayhem Tackle lure in 2006 produced an astonishing run of big fish on waters receiving heavy fishing pressure in Minnesota and Ontario.