The 7 Best Waters to Catch a Trophy Muskie

For those anglers who want to catch not just any muskie, but a real trophy fish, picking the right destination is even more important than picking the right lure. If you set aside all the exciting tips, tactics, and tackle, the greatest anglers consistently put themselves where the biggest fish are. Reality check: few locations have 50-pound muskies. And muskie history’s shenanigans of “I’ll beat your record” have set an unreasonably high bar. It’s important to remember that 50-pound muskies are world-class.

There are three requirements for growing a true giant: good genetics, great forage, and wide-open spaces. While muskies that possess prime genetics always grow faster and larger in any fishery, a massive and diverse forage base is needed for a muskie to reach it’s full potential. The biggest muskies come from huge waters in the northern regions, where muskellunge grow slower but live longer. Even though this could be considered un-PC in today’s age, we must also be gender-specific: females grow larger and carry eggs, which means they weigh more. If the ultimate goal is to catch the largest muskie possible, you want to fish in late-fall, and catch a big female carrying eggs, immediately after she’s eaten a hearty meal. If you’re able to do that on the waters I’ve listed below, it’s possible that old Ethel could be pushing 60 pounds.

This is the only water included in the list that I haven’t personally fished. I asked my buddy Johnny Dadson, who’s spent his life fishing Georgian Bay, for his thoughts. Here’s his take: “The Bay spans more than three million acres of Canadian wilderness. Each inlet from the southeast coast to the north channel offers its own experience and each area has its own genotype of muskies. We have residents and what we call ‘ocean fish’—these are spotted, iridescent leviathans that haunt our dreams. They are inaccessible much of the time, leaving the inlets (spawning zones) prior to the season opening in mid-June and don’t return until late fall. Spring and summer offer some fantastic bucktail and jerkbait fishing for resident fish, but the Bay is best-known for fall trolling with BIG plugs for giant muskies.”

History proves that Georgian Bay can turn out tankers. Two anglers have claimed catching 60 pounders. Johnny and his group have weighed many fish in the 40- to 50-pound class (they weigh big fish quickly prior to release). Georgian remains a front runner to break the world record.