Do muskie ever use really deep water — or sit on the bottom?

They use deep basins without going deep in them. Open-water muskie on cisco lakes hang 5–12 m (16–39 ft) down over 15–30 m (50–100 ft) of water — near the thermocline where the bait is, never on the floor far below it — so the depth on your sonar and the depth of the fish are two different numbers. As for bottom, a muskie's eyes sit high and it attacks upward, which is why baits run above a fish get eaten and baits below it mostly do not; in warm water it holds beside or over cover rather than pinned to bottom. Cold changes that. Late-fall fish lie low along steep breaks, and below about 8 °C (46 °F) they sit deep and nearly dormant close to bottom — slow, heavy baits worked down the drop are the answer.

Browse every question