After evaluating our new newsletter format some of the feedback that I have gotten as Club Secretary is to include something like a “tips and tricks” or “ask the expert” segment. After reading this, if you would like to send a question to the club, I will present it at one of our monthly Board Meetings and see if anyone can give you an answer in the next newsletter. Our board has a lot of very talented fishermen, bait builders, rod builders and repair specialists and overall knowledgeable humans. If we don’t know the answer to your question, we will work to find it! I am certainly NOT an expert musky fisherman, but I do have more success fishing rubber than a lot of people. I will start this segment with some tips and tricks for finding success with rubber baits!
First: TUNING! My favorite rubber bait is a Medussa from Chaos Tackle. One of the keys to successfully fishing big rubber baits is to get them to run well. There are lots of ways that a bait can get out of tune and end up darting left or right or even doing a barrel roll on the retrieve. The faster that you retrieve the bait, the more likely it is that the bait will struggle with a straight retrieve. The first thing I check to tune the bait is the through wire bait chassis. If you get a “sideways dussa” on a cast, it will sometimes bend that wire as you pull the bait in. If that is the case you can try to eyeball the bend back to straight. If that does not work then take a short cast and see which way the bait is pulling (left or right) as you retrieve. When you get the bait back, bend the chassis in the direction that the bait is pulling by pushing the middle/body of the bait in that direction. So grab the head and tail and use your thumbs to push the body toward the direction of pull. Give another test cast and try again as necessary.
You may also find that your hook hangers are misaligned. If you suspect that they are contributing to your retrieve problems, take a pliers and bend them back into alignment straight along the bottom of the bait. Again, take some test casts and watch to see if you have succeeded. Another common issue is that the bait hanger (where you connect the bait to the leader) is misaligned. You can also fix this with pliers and some test casts. Medussas are great because they are big and move a lot of water. Another option is the Bulldawg from Musky Innovations. Their Pro-Dawg is a great choice because it has a flexi-harness rather than a straight wire harness like a Medussa or a regular Bulldawg. If you get chomped with a Pro-Dawg or get a dawg-ball on your cast, the flexible harness will snap back into place and run straight every time. Beware that if the flexible harness DOES manage to get out of alignment, there is no tuning that bait, it is time to replace it… but that takes some major damage to accomplish.
A Husky Medussa that was inhaled by a 47” musky last season.
Second: Cast control is a huge tip with rubber. I used to just cast my bait out without any concern for how it was flying in the air or how it was going to land. This resulted in lots and lots of sideways Medussas and Bulldawgs. This happened so frequently that I became really good at shaking a sideways bait straight by putting my rod tip up and jiggling the bait to get it free. That does work about 50% of the time on sideways rubber. It is however better to avoid this all together if possible by taking some small steps to control your cast.
A). Use a lob cast. If you are using smaller rubber and a bigger set-up you can really toss your bait out far, however it will likely do cartwheels all the way to its landing spot and possibly hook up with the leader. Use the power of your rod to lob the bait rather than “cast” it like you would any other bait.
B). Give the bait more slack on your back-cast than you would other baits and use the power of the rod to lob the bait straight out.
C). Use some thumb pressure to control the flight of the bait and turn the bait so that its tail is pointed away from you and it lands ready to swim back to the boat. This will avoid the cartwheel effect and you won’t lose that much distance on your cast. Giving yourself more slack to cast with at the beginning also helps with giving the bait some momentum before you take your thumb off the spool to get it pointed in the “right” direction.
Third: Speed and Depth are huge concerns when fishing rubber. In the heat of the summer I like to run even Husky Medussas really fast. The key to accomplishing this and keeping the bait in the water or even working it down the water column is to have a well tuned lure and then work it back straight. My preference for retrieving rubber is to work the rod straight down and back toward you. If you are working fast this will pull the bait down (or at least not pull it up) and keep the bait in alignment with your body. This helps the bait gain some depth because you are not intentionally popping the bait up or sweeping the bait. The last thing that I try to do on the retrieve is to pop the bait up right before it would naturally begin to work up toward the boat. You can accomplish this with a sharp jigging motion up with the rod. This will often trigger a following fish to strike.
Club member Jack Sagaitis using a 9’6” rod and high speed reel to throw Husky Medussas.
Fourth: Gear is an important factor as well. A high speed reel coupled with a bulky rod is ideal. If you intend to run the baits fast then a high speed reel will pick up the slack line more easily and allow for a fast retrieval. Additionally a longer rod (9’6” to 10’) with a XH or XXH rating can be helpful to chuck big baits all day and give you the backbone to get a solid hookset into a giant mass of rubber when you get bit. The longer rod will help you lob baits a little further and get those nice ovals or figure 8s boatside as well. I like 18” fluorocarbon leaders in a high poundage or wire strand leaders for rubber. I have seen fluro get bitten off before as these baits will get head hunted and that is why some guys are switching over to wire strand leaders for this application.
In summary, if you are interested in fishing big rubber baits I think that you will be surprised how well they produce and how flexible they can be in their application. I like to use them from pretty much June through ice-up. I catch more fish on rubber in a season by far than any other bait, obviously I use it the most but the proof is in the pudding for me. Hopefully this was helpful for you! If you have any other questions I can answer please let me know! If I don’t know I can try to find the answers for you. Good luck on the water this year and tight lines!
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