Best Muskie Lures: The Classic in Each Class, and the Water Temperature to Throw It

The best muskie lure is a bucktail when the water is about 65 °F (18 °C) or warmer, and something slower when it is not. That rule is Steve Heiting’s, the Wisconsin muskie writer, and the rest of the evidence lines up behind it. The six picks here are the classics in their classes. A lure went in when two or more of the four magazines in the sources named it; where they split, the older, more widely named lure won, with sizes read on the makers’ pages. None was tested for this page.

Frank Suick caught 30 muskies in 30 days on a cedar bait he whittled in the 1930s. Anglers from his hometown of Antigo, Wisconsin, collected over 60 signatures on a petition, written as a joke, to have him banned from fishing Pelican Lake.

Why are muskie lures so big?

Because a muskie eats fish up to nearly half its own length, so “a foot-long lure isn’t unrealistic”, in Minnesota DNR’s words. The DNR puts lures at 5 to 10 in or longer, and some cost “as much as $25 or more.” A box of six has to cover the season.

Which lure for which water?

Heiting’s system reads down that table from fast to slow. He starts with whatever covers water quickest for the conditions, and “if fast lures don’t work, I progressively choose slower presentations until I find the one they want”. Warm water means bucktails, then a tail-spinning topwater. Cool water or a cold front means a minnowbait first, then crankbaits, gliders, diving jerkbaits and finally soft plastics.

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Where do the sources disagree?

They disagree in two places. Mepps says muskies “do not become aggressive until water temperatures reach 70 to 75 degrees”. Heiting and Outdoor Life’s Kristine Fischer both put the bucktail window lower, from the mid 60s. And big rubber has no agreed season. Wired2Fish calls it the first choice for late-fall trophy hunts, while Green Bay guide Bret Alexander says “June, July, and August are peak Bull Dawg months.”

There is an upper limit too. Maryland DNR recommends not targeting muskies once the water reaches 80 °F (27 °C), after 48% of its tagged Potomac fish released above that mark died. Fischer stops at 75 °F (24 °C). The muskie page has size by age, weights and the release evidence, and a measured fish goes into the fish weight calculator.

The picks in detail

Mepps Musky Killer

A single #5 blade ahead of a bucktail-dressed 5/0 treble, ¾ oz, with a 1⅓ oz tandem version. Field & Stream calls it one of the oldest manufactured muskie lures and makes it best overall. Fischer keeps it for the day when fish follow big blades and will not eat: “sometimes it pays to downsize.” Wired2Fish says the same of single-blade bucktails as a class, which many anglers now treat as “finesse lures ideal for springtime or cold-front conditions”.

Field & Stream adds that a newcomer can start with the heaviest bass tackle and smaller lures, and this is the smaller lure. Colors Fischer names: red and silver, black and silver, yellow and black.

Musky Mayhem Double Cowgirl

Two #10 magnum blades, a flashabou skirt, two 7/0 hooks, 10 in and 2.8 oz. Wired2Fish dates it to about 20 years ago and credits it with changing the sport: anglers “had to beef up their tackle and lengthen rods” to pull the pair of blades, and “catch rates soared”. The twin blades let it run shallow at speed. That is why Heiting picks double blades when fish are very shallow or cover is near the surface.

In-Fisherman’s Dr. Jason Halfen sorts blades by job: willow blades for sparse cover and extreme speed, big Colorado blades for dense cover, slower retrieves and after dark. His colors are black tails with silver or gold blades in clear water, and yellow or orange in stained. Guide Rob Manthei throws the smaller Junior Double Cowgirl, with #8 blades, in early fall.

Suick Weighted Thriller, 9 in

The first commercially produced jerkbait, by the maker’s account, on sale since 1942. It is a flat wooden plank, 9 in and 2¼ oz with three 4/0 trebles. A pull makes it dive; a pause lets it rise. The stainless tail bends to change the running depth, and the weighted model hangs longer on the pause. Suick’s history says the first test baits ran 12 to 18 in (30–46 cm) down, “the same as they do today”.

Heiting reaches for a 10 in Suick in early fall “when the muskies don’t want to chase bucktails or topwaters”. He separates divers like this from gliders, which dart side to side. His glider conditions are cool water with fairly active fish and the first day of a cold front; “diving jerkbaits seem to work for me when gliders do not.” The glide baits page explains the side-to-side kind.

Musky Innovations Bull Dawg

Musky Innovations made the Bull Dawg in 1993 and calls it the original soft-plastic jerkbait. The body is poured around a lead head, so it drops on the pause and swims level on the pull. The maker’s retrieve: “rip the bait with a rod sweep, then pause and repeat. The strike often comes on the pause. Do this technique fast in warm water and slow in cold water.”

The Regular is 9 in and 4.5 oz with two 3/0 hooks. The Magnum is 12 in and 8 oz. The Super Magnum, the “Pounder”, is 16 in and up to 13.7 oz.

Lake St. Clair guide Spencer Berman told In-Fisherman that 872 muskies came over his gunnel in one season. Nearly 90% of them came on big rubber: “I have a Bull Dawg tied on for the opener and finish with a Bull Dawg on December 15th.” Minnesota guide Brian Brosdahl gives a reason: slow soft plastic is “less alarming to gun-shy muskies” that have been caught before.

The other name in this class is the three-tailed Chaos Tackle Medussa, Outdoor Life’s best big rubber bait. The Regular is 13 in and 8 oz. Baits this heavy need a rod built for them; Berman uses a 9 ft extra-extra-heavy.

Joe Bucher DepthRaider

A hard-plastic diver with a tough lip, built to hit rock and timber and float back out on the pause. Retailers list the 8 in straight model at 2.4 oz, running down to about 13 ft (4 m) on a cast and 20 ft (6 m) or more trolled. Heiting’s rule for the class: when muskies follow deep or have left the shallows, “it’s time for crankbaits”, because a fish “may not rise up to eat a shallow-running bait”. Wired2Fish notes that big divers do most of their work on the troll, and names Rapala’s Super Shad Rap for shallower trolling.

River2Sea Whopper Plopper 190

The largest Whopper Plopper: 7½ in, 2¾ oz, a soft tail that turns on a wire harness. Wired2Fish lists it first among plopper-style baits, with Bucher’s TopRaider, which is Field & Stream’s topwater pick. Muskies do hit topwater, and the season is long. Fischer fishes surface baits “from late spring to early fall, when water temps are at least 60 degrees”, all day under cloud and at dawn and dusk otherwise. Wired2Fish calls late September to early November prime on northern lakes.

On the Berkley Choppo: the largest standard Choppo is the 120, a bass bait. Only the Whopper Plopper comes in a muskie size with muskie hooks. The Whopper Plopper page has the full size ladder.

Creepers are the slow alternative: surface baits with long arms that clack on a crawling retrieve. Fischer’s pick is the Bitten Tackle Creeper. Heiting saves creepers and walk-the-dog baits for a fish whose position he knows exactly.

What else matters: color, leader and the figure eight

Color. None of the sources cites a study of what muskies see best. The anglers agree on a rule instead: natural in clear water, bright in dirty water. Field & Stream suggests sucker patterns in clear lakes and fluorescent orange or yellow in stained ones. Manthei goes dark, even all black, in the algae-bloomed water of early fall.

Tackle. Wisconsin DNR asks for a medium-heavy casting rod of 7 ft or longer and 50 to 80 lb braid. Minnesota DNR adds “a foot-long steel or fluorocarbon leader”. Halfen uses a 12 to 16 in, 100 lb leader on 80 lb braid.

The figure eight. Muskies “will often ‘show themselves’ by following a lure back to the boat, without striking”, in Wisconsin DNR’s words, and a figure eight at boatside can turn that into a strike. Manthei says that in the bloomed water of early fall, 95% of his strikes come within 10 ft of the boat or in the figure eight. Gord Pyzer of Outdoor Canada does one on every cast, with turns wide enough for a 50 in fish.

Best time. Wisconsin DNR reports the best catch rates in the warm summer months and many large fish in fall. Minnesota DNR says many of the largest come in October and November, and that muskies are most active near dawn and dusk. Either way the fish is scarce: Wisconsin’s creel surveys average 27 hours per muskie, Minnesota’s 40. When one does reach the net, muskie vs pike and tiger muskie sort out which fish it is, and the pike family hub covers all four species.

When lures stop working. In cold water some anglers switch to a live white sucker of 10 to 14 in, as Wisconsin DNR notes. Field & Stream’s Steven Paul says water “in the 50-degree range and below” gives the best conditions for it.

How were the picks chosen?

The first test was class: one lure for each job the sources describe. Wisconsin DNR’s lure list for muskies reads “buck-tails, spinner-baits, jerk-baits, diving crank-baits, and large spoons”. The second test was agreement. A model went in when two or more independent sources named it; where they split, the older, more widely named lure won.

The third test was the maker’s page, for length, weight and hooks. One pick fails it: Joe Bucher Outdoors’ own site was offline when checked, so the DepthRaider’s figures come from retailer listings. Guides’ numbers are their own tallies, not surveys, and they are quoted as that.

For smaller water and smaller teeth, see best pike lures and the northern pike page.

Free PDF · 16 pages

Where the pike are this week, and what they'll hit

The Pike & Muskie Cheat Sheet. A 16-page PDF. Read the water temperature, find your season on the sheet, and it tells you where pike and muskie sit and what to throw. Behind the sheet: pike, muskie, tiger and pickerel told apart at the net, 13 lures by water temperature, the quick-strike rig drawn and tied, the teeth and how to unhook one without a cut, which fish to keep, and every record.

• Three temperatures for each fish, when they spawn, feed best and slow down, and the 80 °F line where Maryland says leave the muskies alone
• Where the big pike go in August, the 61–70 °F water the big ones leave the weeds for, measured on tagged fish, with rising and falling water for both fish on one page
• 13 lures by water temperature, from a 1 oz spoon at ice-out to a 10 in double bucktail at 65 °F, with the leader rule and the quick-strike rig drawn
• Pike, muskie, tiger or pickerel at the net, the marks that work when color fails, how to unhook one without a cut, and which fish to keep for the pan

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Every line from the pike pages on fishing.info and the 169 sources behind them, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan DNR among them.

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