The Long Pause

[Scott McKee]

"Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight."

-- Rollo May

When, if, our local waterways clarity cleans up, give this a shot: Chuck crankbaits around depth contours and flats.  Crank 'em down, jerk the hell out of them until they reach their deepest point, and then.......... do......... nothing.

The "musky book" preaches increasing the speed of your cast lures as they approached the boat.  This technique definitely works.  Following fish will respond positively to speed increases quite often, but when the water temps first start to hit the low-down fifties, a reeeaaallllllllyyyy loooooong pause can be magic between imparting violent action to lures.

My favorite lures for this jerk, rip and pause retrieve is the Legend Perchbait.  I gun perchies upstream as far as I can and crank and rip them down deep.  And then, I pause, and I'm not talking about a half a second or a second, I might pause the lure up to 10 seconds, sometimes even longer, which when working a musky lure seems like an eternity.  After the long and drawn out pause I ressume my cranking and jerking.  On more than a few occasions over the past several seasons, a musky was there to greet the resumption of my violent lure movements.  Vigilantly watch your line where it enters the water during your pauses. I have had hits as the lure slowly wiggles drifting with the current. If your line moves sideways even the tiniest bit or twitches, set the hook.

When the water clarity allows, try pausing again when you first regain visual contact with your lure before you go into your figure 8.  Sometimes it this last resumption of action that gets a lazy follower to commit and I've also had fish come from under the boat to smash lures just as they started moving into infinity.

Gun, jerk, rip, paaauuussseee, rip, jerk, pause, eight.  Give it a try.