Muskies, West Battle, Pelican

[Griggs]

I am maybe heading up to Perham this weekend and we would be looking for some Muskies, I was just looking at the DNR website at possible Muskie lakes, I've never Muskie fished up there before. I see that West Battle and Pelican look like maybe the two options for Muskies in the area.

Any advice or anything you can give me about the population, or where to go or anything would be helpful. We are mainly just looking to catch one, size and whatnot aren't too important, also, running into some Nothern along the way would also be a big plus. Any other lake options near by that I didn't see would also be good. Thanks for the help.

*edit - It also looks like its going to be windy one this weekend, any good areas to get out of the wind if we desire on either of these lakes?

Chad

[westb]

Beers Lake in Maplewood State Park can be a good lake as far as numbers. The fish seem to be on the smaller size but I have had multiple fish days out there. If it's windy you won't have any trouble finding a place to fish as the lake has alot of bays that are protected. Hope this helps.

[ChuckN]

Pelican in Becker County does have muskies...not the Pelican south of Battle Lake. If you are thinking Pelican, might as well go to Big Detroit instead, IMO.

It does look like a windy one. A south wind isn't the worst wind for Battle, but still can be hairy getting across the main lake and launching. I have no tips for ya since I haven't really fished muskies much.

Or what westb said, good advice for a windy day and not too far from Perham.

[CRANKBAIT_GUY2]

Battle will start getting better this time of year. There's a lot of spots on Battle, and it's hard to desribe them, because many of them are mid-lake situations.

The quick advice I can give you is get out there. If it's windy troll the hell out of the SW quad of the lake, there's a lot of structure there, so you'll want to go deep with big cranks(as big as you have), and shallow with bucktails, spinnerbaits or pulling sueiks.

If it's not blowing too bad cast all the steep deep water breaks you can find. I love a Bulldawg in those spots. If you don't have any Bulldawgs get some.

Hit the reed beds quicky too. I've known of some large fish being taking out of them in the fall.

as far as colors go, I'd go with whitefish looking stuff, black or perch.

[Griggs]

sounds good, thanks everyone