There are miles and miles of perfect muskie spots on the Detroit river. What is a perfect muskie spot you ask? I'm glad you asked. A perfect muskie spot has a weed bed adjacent to deep water. Ceratophyllum demersum, more commonly known as hornwort or coontail is the most common deep weed growth on the Detroit river. The base of the weed bed itself should be in water eight feet or more deep. Most of the places I fish consist of weed beds running parallel to the current. An extending point creates the current break which allows such weed growth in rivers with strong currents. In most of my favorite spots, the water at the edge of the weed beds is thirteen feet deep and drops off rapidly to twenty five feet. Areas like this with a deep water hump or rockpile near by are prime muskie spots. They are also what I look for when exploring new areas to fish.

Many experts are of the opinion that muskie lie motionless in thick weed beds waiting to nail some unsuspecting minnow or small fish that happens to swim within range. That may be true in some areas but, on the Detroit river, bigger muskie lie in deeper water. They would rather eat a three pound walleye and get dinner over with than several small minnows. It would take a heck of a lot of minnows to fill a twenty five pound muskie, and cost the fish more in energy than it would be worth.

We have come to the conclusion, and records from the past few years indicate that with the exception of one good fish, all our big muskie have come from water thirteen feet or deeper. That one exception was a fall fish that had probably chased something up into shallow water. Don't take this to mean that I never fish shallower water. Seeing a muskie come up to the surface and bust a lure (one lure even has the nick name heart stopper) is a great thrill. It's not always the biggest muskie that you will remember the most.

Getting back to my daughters conversion, we had been trolling for perhaps three hours and had picked up a couple of bass and walleye. Angie was working the rods while I controlled the trolling pattern working in and out from the weed edge to twenty feet of water. The lure on the inside rod didn't quite seem to be running right so she took it from the rod holder, gave it a jerk and a couple of cranks to try any clear any weeds that it may have picked up. Suddenly the rod bent double in her hands as a powerful fish shot from the depths to grab this fleeing object.

"Dad! Dad! What do I do?!"

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