When fishing weed beds, choose those adjacent to deeper water unless you're going to be satisfied with mostly small muskie. First cast the points, then fish parallel to the weed bed. Work the weed edge pockets and then finally hit the pockets inside the vegetation. Be thorough. If you are spring fishing and hit decent fish in a fairly shallow area, make a mental note to look for deep water structure nearby. You may find the mother of all muskie spots. Shallow water fish tend to be scattered but a good, deep structure can hold a concentration of big fish. Small muskie do not school with the big boys because they might become lunch. Large muskie do not need to go shallow other than to spawn. Why eat a minnow when you can down a four pound walleye?

As much fun as casting for muskie is, I spend at least ninety percent of my time trolling. It is a far more efficient way to cover water, you can fish deep water where the truly large fish reside, and you keep a lure in the water a far greater percentage of the time, all of which add up to more quality fish per hours fished. Most shallow water structure gets worked over very thoroughly. Remember that all that visible structure that looks good to you, also looked good to the last hundred fishermen that worked the area. This bears repeating...when you work shallower structure and find a good supply of small fish, it indicates that there are larger ones in the area. Look for Esox Maximus on deep structure, reasonably close to where you found the smaller ones.

Just the opposite of casting, I recommend that you troll shallow first then work your way to deeper water. Occasionally you will spook a fish from shallow water and then pick him up later in deeper water where he feels secure.

I generally start at the deep weed edge and work my way out from there. The deep weed edge lies in twelve to thirteen feet of water on the Detroit River. Troll using a zig zag pattern which will cause your lure to drop and rise and also to change speed. Be sure and make contact with the weeds at least occasionally. If you find a long extending point, troll the edges and then troll directly into the point. If there are submerged humps, rock piles, etc, near the deep weeds, these are prime big fish areas.

Early in the season, your trolling speed should be slower than it will be as the water warms. Don't be afraid to adjust your speed up, though. I've had muskie nail lures that I was cranking in to clear, while still moving at trolling speed very early in the season. It may be necessary to downsize your lures although I haven't run into that problem. Most of the walleye muskie are feeding on are actually larger than the big lures I am fishing with any way.

When trolling deeper water use lead core, or wire line to get your lures deeper. I dislike using weights but when it's necessary, in line trolling sinkers work best. Most if not all of the devices being sold, to get your lure deeper, will not work with the large lipped diving lures we muskie fishermen typically use. Down riggers are the exception, of course, but not practical if you usually fish alone like I do.