Mantrap Lake Muskie by Mike Lauenstein

- advertisement -

“We did not invent the folding boat, we just perfected it.”

Advertise With Us!

About Us • Why Join? • Find a Member • Search Public Journals • Top Public Journals • JOIN


	Username:
	Password:
		Remember Me
		Forgot Password?
	Join CrazyOutdoorsmen Click Here

Mantrap Lake Muskie

~ Mike Lauenstein (10/22/2006 @ 2:52 PM)

Slideshow

Download All Images

Todd's parents cabin on ManTrap

The view from the launch

Finding the spot

Another successful trip... but my first successful one in Northern Minnesota. Todd Kittleson, a close friend and partial owner of Camp Liberty on Eighth Crow Wing Lake near Nevis, MN, and I got up early on Saturday morning in anticipation of some good fall muskie action on Mantrap Lake in Hubbard County, Minnesota. When we first went outside, the temp didn't feel that bad, even though it was hovering right around 25 degrees.

We hit the water around 9am and casting and trolling crank baits, mostly Jakes, Squirrely Ernies and some rubber baits. After about an hour of no action we decided to switch our approach and start trolling some live bait (and by live bait, I mean 10-15" sucker minnows). We made a couple drifts in anywhere from 10 to 25 feet of water with no action as the cold was starting to set in. The temps never broke 35 degrees and when the sun went behind the clouds the cold actually started to hurt.

We were just finishing up a shoreline, when we got in a little shallow in about 8 feet and then began going back out into deeper water. There were still some good weeds on the bottom, when Todd noticed his rod bending. He began reeling in the "weeds" that were on his sucker, but to our surprise, those "weeds" turned out to be a 40"+ muskie. The fish immediately spit the bait once it hit the surface and we just looked at eachother then watched the muskie decend back into the depths. The question arose, "How do you reel in a 20 pound fish and not know it?"

We rebaited and began another troll over the same spot. This time I felt a hard double tap on my sucker and immediately opened the drag. I tested the possible stike a couple times by picking up on the rod and feeling the weight, only to have the fish make multiple runs. I only let him have it for about 2-4 minutes, thinking that I did not want to hook the muskie deep. We positioned ourselves over the muskie for the optimum hook set and I let'er rip. All that came up was a sucker minnow that looked really nervous with half its body ripped to shreds. Damn.

We tried for that fish a couple more times, but came up empty. In the meantime we fought the 35 degrees tempatures in Todd's 17' Lund ProV and searched other areas of the lake. We did see another mid-40's muskie in some shallow water but that was about it for the rest of the afternoon. About three or four hours later, on the way back to the launch, we decided to go back to the active fish we had encountered earlier for one last try. I have read about a tactic in Musky Hunter magazine to just leave an active fish sit for a couple hours and often they won't move far.

On our second pass over the spot, Todd opened his bail to let the sucker go down... A minute later we were trying to determine why the hell a sucker would be swimming so fast out to deep water. Turns out, the sucker wasn't the one doing the swimming. We let the muskie have it a little longer and after a great hookset the fight was on. The fish immediately ran to the surface, launched out of the water and threw the 15" sucker about 8' through the air... five minutes later Todd had caught his biggest muskie to date, a beautiful 43"er.

Cheers!

"Lauey"
Mike Lauenstein
CrazyOutdoorsmen Managing Partner
http://www.crazyoutdoorsmen.com

Join up to view similar journals!

Looks Yummy!

The end result of a long cold day!

... and it took off with a strong burst!

Comments

mark lauenstein

Member Since: 8/9/2008

RE: Mantrap Lake Muskie
Posted On: 10/25/2008 2:29 PM

Awesome story! That must suck fishing in 30 degree weather. I think I would rather be a a deer stand. At least you guys got rewarded with a 40+ fish.

Copyright © 2009
All rights reserved

Help! How do I...
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
Terms and Conditions
Site Map
About Crazy Outdoorsmen

CrazyOutdoorsmen is best viewed
with Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

Welcome Page Help

First of all, welcome to CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help. We know that some of this stuff can get confusing, so we put together a little system for helping you find your way around CrazyOutdoorsmen.com.

Note: When perusing the site, keep an eye out for the "What's This?" icon whenever you have a question about certain functionality on a page. Who knows, it may actually help.

Alright, on to some of the Frequently Asked Questions. There are some nuances when going through CrazyOutdoorsmen.com that may not be that apparent your first time through. Take a quick peak at the following FAQs to help you get your feet wet with the site:

1. How do I go back to my homepage?

In the unfortunate event that you get lost in the site, simply click on the CrazyOutdoorsmen.com logo in the upper left hand corner of the site. You will be immediately taken back to the safety of your home page. Ah, home sweet home.

2. How do I create a group?

We want our members to have the ability to share and read journals that relate to areas of their interest or geographic locations. To create a group for your hunting partners, family members, and friends, click the Create New Group link on the left side in your member options. This will take you to the group creation page. Enter the group name and group description then decide if you want this group to be open to the public or kept private. A private group is only open to those that you invite. A public group can be joined by any member on CrazyOutdoorsmen.com.

Also, when you navigate to Create New Group, make sure to keep an eye for the What's This? icon, which will provide more insight into what a group is and how to set one up for your needs.

3. How do I create a journal?

Creating a journal is easy. It’s the key functionality of CrazyOutdoorsmen.com and it was designed for those of us who spend most of our time outdoors instead of on the web. To create a journal, select the Create New Journal link on the upper left side of your menu options or from the menu located at the top of the page. This will lead you to a journal platform that is unique to CrazyOutdoorsmen.com.

There are various input functions on the journal creation platform, so make sure to look for our friend, the What's This? icon. These include the journal body where you can type your story, the photo/video upload where your accompanying photos and videos are attached to the journal, the user select box where you can indicate which members were there with you for the adventure and, finally, the sharing preferences where you decide which groups you want to share your new journal with. A check box at the top of the journal creation page will also let you designate the journal for submission to the public page.

4. How do I invite my friends to CrazyOutdoorsmen.com?

On the left side of the page you will find a box with the words “Enter email address...” Enter the email address of anyone you would like to share your journals with or would like to add to an existing or newly created group. CrazyOutdoorsmen.com is a great place to create a group for your hunting partners or deer camp. Invite anyone you hunt, fish or enjoy the outdoors with and allow CrazyOutdoorsmen.com to be your meeting place for sharing information and keeping up to date.

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

Sending Invitations Help

If you're looking at this then your probably interested in inviting some friends to the site. Well, you've come to the right place. There are a couple useful tidbits to keep in mind when inviting friends to the site:

1. CrazyOutdoorsmen.com's emails often end up in the Junk Box
As unfortunate as it may be, CrazyOutdoorsmen.com is just another drop in the bucket when it comes to websites trying to send email. So, you may want to let your friend(s) know that you invited them and that they should check their junk email box. Also, be sure to mark our emails as safe if you see them in your junk box, so that you don't miss it when your buddy writes about the monster 12 point buck he just shot.

2. You can enter one (1) email address at a time; or you can supply as many as you want, using ";" in between each address
For example:
hunter4life@yourisp.com;iluv2fish@yourisp.com;etc@etc.com; ... you get the point.

3. Invitation emails contain a temporary password for the soon-to-be new members
This password is randomly generated and sent to the email address that you specify for the invite. If, for some reason, that user loses their password, feel free to Contact Us and we can retrieve it. That said, all user specified passwords are encrypted and not accessible by any member of the CrazyOutdoorsmen.com team.

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

"My Groups" Help

The "My Groups" list contains all groups that you are a member of. It is really just a set of quick links to your Group Home Pages, as well as any new journals that you or other members in your group write. The Group Names are written in orange text and the journals will be written in white. As members update existing journals, they will reappear in this list in order to let you know that a journal has been update.

The journals will be removed from this list if you a) click on the journal or b) click on the group. Most members use this as the initial reference point for new journals that might interest them.

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

"Group Content" Help

When you click on a Group Name anywhere on the site, you will be taken to that group's home page... pending, of course, that you have access to view that group. Once the group's home page loads, you will notice that the right hand side of the screen is populated with various member's names and various journals under each member. This is primarily intended as a quick reference to view the latest journals from each member in the group that you are currently viewing. These journals will be phased out after six months, but will still be available when searching for a journal.

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

Photo/Video Upload Help

Videos and pictures are the backbone of CrazyOutdoorsmen.com. Ironically enough, uploading pictures, and even more so videos, can be non-trival if you haven't done it before. Follow a couple of these simple rules to ensure that your videos and pictures work well (and look great) in your online journals.

Picture and Video Rules

1. Maximum Size
The maximum size of what can be uploaded in a single click (i.e. all three files) is 20MB. Thus, if you would like to upload a VIDEO that is close to 20MB in size then do not specify other files in the remaining two File Upload boxes, so as to not go over the 20MB limit.

2. Accepted Movie Types
We accept AVI or WMV movie files at this time. If you are using Windows then you already have access to the "Movie Maker" software that can be used to edit your video and save it as a WMV file. We do plan on expanding this functionality in the future, but have not seen the demand as of yet. Please contact us if you would like to see this expanded!

3. Minimum picture size
Each image is watermarked and could be featured throughout the site. In order to achieve consistent site aestetics, we must ensure that photos are larger than 276w X 105h, so if you see an error regarding the size of your picture, try to bump up the size of the image that you are trying to upload and give 'er another shot.

4. It Takes Time...
If you have a slow Internet connection, it will take more time to upload large photos. Thus, if you are seeing performance issues when uploading videos or images then take a look at shrinking the size of your images to speed up the process! Many digital cameras now-a-days shoot pictures in excess of 2MB each, which can take up valuable size on your hard drive as well as make it frustrating to upload such large files over a slow connection. Just keep this in mind!

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.

CrazyOutdoorsmen.com Help

#PAGENAME# Help

... and the help just keeps coming. If you haven't found what your looking for, head over to our Help Page. Remember, you can get detailed help information from the icons located throughout the site.