Episode 136: How Tracking Jig Colours Led Me To Unlock Muskie Patterns

What if your walleye box held the key to your next muskie? We sit down with veteran multi‑species guide Patrick Tryon to unpack a hard‑won breakthrough: when walleyes get picky, the jig colour they favour often maps directly to the belly colour that triggers muskies. It’s not a theory born from luck—it’s the product of years of obsessive journaling on Lake Nipissing and the Upper French River, controlled trolling tests, and a willingness to question assumptions about colour, light, and predator focus.

Pat walks us through the early breadcrumbs: chartreuse ruling most days, then suddenly failing while orange or white took over; walleyes locking onto one hue during “weird” windows; and muskies going quiet at the exact same times. He details how he stripped variables by running four identical crankbaits differentiated only by belly colour matched to jig paints, and what he learned when conditions tightened. The turning point arrives with a simple clue—black jigs outfish everything on a slow walleye day—followed by a bold switch to an all‑black Suick. Fifty‑five minutes later, two high‑40s are in the net and a pattern becomes a tool.

Beyond the fish tales, this episode doubles as a blueprint for anglers who want reliable results under pressure. You’ll hear how to keep a useful fishing journal, why belly contrast can outperform top‑side flair, and how to use a high‑volume species like walleye as a real‑time sensor for apex predators. The takeaway is practical and repeatable: when walleyes get selective, match that exact jig colour to your muskie bait bellies and tighten your spread around it. It won’t win every hour, but it can save the hours that matter.

If this story sparks ideas for your water, share them with us, subscribe for more field‑tested tactics, and leave a rating so other anglers can find the show. Got a colour that’s bailed you out? Tell us—we’re all adding lines to the same journal.

Transcript

Correlation, Not Coincidence

SPEAKER_09 0:05

My mind believes there are no coincidences. There are definitely correlations. And there's always the correlation versus causation debate. I'm not suggesting that there's an always correct answer because it's a fluid dynamic fishing. There's a lot of science involved, but it's ultimately involving another creature, another sentient alive creature that that makes its own decisions. So anytime you're working with something that's also doing calculations that are not human-made and thus predictable, like breaking through an algorithm, you're dealing with an animal who has instincts, and in the exact moment it says, I'm gonna do this, it might be pulling on something from 20 generations ago from a genetic perspective.

SPEAKER_05 0:50

This week on the Outdoor Journal Radio Podcast, Networks, Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North, we're sitting down with the one and only Patrick Tryon, a seasoned multi-species fishing guide whose tales flow as naturally as the French River itself. In this episode, Pat takes us on a journey through one of his most monumental fishing revelations, weaving a story that's not just about the catch, but about the colors that make all the difference. On this show, Pat dives into a fascinating correlation he discovered, one that bridges the gap between species and the colors of baits we use. Whether you're a seasoned angler or just love a great story, you'll find yourself nodding along as we explore how a simple shift in color can change the game. And maybe your next fishing trip. So grab a coffee, better yet, a wobbly pop, settle in and join us for a little story time with Pat. This is one you don't want to miss. Welcome, folks, to another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North. And uh, we are all very, very lucky, in my opinion, to know and have a regular guest as um amazing as Patrick Tryon. And he's with us again today. How are you doing, Patrick? I am good, Steven.

SPEAKER_09 2:33

Thank you for having me on such short notice as well. I appreciate you accommodating, uh accommodating the podcast today.

SPEAKER_05 2:41

Oh, buddy, anytime you call and say that uh you're inspired and and uh feel like you want to talk to the family, um uh I stop everything. I drop everything.

Mentoring A New Angler

Confidence Versus Experience

SPEAKER_09 2:52

Well, I appreciate that. Uh, you know, it's I don't know every so often I'll be meditating or, you know, whatever, and I'm in a still state, and an idea comes to mind that I say, yeah, that'd be kind of neat to talk about on the podcast. If, you know, and I'll write it down or I'll drop it in my notes. And, you know, sometimes we do it, sometimes we like there's like probably 30 things I've never even brought to your attention that has flittered through my spotlight of consciousness that has, you know, since fallen off my radar. But this one I realized uh the last time we spoke, we were talking about how people learn. And we're talking about kind of how do you improve at any skill that you want to get better at. And I just sort of wanted to continue that conversation in a storytime-oriented fashion because honestly, uh I've had a lot of questions lately. I've I've kind of been helping a budding angler become better at the craft. And so I'm getting all kinds of questions from technical fishing-based questions to fish movement questions to like life questions. How do you deal with, you know, when when you pop a tire on the highway? Is it just like everything, right? So, so I really got to thinking because I was trying to encourage this individual to start looking at the process as anything I'm capable of or as have done, he is as well. There's nothing like, you know, the only difference when I leave the dock it and in in the morning to him is the level of confidence. Now, the confidence is built into years of experience, right? Yes. But at the end of the day, I just like I know I'm gonna figure it out. I don't know how I'm gonna figure it out. I might, I might not be pulling on, you know, 10 years of of knowledge or something that's that's a that's a logical base. It might be because the the tree is lit up weird and I go over there and fish bite and catch walleye. You know, like I I just know I'm gonna figure it out. And Muskie's hard because you don't get a lot of you don't get a lot of feedback. Yeah. So the whole reason why I'm basically yelling at you right now, I don't I know I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm hyped, but I was going to I was going to sort of explain a breakthrough moment because again, it's how you think about things, not not what you ultimately end up doing. It's it's and and one thing I've been trying to instill upon this young angler is to not get caught up in the very specific details of why something worked on that day, but instead to always be posing the question to yourself, what will it take to figure this out today? And one of the things I don't know that I've ever spoken to people outside my circle about this. And it's a breakthrough moment I had years and years ago that really helped solidify a pattern. And the reason why I want to talk about it is because I think it does a better job at demonstrating how I kind of figured that pattern out because it wasn't like some, oh my God, you know, uh you're such a smart guy thing. You know, like I blundered my way through trial and error. And I thought one of the only ways I've been able to get through the um the mind of a young angler is through sort of telling the story so that he can understand what it took to get to that breakthrough moment. Because it's not, it doesn't happen like a finger snap, right? Sometimes that intuition does, but how we methodically work through to figure something out takes it does take a lot of time and patience and and uh creative application of the craft, right? So anyway, I just that's that's why I wanted to get you on the phone today, get you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Well, I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_09 7:07

Okay, cool. Very cool.

SPEAKER_05 7:11

So, where are we gonna start here, Bill?

SPEAKER_09 7:12

It's a good question. I listen, I'm living in real time here myself. So I what I want to do is because it's it's really important to me that people understand I'm a I'm mental. I'm I'm mental. And and I that's not necessarily a negative thing, but I tracked just about every single data point that I could while I was up on the Upper French River in Lake Nipissing working for you at the lodge, all the way to my very first year, where I took a very simple journal. And every year that went by, I added more data points that I collected from the time that I was, you know, 12 and going up there until, you know, today. I'm still I'm still coming.

SPEAKER_05 7:59

I don't think, honestly, there is anybody on the planet that has a more detailed journal and more data points than you.

Why Journaling Beats Memory

SPEAKER_09 8:07

Well, I don't, I can't speak to that. I don't, I would imagine a guy like Danny Columbi might. Um there are some other guys that I know are very detail-oriented individuals. Um, but I can tell you for sure that from the people I know within my circle, I don't think there is. Um, but again, that whether whether whether I have more than it's irrelevant, what I do have is that data to work with. So when I'm looking at patterns and I'm and I'm trying to figure stuff out, especially the more complicated, you know, yeah, um, connections, I'm leveraging a lot on that data. And it's also it's really important to point out there's a bit of a fallacy with that because I'm only able, I mean, even though my sample size and data collection is bigger than some, it's still only one person's results. And I'm always weighing in feedback, I'm hearing from other people, but I never logged fish from like, you know, if if if Matt came in and he said, yeah, we got one on this bait, on this color, on this spot, I didn't log that. Like that didn't go into my notes only, and it's not about trust, it's just that unless I see it, like, I mean, and again, I that this makes it seem like you can't trust, like I had a very, there's no reason to believe that, especially Matt, the things he says were not accurate. But to me, it was more about correct my personal data. And my I remember a lot of that stuff anyway. Like I remember a rainy day. Matt had come in with a 40-pounder, not in. He'd caught one while he was out there. And I could tell you the exact spot that he told me the uh the bait, the exact color, and I could tell you what the barometric pressure was because I I was also out there and we got one not nearly as big as his. His was ridiculous. Uh, but because the connection is so solid, like I just remember that data anyway.

SPEAKER_05 10:03

But well, and and let's be honest, when you're keeping track of that data and you refer back to it, that's how you cement something into your memory. Like for me, when I'm out there and and catching fish, I I don't have that that recall. There are people out there that claim that they do, and I think JP Bushy is one of those guys who really doesn't take a whole lot of physical notes but has a memory for that kind of thing like a steel trap. But when you write things down, and and I've said this for years, and Peter Bowman is another guy that does that, um, that is the next level that helps your memory, that makes it so that when we are in the boat and we're up fishing in the fall, and we are um uh talking about different situations and and you know we're we're um um brainstorming, you have that in your memory, and it's very easy for you to recall. A lot of the information that I bring to the table, I need you to poke it and prod it. And I remember things once we start talking, I'll say, Oh yeah, I remember this guest. They come in and they told me they did this, this, and this, and and that happened, or whatever that might be. But that is uh like the the the what you're talking about and your journaling and all of the data points and everything else um is is the next level.

SPEAKER_09 11:35

I agree. And and just another note on that before we move to the to the storyline, it's very when you say the correlation between remembering something, when you write it down, those external events that did take place simultaneously to the event that you cataloged, then come to mind much more easily as well. So it's not even just about remembering that specific data point, it also helps you to remember the entire picture that was taking place that day upon uh referencing that material. And that's why, for instance, that fish that Matt got at the same day on. If I look at my log, I know automatically Matt also got that one. And it just builds a bigger, more whole total picture of what's happening, which is to your point, that is the next level. Because quite frankly, that's the type of information you need to be able to have quick access to on the water to make those informed but yet instinctual decisions. Like JP, beyond having an excellent memory to recall specific patterns on specific spots, had the instinct to then apply that knowledge in a slightly like, yes, you caught him on the, you know, this point with the three eights on the, you know, slow fall. That that that might still be relevant. But then he's also in the moment that day making the subtle change that gets them to go that day. And it's the instinct plus the recall that when you that's how you skillfully apply fishing talent to be able to find success. Right. And I think a lot of the, yeah, the top, a lot of the top guys, uh that's that's what they're doing. I mean, that's that's how they're doing it. But if you, if you're not taking the notes, if you're not writing down the logs, it we always want to think we're going to remember perfectly. And we just simply don't. Even if you have an excellent memory, I consider myself having a good memory, and there are still times that I get details wrong that I'm back watching videos from like 10 years ago, and I've remembered it one way, and then I watch the video and I say, look at that. I was I was running a different bait on the downrod. I thought that I was running whatever, and you just you lose some of those details, right?

Building A Personal Fish Database

SPEAKER_05 13:50

Um absolutely. It's funny how that works, you know. Um uh Uncle Barry, God bless him. I love the man. He um he came up and helped at the lodge, and and he's older now, he's in his 80s, right? And uh since Aunt Beth died, cognitively, he um he's gone downhill. And um, I've I've had the pleasure of hearing the same stories from Uncle Barry for well over two decades. And um the the human brain, uh, when you get older and the farther away you get from those situations changes those stories because I I can I know well he tells the same story in a different light. Um, and um uh without that anchor of truth as a root, there's no um there there's no um well anchor is a great word. There's no anchor or a root to hold you in that truth. And as the years go by, you move away from from what actually happened. You know what I mean?

Story Time Setup: The Colour Quest

Walleye Jig Colours That Win

SPEAKER_09 15:03

I do know what you mean. It is funny how we watch those morph uh those those types of stories. And you know, it's not it's just a natural occurrence. There's like that drift, it's like the telephone game with yourself over the decades, you know, you you retell it in a more favorable way or whatever. So listen, let's actually stick to that theme because this segment I just I basically want to call like, I don't know, story time with Pat, Pat's perspective. Because here's the reality. I can tell people all day long, here's what happened, right? Here's how I, here's how I got from point A to point B. And it's very relevant because I'm experiencing it right now with this budding angler as I'm talking, you know, the questions are coming up. And to answer the question, I need to give a little bit of backstory and try to get that what I'm calling this, this, you know, breakthrough moment. What is that point where it bursts into the reality of the a pattern or an understanding, no longer theory, right? This is this is now something that's true in my perspective. So I'm gonna preface this by saying, this is my perspective, man. Like, like this is this is my reality. So I get a lot of these questions from this budding angler that are not in inadvertently, like not intentionally doubting or but it sounds, you know, these some of these patterns, the way that I got to them sound supernatural almost, right? And and I I don't know what to tell you other than I'm just gonna tell you what happened. And and this is how I got from point A of a theory all the way through to what I consider to be a huge breakthrough point when it comes to color selection of musky baits. And, you know, you're talking about a niche topic. I mean, everyone wants to know, well, what color, what color? And I'm like, well, it depends on 500,000 different things, right? And in my mind, I you can't you can't dictate a color ahead of time. You can only react in real time. So this is gonna be the story of how I, as a multi-species guide, benefited and and truly grew as a muskie angler specifically, because as easy as it is to say if you want to get good at muskie fishing, go muskie fishing. There are the reality is you can't always go musky fishing. And one of the things I've tried to instill upon this angler is what can you be doing now in winter when we literally can't go muskie fish. Our season doesn't open till June. We cannot do it. It's frozen right now. So likewise, that got me thinking there were a lot of times on the water I was, dare I say, frustrated at having to go walleye fishing, you know, walleye guiding again because I was adept at it. I enjoyed the shorelunch. I did, I liked it. My heart was obviously in Muskie, but when we had other guys who were up there who were really predominantly muskie fishermen and really only wanted to do the muskie, we I always tried to defer the the unless there was a special request, I would, I would send the muskie guys out as I was doing the schedule with like a Matt who's who's just so much better at doing the muskie only as opposed to having to cross, you know, track with the walleye. Matt was not a guy, he was a muskie guy. Yes. But built on it. And not to say that I was not, it was that I was fine to go do walleye, man. Whatever. And I loved the shore lunch because there was the showmanship, the, the, you know, this grand performance of the shore lunch that you and I both know and have talked about, really leaving the number one firm impression across the board, if there was one aspect of a guided day across any species, what single-handedly had the biggest positive imprint on a guest of Shaudier Lodge, it was shore lunch, time and time and time again. Because not everybody's gonna go out and catch a 50-inch muskie, but everybody's gonna get that shore lunch. Yes. Right? Okay. 1,000%. So I was then, I'm trying to put myself in the perspective of this new angler. And I was, I, you know, I'm I'm remembering how I built, and it's a perfect, it's a perfect story because I remember being frustrated at walleye fishing and thinking, tasking myself with how do I get better at muskie fishing while walleye fishing, right? And over the years, there was not very much movement, to be honest. I mean, uh, I, you know, it was your walleye fishing. What do you, what do you so, so it wasn't until I started looking at the data. And this is now going back. I I can't, I could pull up the the I think this would have been 2016 that this is really starting to grab. I'm just for the sake of the timeline so you know, I'm gonna involve you heavily in this. It was in 2016, I'm really starting to see some some interesting uh correlations, I'll call them. So, to demonstrate this, I just want to ask you, and I want you to answer this as to the best of your ability through ideally your personal experience, but you're gonna know a lot of these based on Billy coming in and talking about it, Bob Purple when he was alive, rest in peace. Um, you're gonna know a lot of these from that, but I really want you to lean into your personal experience because I think it makes a bigger um, like I'm really talking heavily to you because you you're gonna grasp this so heavily, but I think everyone else will as well. There is one predominant presentation that we use and have used long before my time and your time and even Billy's time. There's been one predominant technique and presentation to catch walleye on the upper French River and Lake Nipostine. What is that presentation? How do we fish them?

SPEAKER_05 21:06

Very simple. It's a jig and a minnow or a jig and a worm.

SPEAKER_09 21:09

That's it, buddy. A jig and a minnow or a jig and a worm, and we took it into plastics and you know, but the end of the day, it is a jig and it is a piece of bait, right? Yep. Now here's a question. In your direct experience on this time, forget what you've heard from people. Just you on the boat on the water, fishing with family, guests, myself, whomever, your direct experience, and I'm speaking to the upper French and Nip because as I'm telling the story, it is dependent on this location. I'm not claiming that the correlation that I found would apply to Lake of the Woods or apply to wherever. That's where all of our data come from.

SPEAKER_05 21:45

Correct. It may apply, but it may not.

SPEAKER_09 21:47

But I don't want to make some crazy sweeping claim that somebody says, no, you can't. I I get it. But in my experience on the Upper French River and Lake Nipissing, could you please outline, let's say, three. What are the three best colors? Colored jigs. If you were gonna, if you were gonna go out there by yourself, say, and you're gonna take every jig and every color in the planet, but you'd have you have no idea what is happening that day. And you've got to pick one to tie on and try. In your experience, what's the first color that you're gonna go to? There's no wrong. I'm just curious. Okay, what was it? Chartreuse. Okay, now they don't bite chartreuse. What's the next one you'd go to? I would go to pink. Okay, and they're not gonna bite pink. What's the next one you're gonna go to? Orange. Okay, now they're not biting orange. What's the next one you're gonna go to?

SPEAKER_05 22:32

Well, I would start um looking at combinations.

SPEAKER_09 22:36

Don't worry about combination. I should have prefaced it because I I knew it. Sometimes they want to. Because the eyes matter. Yes, it does. But let's say it's a solid painted jig. What's the next primary color jig you're gonna go to?

SPEAKER_05 22:49

Black.

SPEAKER_09 22:49

And then what's after that?

SPEAKER_05 22:52

Uh whatever I got in my box.

When Chartreuse Dies And Why

SPEAKER_09 22:54

Okay, great. It's a wild card. Let's go with those. Here's what here's what I noticed. Okay. You'd go out there on any given day, and on like 95% of the outings, what color are they biting? You said it right away. Chartreuse. They're eating chartreuse, man. Quite frankly, it didn't matter. You could you could put on chartreuse on yours. You could put uh uh I could be using an orange, we could have George jigging with pink, we could, you know, and you're catching them like 95% of the time, it really didn't matter. I use I used that I used the Pat's rig, which was the Carolina rig. It didn't even have color. And 95, yeah, 95% of the time you're catching walleye. Doesn't make a difference. However, yesterday you're pommeling them on chartreuse, orange, pink, blue, whatever, man. You just pick one and throw it. And you go out there and you've got, you've got, man, you're running chartreuse, I'm running. Everybody's been pummeling them on chartreuse. You you go over a big school of them, you see them on the bottom, you hit your spot lock, you get everybody rigged up. There's a beautiful kicking hot minnow over here and a worm right there, and everybody sends their line down with chartreuse jigs. And what happens? What happens? Nothing. Nothing. Thank you. I love it. See, this is a great, I love this back and forth because some days you know you experienced it. So what do you do? It's pretty simple. You start changing your colors, and sometimes it's about the weight, sometimes it's about yep, it could be the line. There's like, you know, but for the most part, some days, I don't know why, they would eat chartreuse, and then they would immediately the next day they're not even touching it. And you give them the exact same size jig with the exact same bait, the exact same line. And I know because I'm using my rods that have all those other variables constant, and they eat the orange, or they eat the black, or they, you know what I mean? Like that's that's but that only applies for like five percent of the time. So here's what's interesting, right? I don't know how this kind of idea originally came to me. I have I don't have any idea, but I started looking at when those slowdowns happened. An interesting, really interesting correlation, in fact, happened where I I'm looking at my previous data and all the way back, and I to get enough data where I was capturing baits I was running, I it was probably about five years into me fishing up there. So I don't have it all the way to the beginning, but I have quite a bit of what I was running in the general results with you know weather data all overlaid. But a very interesting thing happened. Anytime I was complaining in my logs about slow walleye bites, there were several instances where it coincided with struggling to catch muskies. And I started comparing those data points, and again, this is like almost, I don't know, what 10 years ago? What year? Yeah, 10 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

Yeah, yeah.

First Clue: Orange Walleye, Orange Muskie Belly

SPEAKER_09 26:09

So so I'm looking at these at these data points that are literally handwritten. I don't have them cataloged digitally where I can quickly compare data sets like we can now with advanced, you know, algorithmic movement, which is what I do on Instagram. Like I can't quickly compare data sets like that. I'm having to read my notes. And one of the mistakes I made back then is I had separate logs for different species as opposed to keeping it as one long chronological journal. And I missed it originally, but there were a lot of overlap between, you know, sometimes you're pummeling the musky. And listen, pummeling, that's such a such a when you pummel the walleye, you catch a hundred in a day. When you pummel the muskie, you're catching like 20 in a week or 25 in a week. I mean, Matt and I had like a 15 fish opener once, and and on the back end of that, we might have had 25 fish on the on the week, right? That's very rare. The sample size just isn't that big. But there's if you look year over year, it doesn't matter which year you read through, there are always these blips of days where the muskie bite has gone from really good to like not good. And you're like, I was see, I was catching one or two a day and seeing five or six a day. And then there's a three-day period where I'm seeing one in a three, like, where did they go? And you're you're now questioning what do I even know anything about this fish, right? Because you're you're trying high, you're you're trying all of the variables, and it's really hard to figure out what they're doing. So I'm sitting there one night in the in the staff room in the back, in my little corner room there, and I'm looking at the at the two journals side by side, and I'm flipping, and it's like it's like ramping up, and I'm like, oh my God, there's this correlation between Muskies, the the walleye suddenly acting weird and muskies not eating. I wonder if what the walleyes are eating is what the muskies want to be eating in terms of color. Because the the way that the the chartreuse suddenly turns off, but see, I'm not running chartreuse baits. I'm only running chartreuse bellies. Or orange bellies. Like I'm not running an all-orange, well, some baits are all orange, but but for the most part, I'm running like a like a walleye with an orange belly, like a hot belly walleye versus a white belly walleye versus a yellow belly walleye, right? Like the the bellies are the accent, right? And back then, Steve, I didn't really think it mattered. I didn't think it I, you know, they're pretty, they're baits that look cool and it catches fishermen. I I but I as we'll find out, it kind of does matter, it looks like. So I'm sitting there and I'm looking at these two data sets and I'm like losing my mind, right?

SPEAKER_05 29:07

What was your feeling then? Because that when you when you invest that kind of, and I don't want you to lose your train of thought, but I do want to dig into this just a little bit. Because when you spend that amount of time compiling data about what you're doing, and you're not even a hundred percent sure if it's even gonna help you with anything. But when you start to to see those patterns and to really, really start to feel like what you've been doing with this is working. What does that feel like?

Designing A Controlled Trolling Test

SPEAKER_09 29:43

You know, you want to talk about complete validation first and foremost, because so many people were like, dude, you're crazy, Log. Like, that's too much. It's too much. You're you're doing you're doing to the point where they would say it's distracting you from actually fishing because you're so obsessed with getting that data. And when I say that, there were times where I was, they would say, Pat, let's go fish. And I'm in after my guided day, and I'm like, no, no, I want to go get my brain dump done and get that info out before it, you know, before you lose it, right? So, so, and they say, it's too much, just go, come on, let's go. Let's the the fish are biting, you know, or whatever. And there were times that I gave in and said, all right, let's go. Let's, you know, let's let's let's go fishing. But if there were things that were more, you know, nuanced, it wasn't just a typical day, I was fairly, I wanted to get it out. I wanted to get it down. So instant validation, but remember at this point, too, it's just a theory, man. I don't know. I don't know. Now I did immediately in that moment, you said, what is it, what does that feel like? You know, there was a brief period of time that my heart was kind of thumping because I said, oh my God, I'm on to something. I'm gonna go back now and start referencing what colors I did catch them on. But unbelievably, I didn't, I didn't take as good of notes early on in walleye because I wasn't a walleye fisherman. I was only going up for two weeks a year and I was all musky. I didn't have the walleye data. And in the before you were guiding. Correct. I wasn't fishing walleye that much. Like if I went up on a two-week trip, I might fish walleye for six or eight hours on the shore lunch day with Bob Purple, and then that was it. I'm not touching, I'm not going for walleye anymore. I'm I'd I'd catch a muskie fish, you know, like like those tanks, like, you know, but but but not jigging and and getting that data. So I didn't have it. I didn't have the data. And I'm like, okay, inconclusive, no problem. But I started paying attention to, you know, as we as we move forward. Now, I'm gonna jump forward about a year because this is this is the definitely the following season.

SPEAKER_05 31:43

And I know that because I am here's so you found a correlation just before we we move to the next year.

SPEAKER_06 31:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 31:53

Um, you you were talking about um finding these gaps of slow days, and then basically the data set from walleye on color was so much larger than it was for muskies, um, and you were correlating those colors and those gaps and um overlaying the muskie and walleye information on top of each other and finding some um correlation.

SPEAKER_09 32:24

One. So the theory was there and it always lined up with the gap in. So when the walleye got funky, hold on one second. Kevin snuck into my room and I gotta now go open the door because she's whining and she'll just sit here and whine. So I'm gonna come right back to that point if that's okay.

SPEAKER_05 32:43

Kevin is your dog.

SPEAKER_09 32:44

Yes, Kevin, come here. Come here, tell everybody what you've done. Hop up. Look, tell everybody what you've done. You have come into this podcast and you've got yourself stuck in daddy's office. Now you I have to get up to take you out so you don't whine.

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Okay, all right. Kevin is looking very uh prim and proper, but she doesn't like me.

SPEAKER_09 33:06

She everybody likes me. No, she's I tell you what, she really likes Rayburn now. Once once he gets in and um he's he's there for a while. She she wants to play with him. She's still, you know, it's it's a work in progress. But anyway, let me let her out. Hold on one second.

unknown 33:22

Yeah.

Early Results: Chartreuse And White

SPEAKER_05 33:23

This is very interesting, uh, folks. And this, I'm gonna tell you, was um uh something that we had not talked about prior to Pat's phone call about 20 well, we've been uh doing this now half an hour, but 20 minutes before we got on this. Um, so this is all off the cuff, and everything we do is off the cuff. Um, but um when Pat gets on one of these roles, best thing to do is just let him go. And um this is really uh interesting stuff. Um and I can tell you the analogity that he carried when it come to um data points and all of the the the stuff was ridiculous. This is a guy who um broke the Lorantz uh system by putting too many um waypoints into a Lorantz unit and uh they were advertising it was good for I forget, I'd have to ask them, but it was like 10,000, 15,000. Oh, here he is. Let's ask him. Hey Pat, just on a quick note, um, when you broke that Lowrance um uh for waypoints, how many waypoints were they advertising? 5,000. And yeah, okay, so 5,000. And uh the uh the machine, you were the only one that uh put that machine to the test and proved that um it would crash and it didn't have 5,000 weightpoints.

SPEAKER_09 35:01

Correct. It had it had 4,200. And uh when I spoke to Lawrence directly, they said that's impossible. And I said, I'll tell you what, I'll come into any store and do it in the store. So I went to Radio World with Lauren and I did it with Lauren. It took me less than five minutes to crash their display unit that, by the way, did not have any networking attached to it. It had no, it wasn't in the direct sunlight, which was something they had said, oh, it's overheating because it's not in, you know, it's in the direct sunlight. This was in the store in optimal conditions, hardwired into the grid because it was voltage issue, they were saying. And I'm like, no, it's not. And yeah, we crashed it with 4,200 waypoints.

SPEAKER_05 35:43

And they give you new Lorance. Two.

SPEAKER_09 35:47

I mean, I had to turn my my, and by the way, that was the Gen 3s that had that were notoriously problematic, I think. If you look back, it was one of the more, one of the least successful iterations that they had. Um, they went to the carbon after that, which were far, far better. Um they're even way better now as the processors get better, but the carbons did not have the same problem. Happy to read them.

SPEAKER_07 36:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Oulette, and I was honored to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as Chaga, a tree conch, with centuries of medicinal use by indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials, and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession. And I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of the strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. Find Under the Canopy Now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Back in 2016, Frank and I had a vision to amass the single largest database of muskie angling education material anywhere in the world.

SPEAKER_02 37:55

Our dream was to harness the knowledge of this amazing community and share it with passionate anglers just like you.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

Thus, the Ugly Pike Podcast was born and quickly grew to become one of the top fishing podcasts in North America.

Tough Bites And White Bellies Hit

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Step into the world of angling adventures and embrace the thrill of the catch with the Ugly Pike Podcast. Join us on our quest to understand what makes us different as anglers and to uncover what it takes to go after the infamous fish of 10,000 casts.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing, it's about creating a tight-knit community of passionate anglers who share the same love for the sport. Through laughter, through camaraderie, and an unwavering spirit of adventure, this podcast will bring people together. Subscribe now and never miss a moment of our angling adventures.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Tight lines, everyone.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Find UglyPike now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

The George Week Slump

SPEAKER_09 38:50

Okay, back to the story. Okay, so one true correlation, I'll say. And again, it's a limited data range. I mean, it's not like I've done a study with thousands of multiple anglers over multiple bodies of water, but that's okay. You know, my mind believes there are no coincidences. There are definitely correlations, and there's always the correlation versus causation debate. I'm not, I'm not suggesting that there's an always correct answer because it's a it's a fluid dynamic fishing. It's there's there's not it it's there's a lot of science involved, but it's ultimately involving another creature, another sentient alive creature that that makes its own decisions, however primitive we want to call it. It's still got a brain doing its own calculations out there. So anytime you're working with something that's also doing calculations that are not human-made and thus predictable, like breaking through an algorithm, you're dealing with an animal who has instincts and millions of years potentially of genome, you know, altercations or alterations. Yeah, that might, it might in the in the fraction of a decision that it makes, because I have some really interesting correlations on this topic, but some in the exact moment it says I'm gonna do this, it might be pulling on something from 20 generations ago from a genetic perspective that for whatever reason fires through at that exact moment, similar to how humans can show genetic, you know, some traits can skip a hundred generations and show up randomly because it's in our genome. What expresses is often predictable, but every so often there's a genome that fires that you're not expecting, right? Anyway, to me, there are no coincidences. Uh, it's all data. So the one, and this is interesting, and this this one was we're we're still in that first year. We haven't skipped ahead a year yet. But the one that got me thinking this is a pattern that I need to explore, because let's be honest, if I explored every single pattern that made its way at the idea through my mind, and it would take me 50 lifetimes to test everything because I'm getting so much unusable, like, you know, seemingly random information flowing through my mind sometimes. I'm all over the place, dude. I'd be like, no, they're only eating, you know, grass today. Like, you know, like because one came up with weeds in its mouth, I'd be like, should I be adding weeds to my bucktails? Like, no, that's, you know, those are fleeting. It might work. I don't know. I could you could do it if you I bet I could on a challenge. I could, I could catch, I think, I think you could catch muskies on a piece of cabbage tied to an empty shaft for sure with blades behind it and using using a chunk of cabbage as the body of a bucktail. You could easily catch a muskie doing that. Anyway, that doesn't mean we should explore it as a as a as an ongoing pattern. Right, okay. So there's one, and it matters because it lined it up literally, it lines up so perfectly with one of the other favorite colored jigs that I would put on the list. The only one that you didn't say that I'm as soon as I say it, you'll say, Yep. Purple. Nope, nope, it's white. It's white. White, yes. And I was on this like really hot, really hot bite with white bellies in it for musky. And it was weird. They weren't, like I'd run glitter perch in its regular glitter perch, which has an orange belly. And then I've got another bait that's exactly glitter perch, but it's a white belly, and they were eating the white belly. And I'm running both. And I ran Fire Tiger, but they were eating the white belly for the previous three days, right? And that fourth day, we went out and we got nothing, right? And the next day I caught a uh uh when when okay, so three muskies the previous days. One day the bite got tough. The next day I go, I go out doing walleye, and then at the end of the day, I grab staff and go do a troll, and Micah jumps in the boat. And this is all I hadn't, I wasn't looking at the data at this point. This was previous. This was the piece of information the data suggested to me there might be a pattern. Micah happened to catch a 53 and a half inch muskie on an orange belly shadzilla when previous we had been getting all our fish on white. Micah went out and got, and by the way, I'm running orange. Like I'm I'm I'm not not running other baits, right? But they were, but on that night, we had one orange belly bait out and a 53 and a half inch or eight Micah's bait. And that's that great photo. He's wrestling an alligator. I mean, you know, Micah's not a muskie fisherman, so even just him holding it is a momentous event. And he's arm wrestling this literal giant, right? And my my walleye notes on that same exact day that Micah got that 53 and a half, my when I take My walleye notes, I keep it short and sweet because at the end of the day, it's I don't you don't need to catalog everything. Usually my notes say walleye dash all. It just means they'll bite anything you throw. You could throw any color, you could catch them on rigs, you could do bottom bouncing, it doesn't matter. It's a typical average day, right?

SPEAKER_05 44:19

Every so orange. That day, you were walleye-orange.

The Black Jig Revelation

SPEAKER_09 44:23

Only orange. The literal phrase is walleye only orange. And I said, okay, I acknowledge it could be a coincidence. But here's what I know: this the weather hadn't changed, man. There was no, I couldn't point to a cold front shutting the muskies down. I can't even say the muskies were shut down. Just because we got three in three successive days and then took one day off, or with no fish, I should say, does not mean the bite has, quote, shut down. What I do know is the very next fish that bit after very stable, and again, dude, the weather's like the same. The barometric pressure, there's there's seemingly no, I don't know what the variable was. I I don't know. What I do know is it coincides perfectly with the walleye bite suddenly getting weird. And that the fish, which was a giant, ate the exact color belly that had that had been the one that the walleye ate. And that piece of data, as I'm sitting there, I said, okay, I need to explore this. So at this point, I'm still not even calling it a pattern. I'm saying I need to see if there's more to it. And that's what launches the next phase of my of my approach to this now. How am I going to set out to prove this or otherwise get more validation or data, quite frankly? And that's that was the jumping off point, seeing that one fish off of the theory, because previous to that, the only thing that really lined up consistently was walleye being weird and muskies going away, not biting. But then it lines up where there is muskies being, you know, walleye's being weird, muskies not biting, and the color that triggered the walleye and a color that triggered a muskie. So that's the first time I've seen what I would call empirical data that said maybe there's a correlation. And it's not just some pat theory, which we all know there's many and they're not always correct.

SPEAKER_05 46:28

That's right. But I always say, look at the data. And this time, the data is telling you without a doubt that this situation happened. And that is something that you can't ignore.

SPEAKER_09 46:42

Correct. You definitely can't say it didn't happen because it did. Whether there's any meaning behind it, who knows? But at least we know that the events took place. Here's what happened. Yes. Here's the timeline, buddy. What do you want to do with it?

SPEAKER_05 46:53

Yeah.

Switching To An All-Black Suick

SPEAKER_09 46:54

So being being very interested in this now, my goal is keep in mind too, I'm wanting to figure out is there a hack to get these muskies to go when they suddenly shut down? Because look, man, I'm a guide. I've got to produce. And production is money. Yeah. I can't, I can't afford to have three days where you're not catching fish. And it happens. I mean, we're all humans. We can't control it, right? It doesn't matter how good you are, how good of a stick you are, or how great your knowledge is, you're gonna have days you don't catch. I can personally attest to many that I didn't go out and catch muskies when I have paying clients in the boat. Yes, but is there a way to mitigate because what I'm always looking to do is how do I get better? I don't care that we struck out today. What could I have done? What was there a piece I could glean? This is always the, you know, it's almost cliched. Well, it is cliched, you know, is as long as you learn something, you know, you don't have to catch fish as long as you learn something. If that doesn't help you feel good on tournament way in when you're a bass fisherman and you've got two fish for three pounds and and done that. First place was 24, and the top, the top 20 had 18 pounds, and you're so far on the outside, you're questioning whether or not you are even a fisherman, right?

SPEAKER_05 48:10

You know, maybe I should bring my daughter.

SPEAKER_09 48:12

Yeah, exactly. Where's the Mickey Mouse rod? Because that's what I should be using, right? And you're questioning every, but is but it's not gonna bring any any consolation there. But the reality is, if you learned something from that process and can apply it, that's how you get better to be in the top half. And it doesn't matter how good your week was last week, what are you doing today? So that was always the goal for me. What are what are any places I could find? And one of my focuses that year, because let's be honest, just like the walleye, when they're in their normal feeding patterns, you don't have to try that hard. You got to find them. There's skill involved in that. But once you get on top of a man, you drop the bait down and they bite. I mean, it's not, it's not a very technically requiring, you know, job to catch walleye.

SPEAKER_07 48:58

Yeah.

Three Fish In Fifty-Five Minutes

SPEAKER_09 48:58

But it is for muskie because you don't, you don't have the luxury of knowing you're sitting above 50 and just trying every different thing until you figure out what it is that's going to get them to bite. So my theory was how can I very quickly prove this out so that I can use the data I'm getting as a walleye angler? Because I can't fish muskie, but I am fishing walleye. So, how can I turn that data into valuable muskie data? Because so often I was doing walleye in the morning and then going out and doing a four-hour muskie guided tour in the afternoon evening. So, where can I be getting information for my muskie trip later today? Even though I'm stuck doing walleye and make no mistake, there was virtually no day that I wanted to be out doing walleye as opposed to fishing muskie, but I did. So, how can I benefit from it? And this was it. So, in that winter, now I'm gonna skip ahead. So I've seen the correlation, and again, it's still just a percolating theory. I wouldn't say I've proven anything in my own mind, but there's a correlation. So I have a buddy who makes baits and he paints, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna send you, I'm gonna send you four jigs, and I'd like you to take, I'd like you to take the jig and match that color and just spray the bellies. I don't care what color the top is, but keep it all the same. I don't care what color the bait is, but I want the bellies to be this specific color.

SPEAKER_05 50:28

So you send him the jigs. Yep. And he took the specific color of each one of those jigs and painted that onto your muskie baits.

Validating The Colour Correlation

Takeaways On Method And Mindset

Closing Notes And Listener Invitation

SPEAKER_09 50:38

Correct. And I I should actually say why I sent the specific jigs. Okay. The other piece of data that ironically isn't in my notebook because we lost the muskie. We were jigging for walleye. And it was kind of funny because I have the video. You can see the wall, the jig, I am convinced to this day, the muskie did not grab a walleye who was on the jig. Because when that happens, they've usually got that fish T-boned in their mouths. The jig is still hooked to the walleye, but the jig is nowhere near the muskie's mouth. The fish is holding on, the muskie's holding on to the walleye that you were reeling up off the bottom when the muskie grabbed it. But this, and I again, I have the proof, bro. Like, like I've got the video and screenshots. The jig is hooked, the muskie in the snout. I think, and the second piece of that is we were using a two-inch plastic minnow. And I think the muskie ate the freaking minnow on the jig. Like, I really think the muskie, which is like, why would they eat a two-inch minnow? I don't know, man. But the it and it and it and that one was a chartreuse jig on a day where most things were working, most things were working, but I remember specifically that they weren't eating the rig. They were only eating jigs. And I can't, there's there's in the note, there's nothing, it basically says walleye, it it says no rig. So again, my walleye notes are only so deep, but what to me that tells me that it didn't matter what color they were on it. But what I do know is the muskie ate that exact chartreuse jig. And I got the vote. I I can so I so what I wanted to do was say, in order to keep this as scientific as possible, since I'm using the data from the walleye to see what they are going to key in on, I want to use the exact shade that these jigs of the jigs I'm using, because it's, you know, there's 20 variations of chartreuse. It might have a little more green, it might have a little, I mean, it's it's a little more yellow. It's subtle, but it is present. So in order to reduce the variables, I just sent the whole bloody jig and I said, I need you to paint and I need just the bellies. I don't care what the top looks like. And I so here's what's funny. I get back in the mail, I get four baits, and I wanted a seven-inch because I wanted something that I know the fish are going to eat. I wanted a very specific dive curve so that I could split test. So it was the seven-inch body that I've just done so well on. And it is it is basically primer and paint and then sealed. So it's like a grayish, whitish, solid block of color with the belly is the only difference, right? So I'm like, okay, it wasn't what I was expecting, but this is exactly what I wanted. And then what I would do is on the days that things started getting tough and the walleye are getting weird, I would go and I would often go grab guests, or I would grab sometimes staff and say, Hey, do you want to go on a muskie cruise? Where basically it's where I go to just do weird things that I don't care if I catch or not. People are so pining to go out and get off of the island if it's staff or if it's a guest. There's, there were almost zero times a guest said, no, Pat, I don't want to go jump on the boat for free and go fishing, right? So, so I could get people very easily after dinner. So it was, you know, hours here, hours there. And I started putting baits out on an average night. It didn't even matter what the what was going on. I would take them out and I would put on, I'd, if I had four people, so three plus myself, sometimes five or six, but I'd only ever run four rods. I would put my two short rods down, and then I have two 11-foot surf rods that I had built on on um on surf blanks that I send as my out rods. So I've got a beautiful spread. I don't have to deal with outriggers or uh um planer boards. I don't have to deal with anything. All I'm really dealing with is four flat-lined rods, and I was able to run the baits in a beautiful spread where nothing's tangling, but I could run them all at similar depths and similar lengths behind the vote, uh, behind the boat. They were never off by more than a couple feet in either direction. And the only reason why I ran them, the down rods a touch shorter than the out rods, was so that I could make a sharp turn and the baits would cross over as because they were at physically different depths. So even though the curve was the same, I was able to be maneuverable and go structure fish, run the edges. I could go anywhere that didn't have weeds basically, because these were treble-hooked, you know, like crankbaits. I could go anywhere and I could just go for cruises. I'd go in the back channels. I mean, I'm I'm really not trying hard. I'm just trying to go out and put some baits back, hit good spots and see what the data says, right? And two times in that first year, two times, the the days that were tough on the walleye reproduced a color. Usually there was a singular color, though. The one caveat I will say with walleye, because again, I want to be perfect in the data, and I feel it's important to say this. So many days they would bite chartreuse or the green. It's not chartreuse with the yellow, it's like a bright green. It's not, you'll know it. It's not chartreuse, but it's not dark green. It's like a very fluorescent green, but that doesn't have the yellow. A lot of days I noticed they would eat the walleye would eat the green or the yellow, right? Or the chartreuse. Yeah. Um, but on the days when they were eating that, if they were being fickle, they're not also eating orange or pink or what, right? So so I'm sitting there and I'm I'm I'm noticing that there's something going on with chartreuse on that day with the walleye. And the very first time it happened, we went out, I've got all four lines out, four of the exact same bait, right? And I'm just cruising along, no, no, you know, just whatever, and boom, the rod goes off. And guess which one it ate?

SPEAKER_05 57:02

It ate the chartreuse.

SPEAKER_09 57:03

It ate the chartreuse. Now, coincidence, okay, maybe whatever. But to me, I'm like, dude, there were three other baits that it could have chosen and it ate the one with the chartreuse belly. That's interesting to me. Now, I've not, I'm not saying anything to people about this, by the way. I'm not, you know, this is going in, but I'm not, I'm not telling the people on the boat that there's any significance to this, right? Buddy, uh, I'm I'm just gathering data and taking notes, okay? So we maybe, I don't know, I've I do it two or three more times. But see, the problem is there's so few days the walleye are are fickle. Fickle. And the reason why this day to me was tainted is because the day before we'd also got a muskie. So it's not like we were in a period where the muskie weren't biting. So I don't quite have what I'm like looking for, which even that statement is self-fulfilling prophecy, right? I'm looking for a desired outcome. So it's data. Yeah, but still you gotta you gotta check yourself because it's very easy to make claims about things that just do happen to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_05 58:15

While you analyze the data, I need more data. The data shows that it ate chartreuse, but it wasn't a fickle time. The walleye were though. The walleye were the walleye were and and uh the the the thing is too that fish had the choice of baits. Now, one could say that that was the first bait that that muskie saw, but um with a spread fairly tight, I think those fish are are analyzing or looking at everything and then making a choice.

SPEAKER_09 58:52

Well, and I will say this where we were fishing, there was not, you know, sometimes we'll be fishing and we'll go over a reef and I and I line it up so that the downrod on the starboard side is the one that's going over the very tip of the of the pile.

SPEAKER_05 59:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_09 59:07

In that case, I'd say, sure, that fish is sitting on the spot on the spot. It took the bait that was closest to it. But in this case, we weren't. We were on a flat, not a structure. So of course we might have just driven over it perfectly and that's what it ate. But as you said, it's it's data, right? It's it's it's it's data.

SPEAKER_05 59:25

It's data.

SPEAKER_09 59:26

So, so the next time this happens, it is a day now where, and this is the first time that I have at I've had both things that are true. There was a dry musky period, and the walleye were being absolute jacks. I'm talking like you're looking at them on the scanner, like you see them on the on the Lorands, on the on the finder. You're watching your jig on the finder, like there's no question that you're in the fish, and they're just not eating. They're just not eating, right? They're just being absolute punks. So on that day, the the walleye we we only caught like three, but every single one was on white. Every single fish that we did catch was on white. And I say every fish because the smallmouth we were also, we were, it was at a time of year we were catching smallmouth in the same spot, and they were also eating the white. So maybe this is a multi-fish thing now, right? I'm not, uh I don't have a lot of data to that level on smallmouth because we always did it in a power fishing way or when they were schooling in the river deep. So I don't, I just don't have a lot of data on the on the small. But what I do have in my note is that the fish that we did catch, the only fish we caught on that day, yeah, the only walleye we caught were on white. We did catch a couple other smallmouth on the rig, on the on the Pat's rig thing, but on the jigs, they were eating the white, right? And that day, after like three days in a row of having tough muskie fishing, guess which one the muskie ate? Well, I'm gonna guess the white. It ate the white. And it's kind of funny because it's like, you know, this grayish color with this white belt. Like it looks the dumbest thing, right? But it eats the white. So I sit there and I'm I'm now, but it wasn't big, and I I should, I should say it wasn't, you know, it was like 40, whatever, 38. Micah's was a lot more appealing to me because it was a 40-pounder. I I I like that data to compare, but it's still suggestive that you're catching fish when it listen, on any of the three days before that people are paying me to fish muskie, I'd have paid$100 cash out of my pocket to have that 38 on the line. You know what I'm saying? Like, absolutely like who cares that it's big or it doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't denounce the data. It it it just No, you know, but I'm a big fish. I want the data set.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:55

But I'm saying it's 38 or 54 or whatever. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:00

So, so now I'm saying, okay, this is a big enough thing to me that I am going to really start lining up on the days specifically, because the going out with these wonky baits, that was the side, like that's not, I don't think, a very effective way to fish muskie, putting one the exact same bait in basically the exact same spot and running four of it. That's not. I don't have a long line, I don't have something with blades, I don't have, you know, that's not effective. I was just doing it for the science of it. But when I'm actually guiding, I'm now starting to lean into writing that. So the next day we went out and we fished muskie and I on a guided day, and I'm now running like three white bellied baits, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:02:47

Because I'm like And throwing white bucktail white tube and white everything.

SPEAKER_09 1:02:54

Yes, until they tell me, hey man, we're not eating this. I'm gonna just go. And I will say this that again, it's day, I don't know if it's correlation causation, but but they were eating white in the days after that, and we did well, and it eventually ebbs and flows. And there's I think two cycles of weird walleye in between the the final aha, okay, I'm done. This is it moment. Yeah. And it's it's it's really, really compelling. Because I go through two and I'm trying it, I'm going out there, I'm honing in on the you know, colors, and then I'm thinking, God, this is twice now, it's not working. Maybe it's maybe it's just some far out thing and it doesn't actually work. And um, I didn't have a huge sample size of days fishing muskie when the walleye were weird. Because unfortunately, if I'm not guiding muskie later that night, I'm not always going out on the water to test it. I can't. I've got a family up there. I've got, you know, like like I can't just constantly be out there. And if I have three days of walleye in a row where they're being fickle, but I'm never going out to test the muskie, I've just lost that block of testing time, right? So I go through two cycles, I think it was two of bad walleye, weird walleye. And I don't know what it is, man. It seems to be like twice a month. Maybe it's lunar-based. I don't know. I'm trying to figure out now why it's happening. That's totally sidebarred. All I know is it is happening. So this happens to coincide with a recurrent guest that I bring up all the time because of his vast positive impact on my personal life in a multitude of ways. And that is our wonderful friend George.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:36

George Carnut.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:38

And he's on a week-long muskie trip where he's coming with Pat because Pat's, you know, the one, and I'm doing air quotes to the audio listeners because I I sometimes I didn't understand why people were so gravitated toward, you know. I mean, I was confident and I went out and I did there, but I had just as many tough streaks as anyone, and we were on one, Georgie and I. We had caught one muskie at the very beginning of his trip, one, and it was not big, and we had given her for days, and man, they were just the weather was fine. It was like August, dude. It was, it should have been stable, great. There was no cold front. It's not like I could look at some external events and say, you know, wow, they really shut down because of this. I need to slow down or I need to upsize or I need to go deeper. Like, you know, there's no rhyme or reason. The muskies are just being hard. And you know what I was not doing that week? I was not walleye fishing. That's exactly right. So I start going around and asking, you know, I go and ask Billy, hey Billy, uh did you did you catch anything today? Did you did you catch? He's like, yeah, you know, walleye. And I'm like, okay, well, like what what'd you catch on? He's like, and I'm like, yeah, what what color? He's like, you know. And I'm like, I'm not getting what I need, you know, because I I'm not out there, right? And One day per trip, George would take Billy and he would go out and he would fish Billy, right? Fish with Billy. And on that day, I had scheduled a day off, and Jen and I went into town. He went out with Billy. And you, you, Mr. Nidswicky, got sucked into guiding because I was gone. And somebody came up at the last minute and said, Hey, I wanna, you know, I wanna go, I wanna go do a walleye. And so you took them in the morning. George went with Billy. I go to town, right? Come back. It's it's now the evening, and this is the last day of George's trip. So we had said, hey, let's go just give her after dinner for a couple hours for Muskie. We've caught one tiny one, not what George is there for. And then it's been five tough days. Now he's going walleye fishing, which he enjoys the Carol was. No, it's Carol. Carol enjoys the the the doing the walleye day. So that's why he goes, right? I'm just gonna say it as it is. So he gets back, and the first thing I say is, hey George, how'd you guys do? Did you catch what what'd you catch him on? What color, you know, I'm trying to get and and I base it, all I got was that it was slow. It was so there was no, I couldn't discern any that they bit this color. I mean, it didn't seem like, you know, and the other thing is Billy is such a good walleye angler. I truly believe that man could catch him with with anything. Yes. So it's also hard because I think he's gonna get it done no matter what. And and that's a skill set that I I don't innately have as a walleye angler. You know, I often figured it out. We always had lunch at shore lunch, but Billy, man, he's he's next level for that instinct piece. He can't necessarily articulate what occurred that got him to, but he's always catching, right? But it was you. At dinner time, we cross paths because I'm in there antsy to get George out because I just want him to catch a muskie. And I've got also Jen is lined up to go with us. So we're gonna go out with Jen, my you know, myself and George, and I'm excited to, you know, get them, get them fishing because I want to catch a fish. So, so you and I cross paths, and we're talking in the, we're talking in the in the you know, dining room, and I'm and I'm like, okay, stop talking because I want to get to George and get out, right? This is my arrogance. I'm like, Steve, and I was talking to George. You were. You were you and George are talking about walleye fishing, and I'm like, Steve, go, would you leave? You know, like I we've only got this one chance to get back out there, and the day is getting shorter. So I so I get George out there, and we're, you know, man, a pat's giving her, buddy. I've got this bait and that, and that is quiet as crickets, buddy. Like, rods aren't creaking, there's nothing happening, and we have been failing. We have not been doing good for muskie. I'll put it that way. And this night is is no different. And I'm I'm cruising along, and I, and by the way, in my haste, in my absolute haste to get George out there, I grabbed a handful of lures and threw them on the boat because I was walleye fishing the next day. I didn't want to bring my entire cases of muskie lures for my trolling stuff. So I grab a little handful and I go out there because that's what was working last week, right? So I go, I go out there and we're running around and we're having a great time because George is just such a character. You can't have a bad day ever with the guy. But I want, I'm, I'm frustrated because we're not catching fish, right? So we're pummeling along and you know, nothing's going off, and I'm sitting there and I'm like, man, I should have been walleye fishing, right? Because now I've got it in my mind that if I knew what the walleye was, I knew the walleye was tough, because I had gotten that much out of Billy, but I didn't get any other, you know, all I knew it was tough. So I said, man, I wish I'd have been out there walleye fishing, because if I could have figured out what color, then I could figure out how to do this, right? I could, I could, you know, I've I'm convinced that this piece of data that I don't have and have no way to get is the key, and I'm going insane. And as I'm driving along, buddy, it hit me like a like a sledgehammer to the forehead. Because you said it. You said, Pat, it was weird. This guy that I took had his own stuff and he was the only one who caught. Do you remember? And buddy, I know I'm calling on a on a distant memory. Do you happen to remember what color jig? Because you come and say, Pat, it's the we like I it just was the one today. Do you happen to remember what it was? Pat put you on the spot, buddy.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:52

Folks, um, I remember that week. And I remember going out, but I don't remember the color.

SPEAKER_09 1:11:03

Well, you'll never forget again because I never shared this with you, and I owe you a huge debt of gratitude. And George knows, but I swore I I made him made, I was, I thought he told, I said, you can never tell Steve because he because he, if I if he finds out I ignored him when he was telling me the answer, he'll hang that over my head, which you would really never do in a real way. But but George, I told George the the series of events that took place to this night happening in the dining room. You said, Pat, it was the weirdest thing. The guy brought all of his own jigs, and like every jig that he had was some shade of black. It was like gray and dark gray and midnight black and black with a blue fleck, and every jig he had, he only used black, and he was the only one who caught fish on our boat today until we switched to black.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:04

Now, two things are really important. At this point, I don't have a single black jig in my box. I didn't use black jigs for walleye because you know why? They always bite bright.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:14

They all they always that was one of the colors that I said off the top.

SPEAKER_09 1:12:17

Right. It was your fourth color. Because those primary brights are the ones that are traditionally gonna work somewhere. And you threw the black. Listen, it's gotta be lingering in there because you knew, dude, it was. And I add white as well as my fifth, but at this point, I don't even have black jigs in my box. So, so that's how much belief I have. Even if I had been fishing walleye, Steve, I wouldn't have gotten the answer because I didn't have black. I wouldn't have tried it. So, so, and I've not sent a bait away to have a black belly put on it. Now, here's the funny thing: I've got lots of black baits, and you know where they are? On the dock. On the dock, because in my infinite, brilliant quote air quotes here, people. I'm being sarcastic of my own abilities. In my infinite genius, I've picked the five baits that they might eat that day, and none of them have black. But you know what I do have in the boat is all my casting stuff. I've got all my casting stuff because I kept that in come in in Plano boxes in the floorboards in the in the compartments. So I go up and I grab my jerkbait box and I snap on a beautiful all black 10-inch weighted suick. And it's and I trolled it with George. Steven, from the time I snapped that bait on, and I'm telling, buddy, I've got the pictures on my phone with the timestamp. You can verify all this. There's no, there's no showman. This is just how it happened, bro. Okay. From the time I snapped that 10-inch black weighted suick to troll because it was the most all black bait that I had. It had the least amount of any other color, and it had the most black belly. It didn't even have the red nose on it. Normally the black sewics have, it doesn't even, it is just jet black, and it did have eyes. That was the only, the two white eyes, it was the only thing it had that was not black. And I threw it back there. 55 minutes of time elapsed. And in that 55 minutes, we had three fish on. We lost one near the boat that was maybe in the mid-40s, and we boated a 48 and a 49 within a 30-minute period of each other. So I've got a picture. Jen's holding the 48. She reeled that one in, and George reeled in the 49. It was the last fish of the of his trip. The sun is going down, and George says, I'm very happy and I'm ready to go back to the dock.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:57

You've got to be kidding me.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:58

I am not kidding you, bro.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:01

You caught them trolling a black suick. All of them.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:04

Yep. All three fish on a black suick.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:07

And you had three other baits out.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:09

I know I had two other baits out.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_09 1:15:12

And these weren't the weird belly baits. I'm running, you know, my normal spread. I'm running like the, you know, I'm not, I'm not pulling out the. But it ate the black. But it ate the and we had multiple times. We had nothing for like a week, bro. We went through such a tough, weird bite. And the thing that it ate, that three, you know, 55 minutes, 55 minutes. And the last two crazy, the last two are 30 minutes apart. The photos are 30 minutes apart. And it's eating all black suick. It's not even freaking. I'm like, does it even matter what you throw if you get the color right? And obviously, you got to be able to get the bait to be in the position where the fish is. And I had gotten lucky of knowing the fact that Matt was doing well casting. I didn't know a lot of other details other than the fact that I didn't necessarily need to get real deep. Because if those fish were coming out of 15 or 20 feet of water, I might have a tough time with a black suick, right? And my other options are like a swim bait that I had in all black. Like I didn't have a ton of all black casting baits that I could get down to deep water.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:17

Even if I'm trolling my tube that's all black, it's flailing around on the surface.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:22

It's like a bally hoo across the surface.

SPEAKER_09 1:16:25

But that suic tail, I tuned down a little bit more than normal to get it to dive. And it was probably sitting down there eight feet, you know, because I'd put her back and under a trolling line. And it was on wire. The fish ate because I was trying to get it as deep as I could, given the fact that it was the only black bait I had. So on a wire freaking trolling rod, we got three on the on the all black suick. On the day you said it, you said, buddy, it was the weirdest thing. He had all black jigs and all variations of black, and it was the only thing that they bit. And I I ignored you. I was in my in my crazy desire to find out the information from the sources I thought it would come from. I ignored the source that had the information. And not that I didn't trust you. It wasn't, you know, I'm I'm just like, Steve, we gotta go. Like, stop, stop. We need to get going. And and anyway, when it registered hour, like an hour later, I'm on the boat catching zero with Georgie. Yeah, it it that that seed that seed got watered, baby. I don't know where it came from, but the seed you Steve said. Yep, all black. Like a buddy, like a sledgehammer. I jumped. I mean, I I I swear, I lit, I like I it I jumped and I said, I gotta run black. I said, like I like I proclaimed it to the world. And Jen and George are probably like looking at me like, what's happening? Like, is he okay?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:02

Yeah, that is a story that I've never heard that. I've never heard that story.

SPEAKER_09 1:18:07

That from that point forward, and this was maybe 2017. Yeah, I could go back and look at the exact. I'm pretty sure it's 2007. But from that point forward, anytime that the walleye got fickle and they went on to a specific color, I would switch to that color, man. And and and listen, you don't you don't catch them every time, even still, but uh the correlations now I have a lot more data, Steve. Yes. That I now don't think it's just a coincidence. In fact, I'm positive that there is a correlation between the jig color that the walleyes are eating and the belly that your bait should, like the color of the belly of your bait. I truly believe that there is a correlation between those.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:50

Well, that that right there is such a um um profound correlation, connection, and piece of wisdom that you're sharing with the Diaries family. Um that is outstanding. And I want to thank you for that information and for that story and the whole story time because nobody that is on your level is telling people and explaining to them in depth and uh in in I don't even want to call it layman's terms, but people aren't giving that information away. And folks, listen, that right there is a nugget. And and again, I'm gonna preface this with all of this information is firsthand from Pat and and and obviously he was he was using my uh brilliance as well uh to to to uh build these um to build these patterns. But it would not surprise me in the least if you're a guide out there and you start employing that one thing I I can't guarantee, but I would 1,000% suspect that your fishing um uh success will go up bar none. And Pat, I know that this um this podcast is uh is um not finished because there's a lot more that you want to talk about, but I think we're gonna do it in a two-parter. And this is the perfect spot to end this one right here. So listen, thank you very much. And um um I really appreciate you coming on and doing this, and I can't wait for the second part.

SPEAKER_09 1:20:53

Well, thank you for having me. And I and I gotta tell you, there really isn't a second part. That was that was really from my perspective, that's the full circle of that aha moment. But if you want to talk about other aha moments, sure, man, we can that but that's a that's a 30-part series, bro. Like perfect. Okay, well, then great. And again, I always appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:17

Um Well, listen, uh, let's just let's just uh expand on the the the thought of the reason that I thought that we might be going into a second part, and that's because we kind of focused on the beginning, uh at the beginning of this, on um the uh your your um you being a mentor. And uh this whole thing, the this was the this is that piece that you explained that every aspiring angler should listen to and try to employ.

SPEAKER_09 1:21:55

Yeah, fair cheers to that. It's all in how you think, man. If you if you just really remove your thought, what you think you know from the mix and truly live in each moment, taking all of your life experience and applying it to right then and there, it is in it's how you skillfully apply those skills in each moment of the day that determines whether or not you're successful. And that would be my only hope is that people can glean that methodology, these exact examples. Sure, it's neat and and we can we can talk about that, but again, you can apply the exact same methodology no matter what you're doing. So without a doubt, if you're gonna take something away from this, take away this idea of having an open mind at all times in which to better yourself and position in whatever you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:45

And and um I'm gonna uh I'm gonna reinforce the uh the the key factors here because you don't number one um start to unwrap this revelation without data collection. You don't um unwrap this without time on the water. And uh it is so important for people to to when you're uh fishing is is just like any other trade. You need 10,000 hours out there, baby, to to to master it. Uh and whether you're talking about being a sheet metal mechanic, an electrician, or a muskie guide, you need that time. But the key, and this really is, in my opinion, a key. Um, there are all kinds of guys and guides out there that go fishing, like me, go fishing. I've been fishing a lot. Do I come home and do that data dump? Do I come home and and spend the extra time to to record that data in a journal? Um, I know Matt uses his phone. Um no, I don't. And that is probably one of the main factors and reasons that I don't um that I don't uh have the same quality when it comes to muskie in my in my tackle box. I I uh I've always chosen, and now I'll I'll be a little bit um I'll I'll I'll forgive myself a bit. Uh when I was running the lodge, there was a lot of other factors that I was doing, and I was doing that in a business, not as a as a guide. But to this day, um, I could have been doing that, I should have been doing that, but I've relied on people like yourself and people like Peter Bowman um uh to increase my uh my fishing abilities. Um but folks, if you're gonna do this, if you're gonna spend the time on the water, just take that little, and and I'm gonna try and employ this myself this year, okay? I'm not just talking to you folks, I'm talking to me as well. Take that little extra bit of time at the end of a day and journal it. Journal it. And you know the other thing, and this is a little bit of an aside. I'm going uh on a bit of a tangent, but the other thing that I really enjoyed about your journaling, Pat, is when I couldn't remember the names of guests after they had left, or uh if there were if there were were guests coming in and um and um uh Tim Kennedy uh called and I couldn't remember the other three guys in his group that were here last year. I go to you and say, Hey Pat, you didn't happen to guide Tim Kennedy last year. And you you would say, I'm not sure. Let me check my journal. And then you come back and you'd say, Yeah, I did. And I'd say, Okay, perfect. What were the other guys' names? And you would go to your journal and you would say, That's um Jeff, Rick, and Steve. And I'd say, Oh, perfect, thank you. And then I could use that information and put that into our our um weekly uh uh arrivals and uh and have everybody prepped with the names. And that come from your journal, and that is the importance of those journals. And you could tell me whether you had a good time, whether it was a bad time, you know, um all kinds of different nuances.

SPEAKER_09 1:26:20

So once we gave someone a nickname, Mr. Perch, and I was able to say, remember when he gets, as soon as they touch the dock, refer to him as Mr. Perch. And because his buddies have been calling him that the whole day, and they all it was like they didn't skip a beat from the previous year, and we're ribbing them the second he gets back, and it was beautiful. So uh it's a team, it's a team movement, brother. We couldn't have done it without each other or everybody else involved. And I was just playing my part. So happy to do it, man. Thanks. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:50

And uh, we are gonna do a part two, there's no doubt about that. Um, and listen, folks, thank you for getting to this point in the episode. Uh, I really appreciate it. Without you guys, I wouldn't be here doing what I'm doing. And uh uh, if you've got any suggestions, information, feedback, you know how to get me. I'm at steve.n at fishingcanada.com. And uh while you're thinking about fishingcanada.com, head on over to fishingcanada.com and uh check out all the giveaways and and uh our new season is uh is uh uh running uh strong and uh uh you can see all of those uh episodes from uh the 40th year um on Saturday mornings on global at eight o'clock. And uh if not, head to YouTube because uh you can see all of our new episodes on YouTube. They air Saturday mornings, and then the following Monday they hit the airwaves on YouTube. And uh you can see yours truly, Peter Bowman, Dean, Nick, and Angelo all uh having uh uh uh a ton of fun across the country. And uh also. Thank you to Two Rivers Lodge. Two Rivers Lodge is coming on as a uh as a sponsor. And uh I want to thank old Willie the oil man. He's uh he is um uh once again involved but in a in a different capacity. And uh honestly, folks, check it out. It is a uh uh again, I'm not even sure I like the word elite uh because it's very difficult to get there. But um this place is as close to that as I've ever seen. Um so check it out. If you're looking for a trip, head uh give Will a call and tell him uh that uh uh the Diaries family is uh is a buzz. Anyway, thus brings us to the conclusion of another episode of Diaries of a Lodge Owner, Stories of the North P. S. Thanks to the producers, Anthony Mancini the Great, and uh Deanny Martini Taylor. Actually, that's not his name, but we'll give it to him anyway.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:07

I'm a good old boy, never meaning no harm. I'll be the only you ever saw been reeling in the hog since the day I was born, bending my rod, stretching my line. Someday I might on a lodge, and I'd be fine. I'll be making my way the only way I know how working hard and sharing the north with all of my plows. While I'm a good old boy, I bought a lodge and live my dream, and now I'm here talking about how life can be as good as it seems. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:05

Hi everybody, I'm Angelo Viola. And I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right. Every Thursday, Ans and I will be right here in your ears, bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm. Now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week? Well, you know there's gonna be a lot of fishing.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:26

I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:31

Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:36

From athletes, all the other guys would go golfing. Me and Garkin Turk, and all the Russians would go fishing.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:44

To scientists. So now that we're reforesting or anything, it's the perfect transmission environment for lion seasons.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:51

To chefs, if any game isn't cooked properly, marinated or you will taste it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:57

And whoever else will pick up the phone. Wherever you are, Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.