As the nights cool this fall, anglers toss and turn, dreaming of muskies - giant, muskies.

When targeting muskies this fall, from Lake Vermillion to Minneapolis metro lakes, this seasons anglers go-to baits will be Storm’s Giant FlatStick crankbait and Blue Fox’s Vibrax Super Bou, a big bucktail. Cast the latter over the last green weeds of the season. The former, troll fast over shallow rocks.

Fall is often even better for muskie fishing, because cooling water triggers a natural instinct in the fish to feed heavily.

“All they’re thinking about is eating,” Ben Brettingen a muskie guide and outdoor writer explains. “They’re trying to bulk up, like any other animal would, for winter.”

It’s anticipating the onset of the fall feeding frenzy that’s been keeping Brettingen up at night lately.

“It’s been a weird year so far, following the late spring,” he says. “The patterns were thrown way off and guys were having a tough go at it. But now things are really starting to home in.... Pretty soon, it’s going to transition and it’s going to break loose.”

Super Bou brings ‘em in the boat
A versatile bucktail like the Vibrax Super Bou is the perfect tool to target giant muskies over green vegetation.

The new “go-to” bucktail is a tandem-blade Vibrax Super Bou. In the Vibrax chamber - a feature unique to Blue Fox baits - a free-turning brass gear emits a sonic vibration and a rattle when it rubs against a bullet-shaped bell. Combine that with the amount of water these blades are pushing and it causes a ruckus.

Along with the Vibrax feature, the Super Bou’s unique combination of marabou, hackle feathers and flashabou fibers gives it an edge over other bucktail baits.

“There’s just something about that marabou,” Brettingen says. “It just moves and pulses in the water and it’s quite seductive.”

Fellow muskie hunter Jeremy Smith agrees.

“My favorite combination for the fly on the back of the bait has been a combination of marabou, saddle hackle and flashabou and Blue Fox nailed this pattern to a T,” says Smith, a former muskie guide and current contributor, on camera and off, to Lindner’s Angling Edge TV program.

More impressive to Smith however, is that he caught a 52-inch muskie on a Super Bou shortly thereafter, on “one of the first trips out with it!”

Both Smith and Brettingen throw a size 8 Super Bou when the fish want a bait burned over cover, and the larger size 10 when slow-rolling is triggering more bites.

“They’re very versatile baits - you can work them high in the water column with speed, or you can slow-roll them down to 30 feet,” says Brettingen, who will throw Super Bous through November.

Crankin’ for Giant FlatStick fish
Another bait in Brettingen’s fall arsenal is Storm’s Giant FlatStick. He likes the big crankbait’s shear sides, which elicit water-moving action and a lot of flash.

More often than not, he will troll a Giant FlatStick. And fast - up to 5 mph.

“I love casting, but if I want to purely put a fish in the boat, I’m going to start trolling,” Brettingen says. “When you’re trolling you’re covering more water, you’re putting your bait in the strike zone constantly for more aggressive fish.” Trolling for muskies, “a classic pattern in fall,” he says, is usually effective on Vermillion, Lake of the Woods, Mille Lacs, and most big-water Upper Midwest fisheries.

He trolls his Giant FlatStick on 80-pound-test Sufix 832 Advanced Super Line with an 18-inch, 150-pound VMC fluorocarbon leader. “You don’t want to skimp in the leader department, because it’s that connection between a trophy fish being in the boat and losing it.” When casting it, he shortens his leader to 12 inches. He ties his braid to the leader’s heavy-duty snap swivel with a Palomar knot, which he says holds much better than a Fisherman’s Knot for muskie fishing.

Storm FlatStick Jointed
Bart Rosen is a big fan of the Giant FlatStick’s “little brother,” the FlatStick Jointed - and not just because he’s on Storm’s product-development team.

“It’s responsible for two different 50-pound fish that I’ve caught in the last three years,” Rosen says. “It’s one of the best big crankbaits that’s out on the market right now.”

Rosen often casts and trolls the FlatStick Jointed over large rock reefs.

When casting, he starts by cranking it slowly, just trying to gauge the mood of the fish. “Nothing’s happening? Speed it up a little bit, then slow it down again,” he instructs. “We’re really looking for something that will trigger those fish.”

Another technique is to incorporate a series of sweeps in your retrieve - one big long sweep, two short ones, changing angles, up and down.

“To the predator fish, this appears that the bait is fleeing away,” Rosen explains. “By sweeping the bait... it increases that speed and nine times out of 10, that’s when they close the gap and they hit that bait.”

The FlatStick Jointed’s namesake “joint” gives the tail a wide, rolling action. A loud, multi-ball rattle calls fish in. It comes in a 6 1/4 inch model and a new 7 1/2 version. Although those measurements might seem short compared to some other muskie baits, don’t assume bigger is always better.

“This bait might look a bit smaller, but I tell you what, it’s a lot bigger than it looks,” Rosen says. “And it’s stronger than almost any other bait that’s on the market.”

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