The other side of this coin is water temperature. With the early ice out, water temperatures will begin to rise quickly, especially in darker water. What this means is that, as the water warms, fish and other aquatic life will use more of the oxygen in the water. You can begin to see that there is a tenuous balance between the amount of oxygen in the water and the amount of oxygen needed to support an active fish population. This year, we are likely to see earlier algae blooms and early migrations of Musky into the cooler water of a lake or flowage. This will likely mean that our fishing approach will need to, more than usual, be in tune with the water temperature. Early weed growth will also affect our approach on the water. It may be more difficult to find those areas where weeds are far enough below the surface to be able to pass a lure over them and trigger a strike. Your productivity on the water will require some good scouting of weed growth and dictate an approach that has you fishing the weed edges more often. There are a few lures out there that bill themselves as "weed free" and which could be candidates for fishing in the weeds…but beware the hype. Since the warmer water is likely to encourage Musky to find a cooler water comfort zone where they need less oxygen, the use of deeper diving crank baits and deeper running bucktails and jigging lures may be more effective during the day. Remember however that when the Musky are in the deeper water they are widely distributed and therefore harder to locate.
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