Pike hits when fishing for muskie?

[Randy Lahey]

going on my first muskie trip in a couple of weeks and am naturally concerned at the elusive nature of these fish. I will be on the water for 5 whole days targeting big fish.

My question is that it seems to me that these fish (both pike and muskie) can be found in similar habitats. So if Im throwing decent sized lures targeting muskie (bulldawgs, topraiders, large spinner baits, etc), would it not stand to reason that I will get a fair bit of strikes from pike? Im trying to understand if I will be catching fish at all when Im targeting muskie if there are no muskie biting....

Will have a second rig in the boat for walleye and it seems to me that there are a ton of them in Lac Seul so that should be ok, but I mainly want to go after the larger fish. Thanks!

[DeBo]

Are you fishing the NE section of Lac Seul? I fish the Winnepeg river strictly for muskies on my canada trip every year. I catch a fair number of pike every day. Pike prefer cooler water than muskies, but there is still habitat overlap. If you throw big spinnerbaits and topraiders you will catch pike. If you throw a lot of D10 type baits the muskies seem to prefer them far more than the pike. If you want a lot of action from pike and still trigger muskies throw big jerkbaits like suicks, big daddy's etc. Pike can't leave them alone.

[Randy Lahey]

Good info, thanks. I am staying near Tuk Bay but I know I need to get to the NE and SE parts of the lake for a better chance at muskie.

Ive seen maps of the lake but have no real perspective on how big it will be to traverse with a small boat. Does anyone know if I can easily access good NE and SE muskie zones without boating for an hour? The boats we have are pretty much what the outfitters usually supply.

Im casting spinners, topraiders, bulldawgs mostly. Thanks