Jim Luttrell with a 46-inch muskie caught on Lake Minnetonka. Photo by Ron Hustvedt Jr.

Walleyes may be the mainstay of Minnesota fishing, but thousands of anglers are now setting aside that "light tackle" to try their luck at some real gear-busting muskie fishing.

Once considered a fringe species pursued by only a few wide-eyed crazies, the addiction known as muskie fishing has really caught on in recent years here in Minnesota. Thanks to stocking programs initiated by the Department of Natural Resources and Muskies Inc., our muskie population is ever expanding and providing anglers with numerous opportunities to catch these toothy critters.

"If you count both native and introduced muskie lakes, there are 85 pure-strain lakes in the state and 105 lakes if you include those metro lakes with stocked hybrids," said Jerry Younk, the DNR's muskie research biologist.

That's a lot of water, and narrowing it down to the top dozen or so lakes is no easy task. Luckily, there is some hard-core data, thanks to Muskies Inc. "Lunge Log" is a database of information about all the details of muskie catches registered by Muskies Inc. members. We've crunched the numbers, and 13 lakes emerged from among the masses as Minnesota's best muskie waters.

For the purposes of this article, only catches in 2004 and 2005 were examined in order to keep it current. With a total of 4,153 muskies over 40 inches registered in those years, there's plenty of data to go by. With only a few exceptions, the vast majority of trophies over 50 inches came from the lakes on this list.

LAKE VERMILION
Vermilion had a total of 613 fish over 40 inches registered in the last two years, including nine over 54 inches.

Vermilion is filled with bays, channels, islands and points, and is very different from the big east end to the west. The east end has more water, fewer weeds, more rocks, more wind and less boat traffic than the west end, though both are great for fishing.

Duane Williams is the DNR's large-lake specialist for Vermilion, and he said they are currently in the middle of a two-year assessment of muskies in the lake.

"We did the east side in the spring of 2004 and the average length was 44.6 inches, with 14.9 percent over 50 inches," Williams said.

Tom Wehler, otherwise known as "Musky Tom," is a guide on Vermilion who has seen the lake go from barely a blip on the radar screen to a major destination. Pinpointing a location on a lake with 12 public launches on 40,000 acres is daunting, but Wehler is like a Zen master when he says, "Wherever you are, there you fish. I always tell people not to make muskie fishing any tougher than it has to be. If a spot looks fishy, then fish it."

Working points and weeds is the best way to start, and once you find muskies, look for similar looking areas. Eventually you can connect the dots and keep working each spot. "There might not be one on a spot now, but there probably will be later," Wehler said.