Bemidji-area fishing guide Bryan Sathre of Fathead Guide Service has seen plenty of muskies on the lake and said the lush cabbage beds are a great place to begin. The good news is these cabbage beds are found all around the lake. The bad news is that with so much good-looking cabbage, it's tough to figure out where to begin.

The area around the state park on the north end is a popular location as is the area on the northwest corner by the boat landing. The famed "Muskie Alley" is located along the lake's west side, north of the point that juts out from the college. Oh yeah, and you can catch them in the mid-lake structure as well.

Cass Lake
There are many more lakes to include in the tried-and-true category, but Cass is being included because many muskie fanatics think it holds the next state record.

Cass was home to a PMTT tournament last August where six fish longer than 4 feet were caught and released. The entire lake holds muskies, but one of the best places to begin fishing this lake is in Allen's Bay in the northwest corner.

Allen's Bay is smaller than the massive lake with plenty of structure, including vast weedlines, nice drop-offs and an abundance of shoreline cover. Anglers wanting the challenge of fishing the big lake could spend a week thoroughly working the shoreline breaks and points around Star Island and still feel like they didn't fish it enough.

There are numerous other places to look at, which is a good thing because if there's another boat where you want to fish, just cruise to a different location and come back later. The great thing about muskie fishing is because so many anglers run and gun, a spot doesn't stay occupied for long.

SLEEPER MUSKIE HOLES
There really is no such thing as a "hidden" muskie lake, mostly because the DNR has a listing of all lakes where fishable populations of muskies live. There are a few lakes, however, where muskies are either in short supply and not managed or where several fish were transplanted. These "hidden" lakes don't deserve mention because there are either so few fish in them or the fact that this scribe would go missing for writing about it.

Leech Lake
It hardly seems right to include Leech Lake in the list of sleepers, but with so much water out there, most anglers never work this lake like they could. Jeff Woodruff has run a guide service on Leech Lake for the past 30 years and said they are fishing many locations today that they never used to fish.

"Years back, people thought you needed to find weeds and rocks. Those are good places to fish, but you can catch them on the sand, on the breaks and over deep water -- it doesn't matter," Woodruff said.