Musky are ornery, aggressive fish. This makes them ferocious and extremely fun to catch.
But you won’t be catching many without a great lure to bait them in. As any muskie angler can attest, having the right lure can be the difference between a fun day of catching fish and a boring day with no action and nothing but a bunch of empty cans to show for it. We know you want to be catching rather than fishing, so knowing what lures can help you land more fish is essential.
Below, we’ll discuss what we believe are the best musky lures on the market - and we hope the work we did will save you a ton of time and effort. Use these lures and your next fishing trip is sure to be one of the best you have ever had!
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No products found. | Bass Pro | Mepps
Length: 7"
Weight: 3/4 oz.
Mepps knows in-line spinners, and when they set their minds to designed a musky lure that had flash, vibration, color, and a puffy skirt, the Mepps Musky Killer Bucktail was born.
Suffice it to say that it's been crushing fish since day one!
What makes this lure special is a combination of large size - 7 inches and 3/4 ounces! - and lots of vibration and movement. The big blade thumps like mad, triggering reaction strikes, and the full bucktail skirt adds subtle movement and color that calls musky in for a closer look.
The Musky Killer casts like a dream, as you'd expect, and I like to run this big, bad lure from deep to shallow, looking for inward-facing musky waiting for baitfish to transition to shallower water.
I also find this lure is murder when I run it down the sides of a point that's adjacent to deeper water, trim the tops of live weed beds, and make long search casts and retrieves along vegetation.
It's a musky hammer, to be sure!
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No products found. | Lixada
Length: 12"
Weight: 7 ¾ oz.
A big swimbait can be just the thing to tempt musky into a strike, and if you keep your swimbait chasing its tail like a jerkbait, or moving through long, lazy side-to-side glides, aggressive fish just can't resist!
Lixada's swimbait delivers the goods: it's life-like pattern and awesome swimming action fool musky, and I like to use a swimbait in late spring or early fall, when the musky are hungry and looking for an easy meal.
If you're unfamiliar with swimbaits, you should have a look at this article. Suffice it to say that they can be deadly, and the Lixada most certainly is!
I've filed the segments to increase their range of motion on my swimbaits, and I found that this improved their action and resulted in more strikes.
I'll bet you will, too!
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No products found. | Dardevle
Length: 3 ⅝"
Weight: 1 oz.
The original Dardevle Spoon is one of the oldest and most well-known fishing lures ever created. It’s great for catching a large variety of fish, and musky can't give this one a pass!
Most people don’t think about using a spoon when fishing for muskie. They’ll either use a spinner or a minnow-style swimbait. However, people have been fishing for pike and muskies with spoons for years, and Dan thinks it’s one of the best-kept secrets in the angling world.
The one-ounce, nearly four-inch model is a nice starting size, and you can move up from there if you decide to pick up extra spoons. Dardevle spoons seem to be made with magic, as they flat out work better than other brands - and you simply can’t go wrong with this classic.
John chalks that up the unique shape of the Dardevle, which creates a side-to-side wriggle that sends vibrations racing through the water in all directions.
Musky seem to pick up on this, and with the color and flash of the spoon pulling them in even closer, this is a great lure to for triggering hard strikes.
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No products found. | Savage Gear
Length: 12"
Weight: 5 oz.
The Okuma Savage Gear Alien Eel V2 is a 12 inch, five-ounce lure that’s well-loved by the musky fishing community. Featuring a super strong jig hook and an underbelly stinger hook, this V2 is designed to ensure that no fish that bites will get away!
John likes that hook design, as that underbelly stinger hook tends to catch fish other lures might miss.
And the slow, tail-kicking action on the retrieve is super-seductive: musky see the action and instantly sprint towards it.
With a slow retrieve, you'll get the Eel to wriggle and writhe its way forward; but fast pumps of your rod with a slack line - think jerkbait technique - will get the Eel tail chasing and darting into long glides.
Both techniques can be nothing short of magical, though John prefers the slow retrieve in warmer water.
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Length: 8"
Weight: 1 ½ oz.
The grub is an often overlooked lure choice among anglers, and the Mizugiwa Pike Musky Dawg Soft Bait is a great example of why you should reconsider them.
Essentially a big, 8-inch curly tail grub with a dorsal fin and treble hook, it's designed to swim, flutter, and settle.
John swims his Mizugiwas like crankbaits, letting them impact structure and cover - and he sometimes clips the bottom hook to avoid snags when using this technique.
He'll also run this from deep to shallow, letting it flutter to the bottom before popping it back up into the water column, retrieving it for a few yards, and letting it flutter back done again.
Musky key-in on that fluttering fall, hit the Mizugiwa on the steady retrieve, and generally just can't get enough of this fat, long grub.
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No products found. | Savage Gear
Length: 6 ½"
Weight: 2 oz.
The Savage Gear Hybrid lure is a beautiful variation on the basic grub design.
With the realistic patterns and colors it offers, as well as its center swivel design, it swims just beneath the surface much like a whopper plopper. Both John and Dan fish this lure with a steady retrieve punctuated with short pops or a faster cadence. The idea is to get the Hybrid moving like a baby pike, drawing the big girls out for a quick bite.
And while it may not enjoy the brand recognition that some of the other lures on our list do, it's something of sleeper muskie lure for those in the know.
Measuring 6 ½ inches, you can think of this Savage Gear Hybrid as a search lure that covers water quickly and attracts muskie of all sizes. A larger, 10-inch model is also available, but John prefers the "smaller" size, comparing it to a finesse bass lure.
When the muskie bite has slowed down, a smaller lure like this one can be hot.
And what's clear is that ultra-realism is the secret to the Savage Gear Hybrid's success, and one look tells you that fish can't tell that it's not the real thing.
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No products found. | Bass Pro
Length: N/A
Weight: ½ oz.
The Booyah Pikee is fantastic spinnerbait for catching muskie.
If you've thrown spinner baits to bass, you'll know that two thumping willow blades, great colors, and an attractive skirt add up to lots of attention from hungry fish.
It casts well, as you'd expect, and can be run at the depth of your choice by changing the orientation of your rod tip and retrieval speed. Lowering your rod tip will cause it to sink, while raising it will call it closer to the surface.
The trick with the Booyah Pikee is to cast it near points and drop offs, especially over and beside live weed beds.
The muskie will be waiting in ambush there, and if you can buzee past them with a Booyah Pikee, there all but caught!
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No products found. | Savage Gear
Length: 16 in
Weight: 5 ¾ oz
Okuma's Savage Gear Reel Eel is a huge curly-tailed grub that attracts equally large fish.
Smaller muskie may hit the Reel Eel's tail, missing the hooks and damaging your lure. But the trophy muskie you're looking for with this monster are going to grab it head first!
Designed to mimic a live eel, this is best thrown in water where eels are natural prey items, though John has tossed the Reel Eel where he doesn't think eel are present and it still attracted plenty of muskie.
He likes to swim this big, bad lure with a few pops of his rod tip, punctuating his retrieve by letting it flutter toward the bottom every now and then.
If you don't mind small muskie and pike savaging the tail of this lure, it's a great option for trophy fish.
When choosing a musky lure, you can’t just run into your local tackle shop, grab anything off the shelf, and expect to land a big one.
You need to go in with a plan, and it’s important to know what types of lures can give you the best chance.
When on the hunt for a trophy musky, choosing the right lure for your conditions is crucial. If you tend to fish in murky water, you want a nice, bright lure to attract their attention. A flashy metallic that can catch at least a partial glint when the sun creeps through is certainly an added bonus.
If you tend to fish in clear waters, you can use a more earthy and natural tones to match the prey items musky hunt. Nice greens, oranges, and tan colors will be both natural and enticing.
Musky aren't shy when they decide to strike, and they aren't looking for tiny fish.
Known for their voracious appetites and propensity to engulf prey as much as 2/3 their size, big musky are looking for hearty meals and will more readily strike large lures.
"Big" for musky means 6 inches, minimum, and often as much as 12 inches!
That's your signal to skip the small stuff in your tackle bag and reach for the oversized lures you don't get to throw often.
If I could only pick one lure on this list, it'd be the Mepps Musky Killer.
Big and load, with plenty of vibrations and flash, this over-sized in-line spinner is nothing short of deadly.
It casts really well, and is an excellent search lure, covering water quickly and letting you know if the musky are hungry.
Do yourself a favor and pick one of these Mepps up; you won't be disappointed!
Thanks Pete, I found this article extremely helpful. My son is going to fish for Muskie for the first time here in Ontario at the end of the month. I have not yet been Muskie fishing either, but will be sure to 'grill' him when he comes back.
I am also starting to make my own lures for all kinds of fresh water fishing as my 'retirement' pastime.
Regards, Roy