GREEN LAKES
Big and Little Green lakes in Green Lake County are more than a long cast away from Green Bay. No spotted muskies swim here, but you have a legitimate chance of hooking both tiger and pure muskies in 466-acre Little Green Lake. But like Door County, Green Lake County is a tourist mecca, with pleasure boaters and personal watercraft eager to closely monitor your passage around the lakes.

Big Green holds only pure-strain muskies. Because of its depth and size, waters warm up slower than they do on Little Green. Time on the water now is best spent on the smaller lake, but you may want to write Big Green in on the fishing calendar to target after the second cold front of autumn pushes tourists away and muskies into the shallow water that rims this lake to feed.

Little Green has a good fall bite, too, but the best action of the year will be happening here over the next couple of weeks. The major key to fish location is developing weeds. Follow the 13-foot contour and cast shallow-running jerkbaits and bucktails over the weedtops. Don't be surprised if you tangle with fish in excess of 40 inches.

Contact: Green Lake Chamber of Commerce, 1-800-253-7354.

MADISON CHAIN
The Madison Chain is close to home for me, with the potential for hooking into several fish in the mid-30-inch range in a few hours when it all comes together.

Weed edges at the south end of Lake Waubesa and up around Hog Island hold an incredible number of muskies now and again in the fall. That stuff about a bucktail being a hot-weather lure goes right out the window here. Bucktails are always good choices, especially a Mepps Giant Killer in rainbow trout pattern or with a purple tail -- with a 3-inch fluorescent yellow twistertail added to one of the hooks just for grins.

Kegonsa and Waubesa on the chain's south end warm quicker and are more fertile than Mendota and Monona. Tiny Lake Wingra has plenty of muskies and probably sees more fishing pressure per surface acre for Esox than the other lakes combined.

Kegonsa is essentially a weed-ringed donut with one little rocky hump in the middle and Strawberry Point. These are the only two exceptions to simply following the weedy contour and casting away.

Waubesa has a little more structure, but weeds are still the key to muskie location -- most of the time. Spring and fall, you're never more than a long cast away from muskies if you follow the 12-foot contour near the weeds. When summer arrives, you want to think much shallower. Waubesa has a number of coldwater springs, especially at the south end. These springs usually reveal themselves as a hole amidst an otherwise verdant weedbed. Baitfish relate to the cool oxygenated water during summer's heat. Muskies are almost always cruising nearby.