By Ted Peck

The perpetual hum of traffic certainly doesn't have the same appeal as mystic loon music common on Wisconsin's north-country waters. But all aesthetics are forgotten when a big muskie decides to rock your world when you are fishing a southern Wisconsin lake.

Here's a look at some of our best muskie options downstate when it's finally time to quit sharpening hooks and hit the water.

Both true and hybrid muskies swim in 466-acre Little Green Lake, with a good representation of 40-inch-plus fish cruising here. Right now most of Little Green's muskie biomass is prowling between the 13-foot breakline and shallower weedy flats that are tremendous early-season muskie magnets. Little Green warms much quicker than Big Green Lake, with weeds - especially on the lake's north side - a good place to start casting bucktails and twitchbaits when the season opens.

On Big Green Lake the need to target shallower water is even more pronounced. Although Big Green is a much larger body of water, muskie anglers can write off its deeper reaches pretty much all season. Shallower waters - with the accent on weeds and wood - is where you want to fish now.

When Memorial Day ushers in the official arrival of summer, both of these Green Lake County waters become a tourist mecca. The next several weeks offer both the best muskie action and aesthetically pleasing environment that is more laid back than you'll find in the Madison lakes or waters of Waukesha County.

Contacts: Radtke Bait & Tackle, (920) 398-2620; guide Mike Norton, (920) 295-3617; Green Lake Chamber of Commerce, 1-800-253-7354.

Photo by Pete Maina

If you keep a bait in the water, seeing a muskie is almost certain, with a great population of mid-30-inch fish present per surface acre and larger fish in the system. However, even smaller "toothers" are well educated in the ways of muskie anglers, with virtually every fish making several visits to the cradle net by the time they reach 40 inches.

Fish on the fertile Waubesa often thrill you right at the boat, with a good game plan both now and again in October simply following the 12-foot weed contour, working a bucktail over the submergent weedtops. The best muskie lure on the Madison Chain is a purple-tailed Mepps Giant Killer.

The weedflats out down from the railroad tracks at Waubesa's north end usually hold active fish, with the creek channel edges attracting fish on the move from the trestle out several hundred yards into the lake.

Later in the season, the deep edges of the hump out from the Green Lantern attract muskies, as does the steep break out from Rockford Heights at the north end of the little island out from the Babcock Park boat ramp. It takes several hours to probe the deep weed edge between the Babcock Park and Goodland Park boat launches, with fish liable to be anywhere along this drift right now. Once serious summer arrives look for holes in the weed growth that may indicate the presence of springs in shallow water. Several are fish magnets year-round.

Most muskies hooked on Lake Kegonsa come while folks are chasing other species around the midlake rockpile, the long-tapering edge out from Sugarbush Point or the deep weedline between Quam Point and Colladay Point where muskies dog movements of this lake's perch population all summer long.

The bigger lakes - Monona and Mendota - tend to produce larger fish. Depending on water temperatures come opening day the best place on the entire chain might be out from the warmwater discharge off of John Nolan Drive on Monona. Two years ago the weather kept lakes from warming, and muskies were stacked here literally like cordwood. From one vantage point, guide Ron Barefield and I could watch over 20 muskies in all sizes. These fish were simply sunning themselves, with the only hope for hooking up being a lure like the Lindy Tiger Tube. This giant tube jig is a good "throwback" bait to keep rigged and ready when sight-fishing pensive muskies.

Once spring sunshine moderates water temperatures these fish fan out to cruise points and developing weed edges, with the big weedbed out from the channel that connects Monona to Mendota, and points and edges out from Squaw Bay both good spots to probe.

Mendota has a lot of humps and bars in these nearly 10,000 acres. Dunn's Bar, Commodore Bar, weed edges out from the Governor's mansion, the good edge out from the Tenney Park locks, the deep break out from Picnic Point, edges of Second Point - just too much water for a single day's fishing.

Besides a solid muskie population, Mendota holds many pike of respectable dimensions thanks to a 40-inch size limit in place for this Esox species. Although northerns are about as welcome to serious muskie anglers as sheephead at a walleye tournament, "snake" or "hammerhandle" aren't among the top 10 names these big greenies are called on Mendota.

Contacts: Madison Chamber of Commerce, (608) 256-8348; guide Ron Barefield, (608) 838-8756.

An exceptional forage base and slightly longer growing season are two reasons why Pewaukee's muskies chart well above their counterparts elsewhere in the state regarding growth rates. DNR statistics indicate Pewaukee's muskies continue to grow well after reaching the 34-inch legal size as well, with these waters giving up fish over 50 inches every year.

Pewaukee is sort of like the Madison area's Wingra on a much larger scale regarding fishing pressure. Right now and again after Labor Day you might be able to visit these waters and not have to wait in line at boat ramps located on both ends of the lake. During the summer months you simply take your place in line, casting your best stuff at prime habitat and dragging a sucker on a quick-strike rig behind the boat.

Okauchee is about half the size of Pewaukee at 1,200 acres, with two good launch facilities on the south side of the lake. There is plenty of structure in this multi-species lake, with panfish and walleyes both holding the key to muskie location. The easiest fishing is just a couple weeks away as bluegills move close to shore to spawn, with muskies nearby dogging their every move. This is a great place to throw that Lindy Tiger Tube, with a hopping retrieve just out from those moon-crater bluegill beds. A 3/4-ounce Rat-L-Trap in bluegill pattern with heavier hooks and split rings is another productive option.

Conventional wisdom says your shortest odds of getting hooked up are at dawn, dusk and ahead of an approaching weather system - using beefed up bass tackle rather than classic muskie gear. Okauchee muskies aren't impressed with "big wood." Go buy a 6-inch Jake, Tiger Tube, Hawg Wobbler and Mepps Giant Killer with a purple-hair tail and you can call yourself a serious muskie angler on this lake.

Contacts: Smokey's Bait Shop, (262) 691-0360; Dick Smith's Live Bait & Tackle, (262) 646-2218.