The best way to describe muskie fishing in Butternut Lake is "you can't make a bad cast". The lake is 1006 acres, 32' deep and chock full of muskie habitat. Most of Butternut's shoreline have cabbage, coontail, lily pads or other pond weeds, providing excellent cover and ambush areas for hungry muskies. In the few areas that don't have some sort of aquatic vegetation, you have rocky points that will also hold fish or at least temporarily occupy traveling muskies. There are also plenty of bays, both east and west, north and south to occupy an angler all day long. Rock humps, especially on cloudy days, are also an area to bump into a muskie or two. It is important to note that most Butternut Lake rock humps are not on any maps, so a little bit of scouting is needed to locate them.

A tip to finding rock humps is to watch the walleye anglers who drift the humps or anchor on them. Butternut Lake has a huge population of walleyes, and walleye anglers are not in short supply here. There are plenty of pan fishermen also, due to Butternut's great crappie and perch fishery. Many of the pan fishermen will show you where to locate the numerous fish cribs scattered throughout the lake.

Even though Butternut Lake muskie population is considered by the WDNR to be abundant, fine tuning your lure presentations is important when you wish to make contact with these toothy critters. In spring, smaller bucktails and jerk baits work the best. Try a perch or fluorescent colored jerk bait and a bucktail with a brass blade. Butternut's dark water tends to warm up quickly and places to encounter muskies would be at or near the mouth of creeks flowing into the lake or in the many shallow bays. Topwater baits can be used right from the get-go, but they are best when used in the evening when the heat of the day has warmed up the waters and the muskies attitude.

In summer, many muskies on Butternut Lake can be found at the mouth of the creeks and in the bays, but now the big girls are hanging around the mid lake humps, the weed beds around the island and on the many points. Big jerk baits and topwater lures are outshining all other lures but crank baits and spinners are still effective. Bumping the fish cribs with jig and plastic, safety pin style spinners or deep diving crank baits can also pay off big.

In the fall, Butternut Lake provides two fishing patterns for the muskie angler. One technique is to keep your boat in the 11' range while fishing a sucker on a quick strike rig and casting towards the shore with large jerk baits and 8"-10" crank baits, slowly twitched. The other being keep your boat positioned on the deep break line with suckers dragging bottom, casting jig and plastic combos and weighted deep diving crank baits.