The Easy Way or the Hard Way!

This has been quite the hectic time, but thank goodness the fishing hasn't suffered too much.  I'll start on a trip that took us all over the state.  We left Waconia early in the morning, headed for the Red River Valley to pick up Josh's ride.  We picked her up and in no time we had one place in mind: Lake Vermillion.  We started to venture across the state passing some of the greats thinking what are we doing, Detroit Lakes, Leech, Bemidji, and finally the big V.  The first night we got out onto the glass like water and began throwing topwater.  Not too long after I was drilled by a upper 30" low 40" class pike that came fully out of the water, I was a little antsy and my nerves got the best of me, finally the fish came down into the water hook-less.  Getting that out of the way was nice as I caught several more smallies and Pike on top and I was finally getting the hang of it.

 Now it got interesting once more, about 7 miles out, the check engine light came on along with the most ear piercing noise you could imagine.  We slowly made our way back to the landing and then tried to figure out what to do.  The plan was to head down to Duluth and have it looked at as soon as possible so we could continue fishing.  Well, it was getting into the late night and it made driving next to impossible, but we finally started to make our descent into Canal park around 3 A.M.  Not wanting to get a room for a few hours, our true college colors shown through as we opted to park and sleep.  It probably looked like a garage sale and a dumpster mixed, we had everything imaginable in the windows to block the street lights, but sleep never felt so good.  The next morning we got the go ahead at the dealership in no time and made the trek back up.

 Not too long after getting on the water we were rewarded with a glimpse of  hope, a very nice fish took interest in my bucktail and followed it around a few times on the 8 only to slip away.  We sat on the fish for a little while longer and had it come up again only to fall back away.  We were on the water for upwards of 6 hours when the conversation turned to the new boat plug rule.  Well it turns out that we didn't quite get the plug back in the boat, but to our amazement we weren't sinking or even taking on that much water!  Now we started to explore some little rock reefs that topped out around 2 feet, we were snagged a few times on top and started to notice a trend.  The reef was so small you could cast across it never getting a follow, but after maneuvering on top of it we saw 3-5 different fish that just sat there.  I knew we could get one of them to bite, but we had to wait for the perfect timing, Moonset!  Until then we hit some more weed spots which were definitely producing more sightings during the day.

 We hit the same spot as in the morning and during the first cast Josh had the same fish come up and follow his cowgirl 4 times around the 8, but that was the last we saw of him.  As the sun went down we made our way to the money spot.  We slowly started working our way around and about 10 casts in, Josh was hooked up.  It was still pitch black out which made it interesting work, but we finally corralled the fish and we couldn't have been happier.  After a few quick shots the 46" fatty was back in big V. 

Now I had taken some time off trying to let the water come back down from the 80's and one night I got the temp at 78 degrees, it was on.  Josh and I headed onto the water, and started working a spot that had most likely been hit multiple times that day.  I had about 5 casts  on the night when I had my bait about ten feet away, and a true giant came up out of nowhere.  It made the lure look like a china doll as it latched on.  I knew this was no ordinary muskie and all I wanted to do was to get her under control.  Josh was scrambling to get the net as I was probably screaming at him to hurry up, just as I had her up to the boat the walls closed in around her.  I started to lift it up for a snapshot and a weird thing happened, I physically couldn't hold it "out" for the life of me, it was a feeling that I won't forget.  All I could think about was getting the fish back into the water and it was probably one of the fastest turn around times I have had.  From the time I hooked her to it swimming away was close to a minute.  I knew this was my biggest fish bar none, but I didn't really know until I put the stick to her.  I had it up to the tail and it measured 52", I was pumped to get another 50" on board!  Wait, there is more to the story, Josh said he needed to get the stick on the nose now, this is when my mouth dropped.  The correct length was 54", a behemoth of a fish.  I was simply in awe of the fish and couldn't stop looking at the pictures, which turned out a little interesting!  It was great to drop the fish in the water and instantly get a bath of water as she took off, the icing on the cake!  From the 50's.....Keep Livin' the Dream!