I am so honored and proud to be able to show this picture to all of you. This morning I was joined by 3 generations of great fisherman. Jim, Joe, and Nick which are Grandpa, Dad and grandson respectively. As you can see from the picture above, We were truly excited to be able to take a picture with 8 year old and soon to be Musky Master Nick. This was his first time Musky fishing, and he landed a true trophy of a lifetime. I am proud as heck of this little musky man, and he did everything right when this fish tried to pull the rod out of his hands. For most of us fisherman, we wait many years before landing such a tremendous fish, but he made it look easy, and is now able to show his friends the monsterous fish he has now put his legacy on! Well done my friend, I am truly Excited for you!
Our celebrations from Nicks awesome catch were short lived, and the net wasn't even put away when his father also landed his first ever muskie. I was still high fiving Nick from the release of his muskie when his dad casted out and had one of a very similar size grab his bait and the battle was on. I giggled inside at the excitement we were all sharing, and the fact that I already had the net ready to go when he brought the fish boatside. For this family, it will be one of those days that will always be remembered for their first muskies. I am truly blessed to be able to say that I had a hand in their excitement and enjoyed every second of it. These two fish were in the 42 inch range, but Nick most definitely caught the larger one!
My excitement to hit the water this morning was really high because of the action we had on the water the previous night. I was out there with Mike and Sean with the purpose of scouting out some fresh turf. Well the fish were definitely on a feeding binge and we had unbelievabe darkness action. We started the day by seeing some hawgs on a few spots, and I quickly pulled away from the areas in hopes of saving the fish to catch on future trips. As we kept on searching, we quickly realized that we could do nothing wrong. The first fish in the boat came just before darkness and was a very healthy and fat 46 incher that I shared a Kodak moment with. It was at that point that everything let loose and the wild ride was about to take off.
Shortly after that catch darkness fell upon us and we decided to stick it out to see what would happen. To our delight, the toothy beasts just kept on eating. We had some of the most intense encounters that you would never experience in daylight. The beasts were flying everywhere at our baits, and many of them were airborn before we even knew what was going on. This is type of action as I have explained in the past will make you never want to sleep again. If you have heart troubles, I highly recomend not doing this, because I know my heart skipped a beat several times last night. Fish number 2 for the day was boated by Mike and it was a respectable 40 incher that smashed the bait and flew 2 feet out of the water before Mike could even set the hook. It was Awesome!
After a few more hookups and fly-offs by the fish, we landed number 3 and Mike had his second with a fish close to 42 inches. With being unprepared for the night fishing, my one headlamp had to do the job for our light, and made this battle, and all of them for that matter, quite interesting.
As you could imagine, Sean had his chances, and we were laughing at the ones that he missed when I set the hook into the largest of the evening. This 48 incher scared the crap out of me when it hit, but fortunately I was able to hang on. The only dilemna with this catch, was the hole it created in my net once it entered it. After I unhooked the fish and we got everything ready for a picture, the beast made one powerful surge and broke right through my net. As you will see from a picture I took on Saturday, this wasn't the first fish to do this to us in the last couple of days, and it escaped the Kodak moment. Although I don't have the picture to prove it, my net will tell the tail.
After Mike and I both had 2 in the boat, we were fealing quite cocky towards Sean. As we fished the next area, Sean was babbling about hunting stuff like normal when I told him that he should just pay attention to the fishing and focus on his lure. We all chuckled, and within seconds he was being thrown around for dear life. Once again, Awesome! The rest of our short lived time on the water was spent having more fish scare us to death everywhere we fished and never leaving us wondering if we would have more action. The funniest or scariest part was when Sean was talking about how scary it would be to have one grab it at his feet. Well, you guessed it. Within 2 casts he was realing his bait up to cast again when a musky grabbed his bait with only 2 feet of line out. When it's dark, you don't see those things coming, and they definitely don't strike gently. The fish got away, but the results were 3 men shaking from the explosion that just happened. What a night!
Just a quick update from Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was cold, windy and rainy, and the fishing was pretty tough. We worked very hard through the elements and landed 2 fish. The first one was a small one that we released without netting or taking a picture of. The second one is the creator of the hole in my net, and the 42 incher that Sean caught, got tangled in a rough spot. I cut the netting to release it safely, and we let the fish swim away without coming out of the water. Sunday was another cold and wet one in which we had a handful of close calls and had one release the hooks as it sat by the boat. Though it was cold, fun was still had by us all. Another great run on the water. Thanks Jim, Joe, Nick, Mike, Sean, Mary, John, and Luke for the fun days on the water. Who wants to go Musky Huntin!
Usually the close to the boat hits just go crazy and jump so many times that they wear themselves out. The second muskie that was landed came flying out of nowhere and devoured the bait with only about a foot of room left, apparently it was hiding close by the boat in the weeds when it saw the bait scream past its head. As Jim put it, "I knew they had huge mouths, but when that thing came flying at the boat I couldn't believe it." It was awesome having such active fish this morning, and the most action from the 3 outings we have shared. Everyone had chances to land fish this morning and the intensity was there from start to finish. Thanks for the fun boys, can't wait for next time!
Yesterday Bob and Doug joined me for a very thick and densely foggy morning. The fish that had been presenting themselves the previous days had been quite reluctant to fully take the bait. We had a few short hits and one very large one that was hooked and did the ol' tail walk across the surface only to spit out the chunk of metal it had eaten. Sometimes I think they just do that to show off knowing that they can spit the bait at will. It was still very neat to see, and although we broke a good streak of days in a row of boating muskies, we still had action and caught a few bonus fish to boot. Bob landed a dandy bass that we spent several minutes trying to get out of the milfoil (we all thought it was a ski), and a couple of nice pike. Apparently it was his day for the multi-species events. Thanks for the laughs boys, I enjoyed every minute of it. Until I write again, good luck!
