Wedding Bells & Muskies

With my buddy Jason Wagener's wedding fast approaching, we decided to get him away from the house for a couple of days of fishing on a lake he's always wanted to try.  We launched out of Waconia at about 6pm on Saturday night to fish the last hour or so of  daylight on the red hot Lake Mille Lacs.  With my recent results and the stable weather this past week, I felt very confident that we could get Jason his first muskie on a lake that he's always wanted to tackle. 

It didn't take long before we had our first encounter, and let me say it was quite an encounter.  It was roughly a 51-52" fish and I thought Jason was going to pee his pants.  The reaction to this monster was awesome and something that never gets old when the true giants come out to play.  Shortly after that, while explaining how to run the topwater bait that we were using at the time, Jason was not paying attention when Mike in the back of the boat yelled "Wags you got one." The fish came out of the water, missing his lure completely the first time, and then coming back and smacking it 10 feet from the boat.  It was not a giant, at about 36-37 inches, but the battle and explosiveness at boatside left Jason shaking.

With the water turning to glass the last 1/2 hour, all that was running through my head was thoughts of the big one coming up with a giant wake behind my topwater, then exploding on it half way to the boat.  So as you could imagine, this was pretty much all I kept on talking about to Jason and Mike, and needless to say,  our intensity was at an all time high.  With Darkness approaching and yet to have that massive wake, I decided to work back over a few of the fish we had seen  earlier.  We'll just say it paid off.  In the last seconds of daylight, Mike and I both watched as what appeared to be a submarine, rose up behind Jason's topwater, following closer and closer for what seemed like a mile and a half, when it finally unleashed its fury on Jason's bait.  It may go down as one of the top 10 battles that i've witnessed.  This fat 44" just wouldn't give up, and Jayson was loving every second of it.  What a great way to end an intense hour of Muskie fishing.  Jason's first two muskies (while fishing for them), and he only spent an hour trying (some people are so lucky sometimes).

With the fish going, and the weather staying the same, it was a no brainer that we would stay and fish the morning bite.  4:30 comes around pretty quick when you don't go to bed until 2, but that didn't make a difference to us.  Our confidence was so high that we didn't wonder IF we would get bit, but WHEN we would get a bite, and WHO would get it.  Well, we would have boated one within the first 5 minutes if I didn't make the biggest "rookie" mistake ever, and pull it away from a hungry, wide open mouth (sorry guys).  I guess I made up for it a little later by watching a 47" come out of the water and completely miss the bait right in front of my eyes, only to keep the same retrieve and watch the fish whip a 360 and smash it.  We ended the morning by seeing in the range of 10 -12 fish, and having a quite a few close calls, but only the 47" in the boat.  Still a good morning of muskie fishing, and I cannot wait to get back up on this great bite.

Mike, sorry buddy, but like you said, if you keep trying eventually you'll be catching instead of always watching, but hey you are a great net man, and your picture taking skills are awesome :)

Tiger Muskie

After hearing from several people that "There's no Tiger Muskies in Waconia," I thought that I would show proof that they are in fact swimming in the lake.  This fish came from trolling the weed edge along the well proclaimed beach/marina shoreline.  It hammered a crank running at about 3 mph.  This muskie was in the 39 - 40" range, but very healthy and very fat.  I didn't know that they existed in these waters myself, but i guess when you see it in your hands, you have to believe it.  Congrats on the nice fish Drew, and thanks for enlightening us!

Mille Lacs Baby!!

Hey Dingy are you sure you aren't a Muskie fisherman???

The reports heading up there didn't sound too promising, however with my first free day to head up and throw for some giants, I wasn't about to pass on the chance.   We hit the water very early on Saturday morning to absolutely beautiful conditions.  As you can see, for Mille Lacs it was quite calm, but the storms were closing the distance.  With these factors to our advantage I pretty much told Dingy (Tim Dingwall) that we were going to get some action.  About 5 minutes into the morning we saw our first fish, and 10 minutes after that we landed the first, and largest of the day.  It was Dingy's first out of Mille Lacs and a true beauty measuring 47.5''.  We worked the same stretch of water that we were on for the next 45 minutes raising 4 more fish with Dingy landing another beauty at 45".  I guess it was his day to shine, even though he mainly wanted to be on the water for the elusive Walleyes. 

Our next mission to accomplish after already puttin the whoopin to the ski's was to get in on the hot Smallmouth Bass bite that was taking place.  Well, I'm not sure if I would say it was hot action, but we did have action, and we landed some dandies.  After holding out for about 3 hours on the water, I finally sensed that Dingy just had to get out on those mud flats and drag a worm for his best friends (the Walleyes), so that is exactly what we did.  We spent the rest of the day jumping from mud flats to rocks, deep to shallow and pretty much finding fish in all of the locations.  The shallow rock bite that I had anticipated was fouled up by others.  Apparently throwing a 20lb anchor over the boat in 3 feet of water will scare fish away, who knew???  We caught most of our fish on the mud flats in depths ranging from 20 feet during midday, and up on top in 17 feet during the lowlight/storm periods. 

After it was all said and done, we did exactly what we came to do.  We caught some true Mille Lacs giants in Muskie, Walleye and Smallmouth.  This lake never gets old, nor does it ever seem to run out of possibilities or spots, and the best part, if one specie isn't biting, there is another biting somewhere on the water.  We didn't quite put in a full day on the water due to storms that chased us off in the afternoon, however we caught several trophy caliber fish from every category.  Another great day on Mille Lacs. Thanks Dingy!!

2006 Metro Muskie Tournament

With the 2006 muskie season under way, my tourney partner (Muskie Mike) and myself decided to hit the waters of lake Waconia for some early season competition.  With little time to pre-fish during the week, we set out to hit some areas away from crowds where I had located a few fish while bass/walleye fishing.  This turned out to be the right decision for us.  After 10 minutes of casting and raising 3 seperate ski's, it was obvious to the both of us that we had chosen the right pattern.  With this in mind, we decided to stick with our pattern and try to find more active fish on similar spots.  At 6:45 I landed a 40 1/2"  ski which unfortunately for us was the only fish brought in the boat. 

We officially lost our trolling motor batteries at 7:15 forcing us to play the wind, and use the outboard for the rest of the 8 hours of fishing.   With one in the boat, we felt that catching just one more would seal the deal.  When it comes to catching muskies as most people know, IT ISN'T EASY ALL THE TIME!!  We spent the next 8 hours chasing about 15-20 different muskies around.  They did everything but jump in the boat for us.  It was almost as simple as basically throwing on a different lure each cast and seeing how horribly the fish would miss it.  By the end of the day we figured we had raised those fish 40 or more times.  It would almost have been less frustrating to not have seen any fish at all, but the excitement was unbelievably high and the day passed in seemingly minutes.  It was a great day on the water and after letting a full week of the new muskie season slip by without throwing a bait, I can honestly say that it felt great to break the ice.  Thanks for all the fun Mike!!

The top anglers from around the metro that day managed to land 2 ski's a piece from Forest Lake, Lake Independence, White Bear Lake, and one 52" giant from right here on Waconia.  Out of over 600 anglers fishing the 15 lake tourney, there were 44 fish caught in total, so needless to say my 40 1/2" didn't take the top prize.  However, the money raised from this event goes to help keep the sport of muskie fishing alive throughout our state.