Am I In Heaven...

Somebody pinch me already!  Is this stuff really happening, or am I just dreaming?  2009 has been one of the most incredible seasons for big fish.  The best part is that we aren't even to the half way mark yet.  I mean seriously.  We have started the year with massive river walleyes.  We then took off for the north country and boated some gigantic Sturgeon.  When we got back home we started hoisting huge catfish before walleye season even started.  Walleye opener gave us some very nice fish, and I watched a young girl catch a near state record bass.  Soon after muskie season started and we have been once again on top of some dandy ski's.  To mix things up a bit, we scoot down to the river and continue to catch monster flathead catfish almost at will.  Can this really be happening?  Does it get any better?  I am in heaven!

Last night Mike, Matt and myself took a break from the muskie scene and chose the relaxing flow of the rivers.  We had a thurst to latch into something huge, and par for the course, we weren't dissapointed.  About 30 minutes into our 90 minute fishing trip Mike was throttled by something that could have eaten a small child.  A battle ensued that was nothing short of awesome.  Mike got his but kicked by what we figured was a 40 pound caliber flathead.  A few pics and high fives and we were back to telling jokes and reminiscing about the past.  Is that really how it is all suppose to happen?  At this point I just don't know.  I am not taking any of this for granted, and we have worked very hard the past several years to disect every aspect of the big fish that we pursue, but sometimes I think God is just looking over our shoulder and laughing right along with our shinanigans.  We are blessed to say the least.  I love every second of catching these monster fish.  Whether it be muskies or flathead catfish, I almost don't even care any more.  They are both such an adrenaline rush that it just leaves me shaking after it's all done.  Man!  I guess we'll see what happens next!  Until then, Keep on livin' your dream, and may God be as gracious to you in your pursuits on the water!

Worth The Wait...

Last year I was able to get Mitch out on the water for his first muskie experiences.  He was the proud recipient of his first muskie, shortly after that he landed a 50.  To this day we have been hounding Todd Siebell, our fellow workmate, to the point that he might as well sell his gear.  Todd was suppose to join us one evening, but had to go cabinet shopping with his wife and bailed on us.  This, coupled with Mitch's 50, have meant nothing but tongue lashes ever since.  It's been great!

Last night all of the chatter and jaw-jacking finally became a reality as both of these boys came out for an evening of muskie hunting.  Todd was in my boat, and Mitch went with Mike.  Todd had an obvious mission to top his 40 inch personal best, but really wanted nothing more than a fish over 50 to stuff in Mitch's face.  The laughs and jokes started immediately, and so did the muskie activity.  About 5 casts into our outing Todd had his chance at that 50.  The funny part was that he was so flustered that his figure 8 at boatside resulted in a sinking lure with his rod doing circles in the drink.  Apparently 50 inchers don't respond well to a figure 8 when you leave 15 feet of line between your rod tip and the bait.  Haha!  This was just the start of it all.

A few casts later and the next ski was boatside.  Again more of the same, and this one didn't want to have dinner either.  We kept on, and a few casts after that, another opportunity came and passed as a large muskie tried to eat my weed covered bait.  Darn weeds!  All of this missing fish finally resulted in our first picture taker about 20 minutes into the day.  Unfortunately for Todd, it was a fish on my line.  A goofy looking muskie that I think has some form of scoliosis.  This exciting activity continued to play itself out over the next 30 minutes of fishing.  In our first hour on the water we saw 9 muskies with two over 50 and one that I swear will go 55.  A feat that Todd was baffled with.  Lets just say they were on the prowl.

Fast forward a bit later in the evening to the part that I like the best.  As we approached one of my locations Todd was stopped dead in his tracks.  Literally!  His eyes almost bulged from his head and he was totally overwhelmed.  He froze, but the muskie held on.  A bit of banter from my end got him cranking on the reel.  The fish came to the surface and put on quite a show.  I thought Todd was going to wet his shorts, but he managed to man up and battle the beast.  The look on this man's face is going to give us something to laugh about for years at the office.  Even when the fish was in the net he still looked like he had seen a ghost.  It was awesome!  To make everything even sweeter, he held the fish as if he was playing a bass guitar.  This got Mitch, Mike and I all laughing even more at the end of the night when we looked at the photos.  It doesn't get any better than that!  While it wasn't a 50 incher, Todd now has a new personal best at 48.  What a dandy, and what a night.  When it was all said and done, Todd and I managed two ski's in the boat, one that came unhooked, and another 12 close calls.  Not to be outdone, Mitch and Mike also had some success of their own, and Mitch landed his first muskie of the year as well.  Not huge, but a great 38 incher that still has him jacked up as of this writing.  Thanks for the fun night on the water boys, may this not be the last!  Until next time, keep on livin' the muskie dream you fishing freaks!

Muskie 101...

Every trip is different.  Sometimes people come out and don't care about anything other than catching a fish or two.  Other times folks just want to learn more about the sport so that they may some day do it on their own.  Either way, it always makes for an enjoyable experience on the water.  This morning it was a tutorial.  Pat Hart has been in contact with me for the past several months.  Pat is not a newcomer to fishing by any means, but rather focusing his efforts on getting his family involved in fishing.  This spring we went shopping together and picked out some lures and equipment to get him started on the right foot.  A few tips along with his new collection of gear got him going for the metro bass and walleyes.  That was only the start.  Muskies were next on his list. 

A few phone calls got him some new baits and a new attitude to approach the mighty muskellunge.  This morning we were on a mission to better understand everything happening under the waters surface.  Our goal was to disect the different ways to use baits of each kind and in different situations.  If something were to latch onto the bait while doing this, that would be ok too.  We started out by working a topwater presentation.  This resulted in two of the infamous "wakes behind the bait" and one strike.  The fish failed to eat, but that was ok.  The lesson was how to react when that specific situaiton happened.  Pat got an "A" in that course.

Next we were off to try some different bucktail presentations.  I wanted to keep it simple, but also explain the different ways that it can be used.  Pat started as an instant expert at that getting another "A" for the course and landed the first fish of the morning.  A beautiful 44 incher that got him shaking like a leaf.  I love that part.  His grade of an "A" was soon dropped to a "C" when my favorite part of the morning ensued.  Upon moving his feet on the casting deck, momma muskie lurched on his bait, and the off balanced fisherman set the hook while falling to the bottom of the boat.  Funny?  Maybe a little, but the fish did get away, leaving him with an overall "B" for the course.

After that experience it was on to trolling.  A method that he feels he can use while his wife jumps aboard.  She has shown some interest in the beastly fish, and he wants to make her dreams a reality.  We tried fruitlessly with this, but the course was observed and Pat got another "A."  To finish out our day we went back to one of the original fish from earlier.  The goal was to see if she would now be willing to do battle.  Upon our first casts on the spot the battle ensued about half way to the boat.  The lesson here was for Pat to pass the course of "net man!" haha!  He got an "A" in that as well.  Our second and final muskie for the morning posed for a picture perfect photograph with a camera that I forgot to turn the flash on.  Oh well, it's all part of the drama of muskie fishin'.  Another morning on the water that never gets old.  Fish on you muskie freaks!

2009 Mille Lacs Muskie Tournament

The 2009 tourney is in the books.  A total of 5 muskies were boated in the two day event.  My partner Mike Tengwall and I took home the third place prize.  Here's how it all went down.

It has been an interesting couple of weeks up on the big pond.  The fishing has been great and terrible during this time.  It started out with Mike and I finding a large concentration of fish and immediate success.  8 muskies were boated during a short 4 day period by Mike and myself.  We started it together with a decent fish, and he kept things rolling.  Over the next 3 days he boated 7 more fish with 3 over 50 inches and a giant 53 incher taking the biggest overall weight.  A stretch of days that would make any man excited to jump into the tournament. 

The next 3 day stint on the water showed us the toughness of Mille Lacs when she rears her ugly head.  The fishing was brutal to say the least.  We had several close calls, but no muskies were boated by us the weekend prior to the event.  This would leave any man feeling foolish to enter any tournament.

The 2 days leading up to the event were more of the same.  October-like conditions pounded the big lake on Thursday and Friday and made for one heck of an experience on the big lake.  Monster waves made fishing difficult on most of the lake, and we were forced to find a new pattern.  We tried everything under the sun on Friday, our last day of pre-fishing.  We found some good fish and felt pretty confident going into Saturday morning.  The only problem was that the fish didn't feel a need to duplicate their own pattern on Saturday.  This made for a tough day on the water, and left us with 2 short strikes during the first day of the 9 hour event.  We stuck to our pattern for day one in hopes of one good bite, but it never came.  Day one for the tournament produced 3 fish by the small field of willing anglers.  Dave Organ and Patrick Cotter scored huge by battling out the mid-lake waves.  They boated a 50 and 42.75 on the first day with their rocky pattern.  Luke Ronnestrand and his partner Chris Jensen also enticed a 41 incher to bite.  That was it for day one.  We weren't happy with the results, but knew that things could still change come day two.

Frustrated by our lack of success in getting our "patterned" fish to bite on Saturday, we decided to switch gears completely.  The cold weather and a 10 degree drop in water temps finally forced us out of our "milk run."  We abondoned everything completely and went back to the basics of muskie fishing.  With our lures we labeled "Green Weinies," we chose to spend the entire day grinding them out.  A term that I think only Mike and I refer to.  Leaving our groups of muskies wasn't the easiest thing for us to do, but we feared we would drive ourselves into the ground if we kept pounding the same dead pattern.  As it turns out, we might have made a good decision.  We will never know if those fish would have turned on for us, but at 10:00 we forgot all about them.  A rocket of a 44 incher finally got mad at all the ruckus we were creating and erupted from the surface with Mike's lure.  A strike so fierce that launched the fish a full 4 feet in the air.  It was awesome, but at the same time gut-wrenching to see the fish so wild.  A fear that she might get off was the only thing that crossed our minds.  In a tournament all you see is $$$ jumping in the air, and as we all know, that airborn fish can easily spit a hook.  Mike tamed her enough to coax her into the net.  This fish now put us into 2nd place.  With a bite so tough on the lake, we knew that one more big fish could put us into first place.  This opportunity was not to happen for us on that day.  A mid 50 incher did show herself in the fading minutes of the tourney, but she was not to eat.  To make matters worse, the Ronnestrand team boated anothe fish just before time ran out on the event.  They took back their 2nd place position and knocked us down to third.  That's fishin.....

Our goals were set a bit higher for this event, but any time you can land a muskie in a tournament is a huge accomplishment.  The conditions were brutal on that big body of water, and the muskies showed us all that they were still king.  Only 3 teams boated a fish this year which is no surprise.  Last year the 50 boat field only gave up 3 fish over the two days.  This, coupled with the horrible economy must have been why so many backed out of the 2009 event.  A disspointing number of comptetitors showed up this year, but we gave it our all.  Congrats on the great fish Mike, and thanks for being an awesome partner.  We shall see what the 2010 tourney brings for us on the big pond....Until then, Keep on Livin' the dream!

Home Sweet Home....

Sorry for the delay in updates.  I have been away from home for a bit.  Last week found me up on the big pond once again.  With the muskie tournament fast approaching, I wanted to spend some quality time searching and destroying new waters.  While I have some spots that I am confident in, it is always good to find new gems that may help our cause.  This encompassed three days of my life last week.  And the results?  Well, lets just say that I've done better.

Friday morning my tournament partner Mike Tengwall and I were joined on the water by Brian Peterson, the outdoor editor for the Brainerd Dispatch.  Joining him were his 3 buddies Jeff, James and another Jeff.  They had a hankering to try their luck at the big toothy critters.  Our morning started with James landing a nice pike on the first few casts.  Shortly after, a few encounters from the right specie presented themselves, but came up just short.  Part of the game on that big lake, but something that fuels the fire.  It was dissapointing on my end to see them leave the water without a muskie, but sometimes that lake can be downright brutal.  This proved to be the case that day and the next few as well.  A massive cold front came in and the water temps dropped below the already unusually cool temperatures.  The hot bite that we had experienced the week before was definitely a thing of the past.

Mike Ernst joined me later on that day and my tourney partner also had a buddy jump in with him.  We split up to fish new waters and see what we could find.  Friday evening gave both of our boats some pretty good chances, and both of us came up on the short end of the battles.  Ahh, musky fishing!  We moved a lot, covered a lot of water and really tried to think outside the box.  We have found that the oddest of patterns can win a tournament when the fish become pressured or turned off.  Over the next two days we ruled out many things, and put a few more locations and techniques on the milk run.  While we didn't have tons of action, the encouraging part was that all of our fish activity occured during the tournament hours.  With this cooler than average weather pattern sticking around this week, odds are that we may put ourselves in a good position.  But then again, it's still muskie fishing, so anything can happen.  I guess we will see when Sunday afternoon rolls around.  My prediction is that one good fish may win this thing, and two fish should seal the deal.  Not the numbers of fish seen in years past, but somebody will get lucky.  I just hope it is us.

Anyway, it feels good to be back home.  There is just nothing like returning to my home waters and gaining some confidence again.  Last night I hit the water with Tim and Wags.  Both of them for the first time this year, and it seems that Tim has a horseshoe stuck up his you know what.  He thinks muskie fishing is really easy, because every single time we fish for them he catches 'em right away.  I don't mind, it's fun watching the walleye guy catch muskies.  Its just that one of these times I feel he should have to work a little harder to catch one.  We tried a different pattern for the first time this year, and were able to connect.  It's fun to mix it up and have things work out, but my partner in crime Mike Ernst stuck to our guns from the last time we were out, and found a little better results.  His report should be coming soon!

This morning I returned for a short stint on the water.  It took a while to get things moving with the cold front that came in, but patience and persistance paid off yet again, and I was able to snap another photograph of the elusive ski.  A good way to get the mojo rolling again before the tourney starts up.  As always I will keep you posted with everything that happens up until the event, and hopefully I will be showing you pictures of the winning fish....In my hands!  Until then, keep on livin' the dream you muskie nuts!