October 21, 2012
Bill Sherer and I don’t like
to make a habit of getting skunked. We
got our butts kicked yesterday by the muskellunge and we couldn’t let it happen
again. To increase our fish catching
chances today, Bill guided me on a double float. We literally floated two days worth of
stretches on one of his secret muskie haunts.
This meant I needed to do my share, loosen up the shoulder, cast the
10-weight like it’s a 3 and fool as many chasers as I could.
As usual, I have an idea
where we were but couldn’t begin to name the water body. The place was in the boonies and other than a
trapper and his young boys there were no other humans all day. The sunrise will be memorable for the blast
of colors from trees and the millions of leaves covering the ground. The scene left my mind twirling about whether
or not I should’ve left this wonderful place nearly thirty years ago. Bill returned from doing the shuttle after
about a half hour and we pushed off under a rich blue sky and temps in the 30ºs.
The tiny river consisted of
long flats, a winding corner then a 100 feet of riffle. I stripped my intermediate line through the
riffles then dredged the deep corners with my 300 grain. Because of the amount of river we were
covering Bill pushed through most of the flats where there wasn’t enough water
to hold a muskie. Ten minutes into the
morning I ripped a small muskie out from behind a log. A similar spot to where I’d catch a brown
trout on the Green back home. It was an
awesome attack on my fly, much more aggressive than that of a trout. The baby muskie of 28 inches leapt from three
feet away and landed on my fly with his mouth open. I actually missed him then but he chased my
fly towards the boat and I enticed him to eat again.
Fishing never slowed down
from there. We pushed through a few more
flats. There were a few turns without
fish but then we floated into a run that reminded me of fishing for peacock bass in the Amazon because there were baitfish fleeing for their lives. There were multiple muskies here and my heart
raced. I braced myself and sure enough
on the first strip of the first cast I hooked up. I ruined the fun morning for this muskie and
he made me pay. Even with my 10-weight,
all I could do is hang on for his first smoking run.
I ended up catching three
beautiful muskies from this one run. Two
were just over 30 inches and this one we didn’t measure. Although he’s not nearly a monster, this is a
fish I’ll remember to go along with today’s sunrise. I had four muskies landed on the fly and it
wasn’t even 10 AM.
Things warmed up
considerably. I’ll bet the temperature
was close to 55º in mid afternoon under mostly sunny skies. Bill and I were shedding layers between
muskies. Yes, I said “between
muskies”. Today will likely go down as
the top muskie fishing day of my life. I
hope it’s wasn’t but seriously, I doubt I’ll top today. Our final fish count was nine muskies to the
net. The smallest was the first of the
day. All the rest were over 30”!
What an incredible fishing
day to add to an already phenomenal 2012! Many thanks to my friend George who made this trip possible.
Looks like a blast Jeff, and nice pictures. How can you beat it when all is said and done?!
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