Fishing this past weekend

[Gregoire]

I got a chance to go up to a friend from the board's cottage this weekend. John, extended me an invite to fish Saturday night and Sunday. When I got up to his place Saturday night, John was eager to go out, despite the fact that he had been up and pounding the water since 4:30. I was eager to get out, as it had been a long cold winter full of musky hunter and lure collecting. We hit the water for an evening fish, and I was ADD lure chucking. No more than 5 casts with a lure before I would put a new one on so I could see how my new toy was running in the water. After about an hour of that, I decided to get serious. Since there was a mayfly hatch going on, I decided to attach a topwater. After a few cast I felt a strike, but only a littel resistance. Thinking that it was an OOS bass, a lazily reeled the fish in. To my surprise I had landed the second topwater walleye of my life.

Luckily for this guy he was fairly husky, and above the slot. Off he went to swim another day. That was it for the action. We retired to the warmth of the cottage for the night. I got to know his John's lovely wife, and started to realize how lucky he is.

The next morning we slept in a bit. I got to meet John's talked a bit with John's two children, who are both as smart as whips. After hanging out for a bit we headed out for the day.

It was not an easy day of musky hunting. We both threw everything in the box at them, and by the time we had stopped for a late lunch had seen a few, but had nothing to show for our efforts. After talking about our game plan at lunch we headed out with renewed energy, which was aided by the fact the we conveniently stopped during a brief but intense downpour. Feeling lucky to be fairly dry we started casting again.

The ice was finally broken as John pulled in a smallish musky. No pic, and nothing to brag about, but we had broken the ice.

After casting for a few more hours John handed me a lure that had landed the only musky on Saturday. I took two or three casts with it, but being my stubborn self I though one of my shiny new lures was better, and handed it back to John. On his second cast he had a violent hit. Fish on, and it had some size to it. I fumbled with the net... I fumbled with the trolling motor, I almost booted the net job, but we landed him. A nice 40 incher.

The lure was caught in the side of the net, but out came the knippex hook cutters, and the fish was quickly released. For all of you who fish musky, and those of you who don't, Sunday was a great example of why the proper release tools are needed. The smaller fish inhaled the hooks, and the bigger fish was caught up in the net. The minutes it would have taken to pry the hooks from these two fished faces probably would have been fatal, but cutters made quick work of it, and both fish were out of the water for less than 30 seconds.

After attaching new hooks, which is quite easy with split ring plyers, John got to casting again, and immediately hooked up again, with the lure that I snubbed my nose at. Unfortunately the fish spit the hook.

All in all it was a good day, if not a humbling one for me. I wish there was less text, and more pics in this report but Sunday was a weird day. It seemed like there was a brief feeding window of about a half hour or so. Outside that window the fish did not seem active.

Thanks to John for a great day fishing. I will go back to the drawing board in the hopes that on my next trip I get to feel the violent strike of a musky.

[Rizzo]

good stuff! I was beginning to think nobody got out (I know I didn't)

[mercman]

Oh ya Babe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like we both got walleye while hunting musky!!! Nice fish bud!

[Handlebarz]

Great read thanks for sharing and your right about release tools such must to have

[FisherJuli]

Looks like a fun outing, even if you didn't kill 'em (you've got to start somewhere!)!

[Live2fish85]

That's a nice way to start the year.

 

Nice walleye to on the top water. Can't wait to get out for musky this year.

 

Thanks for the great report.

[fishindevil]

nice report !! and a nice ski to boot...