So I was getting ready to stick the boat in the garage this morning for the week as I'm headed out of town tomorrow for the next 7 days or so. I get a phone call from a buddy asking if I want to go out today. I said sure of course, "Where do you want to go?" He asked if the bite was hot in my neck of the woods, and I told him, it had gotten a bit slow the last few days. He replied" Well if you want to drive a couple of hours we can go out up here?" Before he could hang up, I jumped in the truck and I was off. I hadn't fished this area in the last couple years so I wasn't really pumped to try and pattern fish for a 5 hour casting session. We dropped the boat in and me, my buddy, and his buddy headed out across some big rough water. We located the first spot, and raised a couple decent fish... Actually raised fish on almost every spot we went to however these fish were bigger than the rest.
We spent a couple hours bouncing from stop to spot and we decided to go back to the reef we started at. We had fish going all day on blades and glide baits, but oddly no follows on rubber. I was eager to throw a new Dawg Brad @ Musky Innovations sent me that has produced a few decent fish recently. I snapped it on, casted, pumped it twice and set the hook. I "politely" asked on of my boat mates to grab the net. Just then my buddy asked "Where is it?" I said "behind me on the kicker." He replied "AAAHHHH.... there's no net anywhere." The net fell overboard as we headed across the lake. I was distraught as I realized my lucky net was now on the bottom of the lake. But all the sudden the fish surfaced with violent headshakes. "Holy S4!T!" I said, it's friggin' huge! As the fish neared the boat it chilled a bit. Enough for me to drop the rod and dive darn near in the water and hand land a giant.
I yelled "open the live well" which I hate doing by the way, but I had no choice as I had to control the fish somehow. We had to contort the fish somewhat to fit her through the opening to the 60" tank. After we managed to get her in... which wasn't easy, we had the pumps running she was 100% fine. She was so wide you couldn't see the bottom or the sidewalls of the well. We pulled her out and put her on the "Wishful Thinking board" (Board Dimensions 66 long bottom is 15" wide) She measured between 56.25 and 56.50. We snapped a couple pix and put her back in the livewell to girth her. Like I said, I hate doing this, but I had to see what she was working with. We originally taped her at just under 28 inches. She thrashed and crapped a bucket load of 4 inch black feathers and remains all over inside the well.
We re-measured for a photo and we could just hit 27 - 27.25. Snapped a couple more pix then we let her swim. We decided the honorable thing to do was to round down. We agreed on 56.25 x 27. She immediately took off and we didn't see her again! After a few phone calls we set back up and the guys in the front both had a fish follow on the next cast but no more hook ups.
After talking with a local weather guy, he said i may return home from my trip to hard water? SO who knows, my season may have just closed... probably not, but if it does, it was a hell of way to go out swingin'!
And just wait until you get a load of what Musky Innovations is bringing to the table. The bait is sick in the water!
Jerry Sondag
Editors note: If you want to contact Jerry, he can be reached at http://muskylink.ning.com/profile/JerrySondag
