With the new season just a week old, I ventured out onto Thornapple Lake this past Friday. I spent another rough night on the couch so that I could get up early without waking Michelle. The alarm was set for 4:00, but I woke up for about the 15th time at 3:45 and decided that I might as well just get up. With no traffic, I made record time and was on the lake well before light.
The first thing that I did was check the water temperature and I found it to be 55 degrees. I then loaded a 3-inch Berkley Alive Minnow on a jig and dinked around trying to find an active walleye. With no luck by the time the sun finally rose, I decided to break in the new muskie gear. I began by throwing a bluegill pattern Super Shad. I liked the feel of the rod and the Cardiff casted and reeled like a dream. I did get careless a couple of times and allowed myself to get some bird nests. Nothing too terrible. The worst one only took me a couple of minutes to pick out. I tried a few other bucktail type lures after the Super Shad didn't cause any fish to show themselves. After about 30 minutes of fishing with this big gear, I started to realize why the muskie guys say that this type of fishing is hard on the gear and hard on the fisherman. My hands started getting tired and I could hear the rod creeking a little bit. I stuck it out for at least another hour. I watched some other muskie fishermen trolling and casting and noted that they weren't catching anything either. I decided to give it a rest at around 10:00 and went back to the spinning gear.
In addition to the jig and minnow, I decided to drift a crawler harness a bit further behind the boat. I held a rod in each hand and got into a rhythm with the boat as it bobbed in the waves. I kind of excentuated the motion, pulling the spinner on the crawler harness in long jumps. After 10 minutes, that rod got heavy and I felt a couple of big head jerks. I wasn't under the illusion that this was a walleye for very long. I had a pretty good idea that it was a pike or a muskie. The fish stayed down for a long time and just swam with me as the boat drifted. I made sure that the drag wasn't too tight and took my time with the big fish. I kept an eye out behind me to make sure that I was keeping my distance from shore. I didn't want to drop the anchor for fear that the fish would wrap the rope and get off. After several minutes, it finally surfaced 15 feet behind the boat. Once I had the fish up, I went ahead and dropped the anchor to keep from getting too shallow or running into shore.
I knew that I had my hands full with this fish, and especially with the old net that we have on our boat. I managed to net the fish with little problem, but I immediately became worried about injuring it. I got the hook out while the fish was still in the water, but it thrashed quite a bit and got itself tangled pretty bad in the mesh. I really had to work hard to get it out of there, my last move being removing a large chunk of net from its mouth. It seemed to want to bite anything that it could get its teeth into. I snapped one quick picture, measured it at 38-inches and got it right back into the water. It took quite awhile to get the fish revived, but it finally swam back down into the dark water. If I'm going to go after these fish and really take care of them, I've got to get a good net. I may ask for an advance on my Father's Day gift.
I fished for the rest of the day, targeting anything that might bite. I threw spinner baits, numerous crankbaits, and spent a good portion of the day drifting for walleye. I couldn't get anything going. I went home feeling a bit unfulfilled. While I was grateful to catch the muskie, I only did so by dumb luck. I wasn't even targeting muskies when I caught it. In fact, I hadn't caught a fish on purpose all day. Like most fishermen, I get quite a bit of satisfaction out of figuring out a pattern and using it to produce fish. This early spring fishing is pretty tough. The good news is that it improves with every new day.
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