Accidental Muskie

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.

How I Got Here

I've got to believe that much of my passion for fishing is just natural.  Even as a young kid, anytime that I would see a new lake or river I'd find myself wondering how I'd do if I fished it and wishing that I could.  Growing up with a dad who was invested in me and who enjoyed fishing was a big push.  We did a lot of bobber fishing in rented row boats.  We'd mainly catch bluegills, but occasional brushes with monsters were the highlights.  I can remember my uncle Tim getting into a pike that broke his line when it charged straight under the boat.  I can also remember a big bass in a farm pond in Illinois that kept chasing our hooked gills to shore.  My dad switched over to a great big crankbait and caught the fish on his first cast.  To a kid with a Zebco 303, these fish were nothing short of amazing.  It may be here that the big fish seed was planted.

My friend John introduced me to the river when we were in high school.  His family lived on the banks of the Grand and we'd spend our summers in nothing but shorts banging around on the water in his dad's old boat.  My family started calling us Tom and Huck.  Fishing the river with John provided me with my first experience of setting a hook into a fish and feeling it not budge an inch.  Man, what a beautiful feeling!

My dad finally bought a boat and trailer of his own and we set out to conquer the river ourselves.  We have hundreds and hundreds of hours of river time under our belts.  We've gotten pretty good at figuring out the smallies and the walleye.  We also spend a lot of time just still fishing and catching whatever will eat a worm.  That has become my dad's favorite.  We have several spots, most of them named.  We hit one, drop anchor, and drop lines.  My dad's declaration that "this is the life" is always quick to follow.

My dad and John got me to the river.  Someone that I had never met turned me into a cat guy.  I caught a walleye one hot and sunny afternoon and by the time I took a picture I wasn't able to revive it.  A good old boy who undoubtedly spent most of his life living somewhere down south happened to be trolling by.  I offered him the walleye.  He was extremely grateful and he apparently wanted to thank me by telling me every last thing that he knew about fishing for cats.  He talked for quite awhile, but I basically gleaned two things.  I should try night fishing and I should catch a rock bass and put a fresh fillet on a hook.  I tried it that very night and quickly caught a channel.  There was a certain magic about having something work so well.

It didn't take long before I found myself obsessing about catching more.  I started stretching my day trips into the night until my day trips were replaced by evening and night outings.  My early days involved bass gear, store bought minnows, and whatever hooks I happened to have.  The family didn't like me fishing alone at night, so I usually just fished a big flat right off of the boat ramp.  I caught plenty of fish in there, both channels and flatties.  Soon I quit caring about other fish and just wanted to get better and better at catching these night prowling monsters.  We'll see how I've done in future posts.

An Introduction

I'm a bit out of place.  Not because I'm a fisherman in Michigan.  West Michigan is a great place to live if you love to fish.  I'm out of place because I live in Michigan and I'm not quite whole unless I'm sitting in a boat in the middle of the pitch dark river begging any of my 3 rods to dip towards the black water with the weight of a big flathead catfish.  I am a fisherman, but first and foremost, I am a flathead fisherman.  There are so many states that are better suited for a flathead fisherman.  In fact, I imagine that some would be surprised that we even have them up here in our yankee state.  We don't have the 50+ pounders, but we have them.  For that, I consider myself fortunate.  To add to my good fortune, I live within minutes of the Grand, a lazy old river that has a pretty good stock of them.

I'll get into my love of the river, of flatties, and of my passion for all kinds of fishing in future entries.  For now, I should inform the reader of my general intentions for this blog.  Like most guys who love the water, I get out maybe twice a week in the spring, summer, and fall.  I get out maybe once every week or two in the winter when the ice is good.  The rest of the time, I'm either thinking about fishing, reading up on fishing, watching a video about fishing, or getting ready for fishing.  I have a one track mind and those closest to me, even fellow fishermen, tend to go glass eyed when I inevitably turn the conversation to exactly what hook I like to use for some specific application.  To spare them, I decided that I'd better find another outlet for this need to spew all things angling.  This is my forum.

I look forward to next spring when I can share fresh experiences as they occur.  Until then, I'll dig into some of my best and maybe worst memories and share them with you.  I'll talk tactics and share some general observations that I have about what is going on in the fishing world around us.  Hopefully people out there who share my obsession will find some value or at least some entertainment in my ramblings.  I'm spending New Year's Eve on the ice with my brother-in-law and nephew.  Time to go start getting ready.