Recipe for Adventure:
Mix - a couple of Musky nuts, a canoe, a fly-rod and flies,
a bait caster and plugs, rain, and a very early January thaw,
and toss the complete contents into a river. Let simmer for
1 to 2 hours and see what comes out. (Additional ingredients
such as Icebergs, logs, and various wildlife can be added to
suit individual tastes.)
My buddy Dave convinced me to take one of my precious vacation
days this past Thursday and go Musky fishing with him. Dave is
fairly new to Musky fishing, having just started fishing for them
at the end of last year. Not only did he start fishing for them,
he actually caught them. Dave was fortunate to have a friend who
was willing to take him to one of the famed Muskie spots in the
state. It's not only famous for an abundance of hungry Muskie,
it is also a very well kept secret! I had been trying for years
to get the exact location from various sources, but to no avail.
The best I had been able to come up with was about a 35-mile
section of river. So, when Dave told me his friend could not go,
but offered us the use of his canoe and a couple of his favorite
flies he ties for Muskie, how could I refuse? If nothing else
it was worth a day or two of vacation just to find the location
of the secret Musky holes.
I could hardly keep my anticipation in check Wednesday evening
as I prepared my 10-weight outfit and suitable flies. Although
it had rained most of the day, the weathermen were calling for
scattered showers the remainder of the night and early into
hursday, ending by midmorning. Perfect weather for a Musky hunt.
After loading my truck and double checking the contents at least
4 times, I finally went to bed to dream of landing a '50 incher'
on my fly-rod. (The fact that all I can remember dreaming about
catching was a couple small bluegills should have given me some
idea as to how the day would turn out!)
I woke up at 4 AM to a thunderstorm, with the rain pouring in
sheets. At the time I thought - hmmm, must be a freak localized
storm and surely won't cause any problems. (Remember, one does
not think too well at 4 in the morning!) As I was driving down
the interstate and sipping on my second cup of coffee, it dawned
on me that maybe the rain was wider spread than I originally
thought and could just possibly cause some problems. The fact
that I had to slow down to 50 mph on the interstate just to
see the road through the sheets of rain was starting to seep
into my coffee induced consciousness. Once the old brain
started working, it immediately kicked into overdrive. I began
thinking that Dave, upon waking up to the thunderstorm, had
probably decided that this wasn't a good idea and crawled back
into his nice warm bed, and was getting myself worked into a
bad mood. You know - I get up at 4 AM and drive 60 miles and
he isn't even ready, still in bed even - and he didn't even
other to call me!
I didn't have to worry, when I turned onto his street, he had
the garage door up, the canoe on the car, and was already waiting
for me! And I was 10 minutes early - what a nut! Anyway, by the
time I was 10 miles from his house, the heavy rain had stopped
and was just a nice soft drizzle. We were in great spirits as
we headed out to the secret 'honey' holes, both of us getting
exited about the prospects of landing several 40 inch Muskie.
We were even concerned that I only had 6 pictures left on my
camera!
After about an hours drive, Dave pulled the car off the road and
said we were there. Pitch dark, foggy; I couldn't even see the
river. It looked to me like we were parked along a cliff, and
if there was water at the bottom, I could only take his word
for it. Since he had fished there before, I just assumed he
knew what he was doing, (I didn't take into account that
this was a madman with Musky fever! I should have known by
the deranged look that came into his eyes every time he
would say. . . Mmmmmmuuuskky.) Well, there was nothing to do
but put the waders on and rig up the fly rod. (Oh yea, I forgot
to mention I decided to forgo the casting rod, leaving it and
some plugs in Dave's garage, and tangle with the Mmmmmuuusssky
with only my fly rod on this trip!)
As daylight broke, we could actually see the river down below
us. Dave commented that it looked to be up a bit, but still
looked fishable, Actually it was slightly stained, but I had
to agree with Dave, it wasn't that dark brown mud color, so
what the heck - lets go catch some Mmmmuuusskkiiee!
Launching the canoe was easy, since we had all the rain and
warm weather, the ground was thawed and getting soft, so all
we had to do was just point the canoe in the general direction
of the river and hold on. As we were sliding down the bank
behind the canoe, Dave said not to worry, there was a fairly
large flat spot at the bottom, where the water wasn't too
deep, and we could load from there. Dave slid onto the 'flat'
spot first, and I detected a bit of terror in his eyes when
he finally stopped sinking as the water lapped around his
chest. Dave later told me that the river might be up a little
bit. I was able to stop my decent by grabbing hold of a
small sapling growing on the bank. The only touchy situation
came when I was pulling Dave out of the river; it felt like
the sapling was starting to pull out and I was trying to
decide whether to keep latched onto Dave or not. After all,
you can't go around destroying all the plants and vegetation
on the riverbanks or soon the banks would be completely
washed away. Fortunately, Dave managed to get out of the
river and found a suitable 2" x 6" area to stand on. In no
time at all, we had the canoe loaded; our bodies, our rods,
our lunches, lifejackets, and 80 pounds of mud! We were off
to catch a Musky!
As we paddled into the center of the stream, I was curious
about the water clarity and noticed I could see about 15
inches of the paddle in the water. Not great, but certainly
fishable.
The game plan, as laid out to me by Dave, was to paddle into
the middle of the stream, and slowly float down through a long
stretch of deep water, fishing all the way through these deep
holes. According to Dave, this is usually accomplished easily,
with little need for paddling, and was a nice enjoyable float,
taking most of the morning to run the length of this deep
stretch of water. The greatest thing about this particular
stretch of river is that it holds Musky everywhere. That
was the game plan.
In reality, no sooner had we paddled to the middle of the
river and started drifting; when we came to a small but
substantial ice jam. No problem. We were able to pick our
way through the ice that was backed up until we got to the
piece that stretched from bank to bank. Fortunately, it was
only about a foot wide and a couple of inches thick, and
broke easily with a few whacks from Dave's paddle. We were
soon through and racing downstream with several tons of loose
ice. Shortly after this bit of excitement, fishing conditions
rapidly degraded!
The nice slow 'all morning drift' through the deep holes took
slightly less than half an hour. Also I noticed with some
concern that I could now only see about 5 inches of my paddle
in the water. Things were looking grim for the prospects of
hooking up with a Musky on the fly. In fact, just the attempt
of fly-fishing was becoming something of a chore. My feeble
efforts went something like this; pick up the rod, hurriedly
make a couple false casts to splash the fly in the water about
25 feet from the canoe, put the rod down, grab the paddle
and dodge some icebergs, pick the rod up frantically strip
in some line, put the rod down and grab the paddle and dodge
a tree limb, grab the rod and try to get the fly to the canoe
without snagging on an iceberg, then quickly repeat the process
again. We decided to paddle back upstream to the start of the
deep holes and fish it down again. However, by the time we made
it back upstream, things were even worse. The paddle instantly
disappeared when plunged into the dark muddy water - zero
visibility. The good thing was that the icebergs were coming
down river less frequently, but were replaced by more tree
limbs, pieces of cut firewood, and several large trees. We
even had a good start when we saw a deer, caught in the current,
come heading downstream toward us. I was wracking my brain,
reviewing my vast outdoorsman knowledge in order to come up
suggestion for Dave concerning how to survive a rouge deer
attacking a canoe in the middle of a flooded river, when I
noticed the glassy eyes of the deer. Poor thing was dead
as a doornail - it had probably slipped accidentally into
the turbulent river upstream and died of fright on the spot!
It was about at that point in time we both decided that
attempting to fish would probably be best left for another day,
and we started paddling upstream for the car. By the time we
made it back to the cliff where we launched the canoe, we were
getting pretty good at dodging obstacles, and the rain finally
stopped. Since neither of us were anxious to get out of the
canoe, (actually it had more to do with our concern about
how were going to get out than our comfort or desire to stay
in the canoe!), we decided to continue paddling upstream,
since Dave said he had never seen what the river was like
upstream. We continued our trek up-river until any forward
progress required more than casual paddling. (Casual here
is defined as just short of frantic.) We turned the canoe
downstream and had a nice leisurely float back to the car.
I even managed a little cup of coffee on the way back.
All too soon, we arrived at our launching point and the
car, (and the cliff.) Fortunately the little sapling that
stopped my quick decent in the morning was much closer
to the water now, and I was able to hold the boat steady
while Dave was able to step out of the canoe and gain
enough purchase of grass and mud with his toes to hold
the canoe for me. (Not an easy task in bare feet, but
really impressive when the person doing it is wearing
chest waders!). From that point on, there is little
interesting that happened. It was a mildly difficult
getting the canoe and gear up the mountainside, but
didn't require anything more than taking turns crawling
crablike up the steep incline through the mud, while one
of us would hold the canoe until we could move it another
few inches.
So ended my first Musky hunt of 2002. All in all, it was
a great day, pretty much another typical outing for me.
I can't wait until next time! ~ Mark (Host BH)
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