So it goes...

This past weekend was spent fishing for muskie with my friends Steve and John, a tradition that is ten years running now, as I mentioned last post. I'll be honest, I had a bad feeling going in. I figured since I got one last year, it was back to the drought.  It turns out I couldn't have been more wrong. Within the first hour of the first day, we boated a 40" fish that my buddy hauled in. Then within an hour and a half of that one, I caught a 30" fish while casting. There is nothing quite like catching a muskie casting (as opposed to trolling), so I was elated to not be skunked.  Then, while John was taking my fish off, the bobber started moving on one of the suckers in the water. It was what we call a "doubleheader" in the fishing world; two fish on at the same time. It's something that is almost unheard of in the muskie fishing world.  Because my fish was much tinier than the 40" fish caught earlier, they decided to let me catch t...

By the time this is visible, I will be on my way to my happy place in the great Northwoods of  Wisconsin. This will be my 10th year going up in October for what I term, Muskyfest. My first trip in 2009 came with much trepidation. My friend Steve had asked a couple of times if I'd ever want to come up muskie fishing. I told him that I wasn't really into fishing for a single species with a high probability of not coming home with a picture of a fish. I'd seen a few of his pictures where he was dressed in a winter coat and hat holding a giant fish, and the appeal just seemed wane even more. After a couple of rejections, I finally gave in to see what all the hype was about. We went up on a Thursday night in mid-October and gave it a go. On Friday, we had a gorgeous day, where we fished a favorite lake all day. It wasn't until about 4:00 when we'd just cracked a beer and were having a sandwich wrap when the "clicker" on the rod we were trolling with star...

It has been a four year drought since I managed to get a musky into the boat. This is despite great efforts once a year fishing hard for them for two straight days, and one or two other instances where I tried twice in a season during a second trip up to Pine Forest Lodge. It is well known that they are hard fish to catch. Outside of sturgeon, in Wisconsin at least, they might be the hardest fish to catch of any species. They are hard to find and sometimes finicky when you do find them. They are the most active in Fall when they start their winter feed, so fishing for them often means cold, windy or rainy conditions. It is the price you pay for pursuing them. Well, as many of you have seen on Facebook, this fall during what I call Muskyfest, I got one. Let me preface it by saying that I would probably have zero muskies to my credit without the help of my friends Steve and John. Steve was the guy who initially convinced me to try musky fishing despite my reluctance as what I cal...