From: gdw@moose.cccs.umn.edu (Gavin Watt)
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing
Subject: First Muskie (tidied up)
Date: 21 Aug 92 15:46:15 GMT
Reply-To: gdw@moose.cccs.umn.edu (Gavin Watt)
Organization: CCCS -- UofMinnesota


Oh damn, so pleased with my prose I forgot to hit the word wrap button. 
Here it is tidied up.---

Last weekend while fishing the St. Croix river I tied into my first
muskie.  The St Croix forms part of the Wisconsin, Minnesota border; it
is designated a wild and scenic river which it is.  I had left the wife
and kids sleeping and paddled upstream from St. Croix State park at
dawn.  Exquisite day (I'll skip the mosquito part), right off a calendar
-- blue and crisp and clear and the mist rising off the water. The river
in this area is canoe water: 50 to 100 metres wide and generally shallow
(10 to 50 cm) with a hard sand bottom, bordered by 2nd growth mixed
forest (loggers removed the pine monoculture 100+ years ago).  

The St. Croix is good fishing water, trophy smallmouth, walleye,
northerns etc. -- as we say "everything that swims swims in the river". 
As I paddled upstream I trailed my favorite silver Rapala 6" minnow but
the river was generally too shallow and I used the upstream leg to scout
for holes and savor the morning.  Watched a bald eagle as it cruised
overhead and another watched me from its perch high in a dead tree.  I
turned back downstream and stopped to fish the hole  at the mouth of the
Clam river --nothing was interested in minnows, leeches or the Rapala. 
So I drifted down, wedged the boaton the upstream side of a big snag, and
checked the depth -- can't touch the bottom with my paddle so it is 2+
metres.  Again nothing interested in the live bait -- drifting a leech
or minnow thru the current and eddy below a slip bobber, in fact the
damn thing got stuck on a log under water said hell with it.  Let's try
the Rapala (careful readers will note I am now technially in violation
of Minnesota fishing regs, two lines in the water, but I was on the
Wisconsin side). 

So I cast the Rap out into the stream and reel it back in several times
then all of sudden WHANGO something hits -- oh boy a big smallie I hopes
-- but close to the boat and I look down and there it is.  A muskie! 
Yep a muskie, I know it is, for 10 years I've studied those pictures in
InFisherman and in the fishing regs - vertical striping and a beautiful
golden color. Now what!  This is a big fish and
I have forgotten to bring two things -- a net and the camera. This is my
best rod and reel but it is only 6 lb line and there's no steel leader.
Well I played him adjusting the drag and trying to keep him from running
under the boat and into the snag and tried to figure out just where and
how and what I was going to grab once I got him boatside.  So I worked
him in and I was ready and with the rod in my left reached out with my
right, but the fish wasn't ready he swirled and twisted and cut off the
line.  I tried to grab his tail as he swam under the boat but no.  So
off he went with my Rap in his mouth which I felt bad about mostly for
the fish it was a new one but I figure I got my $5 worth I heard him
splash downstream and I hope he was able to shake it.  Here's
the wierd part -- as he came to the boat and thrashed I saw out of the
corner of my eye another silver Rapala floating by.  After the fight, I
fished it out it was a brand new Shad Rap -- I figure the fish had been
carrying it and managed to shake it in the struggle.  Haven't had that
much excitement since one night in 1965 in the back of the old man's
Pontiac station wagon; as I recollect I didn't boat her either.

-- G. 

/*Gavin Watt--Colon Cancer Control Study, UofMinn.--(612) 627-4151*/
/*Internet:gdw@moose.cccs.umn.edu--BITNET:gdw%MOOSE@UMNACVX.BITNET*/
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.fishing