This past Saturday I had the opportunity to fish muskies with my friends Bob and Rob. We had super warm weather leading up to our fishing adventure for the day and the muskies were bitting! Our plan was to fish Leech Lake as there had been a bunch of muskies on the move there. Well of coarse mother nature reminded us that she was in-control of the weather and we were greeted with 25 mph Northwest cold wind. A drastic change! Sometimes good and sometimes bad? From many fellow musky hunters, when faced with tough conditions, I get asked the question, "Are we going to catch one?". My response is always, "You can't catch a fish if you don't try!". Well with Bob and Rob there was never a doubt if we were going fishing. These guys are good fisherman and understand that this is fishing and fishing for muskies.
We met at the boat access bright and early. If anyone knows me they know I get pretty excited for any day of fishing and especially one when we are chasing muskies all day. Well I was pretty excited for this and it was apparent as I had a tough time getting my boat in the water! I backed the boat in and for some crazy reason it wasn't coming off the trailer. The access was fairly shallow water but my boat should have been sliding off. "What is going on?" I said to myself. "Boys! I will try and just dump it fast!" I exclaimed after the first two tries. That didn't work! Rob asked, "Is the boat still hooked up?" Ha it was and after a good laugh we had the Crestliner and Mercury ready for the ride! I learned that if I can't laugh at myself sometimes I will be goofed up all day! Have you laughed at yourself lately?
Leech Lake a lake filled with shallow rock structure and large expansive weed flats. The rock bite was our focus for the morning as I had a fellow musky friend in a separate boat fishing weeds. Between the two boats were were sure to have the fish dialed in. It was rough and running from spot to spot wasn't the easiest but we managed but the fish didn't. It was soon noon and we hadn't had a follow or bite in six hours of fishing. Holy Mackerel what are we going to do? The other guys hadn't moved a fish in the weeds either so it wasn't like the fish were bitting elsewhere. We were faced with a decision. Do we stick out the Rocks hoping the sun will warm them up and the fish bite or do we change lakes? After about a two second deliberation the decision was the change lakes. So Northbound to the Bemidji Area we went.
We launched the boat into the water with no troubles this time and it was like we got on a plane and flew South as the wind had calmed down and the sun was out. Sweet! It didn't take long and we had fish following and had a couple of bites but nothing in the boat. Let me tell you that after getting pounded with huge waves and not having a follow it was like a shot of adrenaline having the first fish come up! We wouldn't be denied today! We decided to leave the spot where we had the follows and went to a spot that has produces so many big fish in the past. Bob was casting a bucktail with double ten blades like the Blue Fox Twin Turbo.
"Boys we are casting in Dangerous water!" I expressed as we approached the "money spot" and I heard a grunt of a hook set and saw that Bob had a fish. Sweeeeet! Fish on and I could see it was a good one. After a pretty good battle and some great head shakes the 51 inch muskie was in the net. We quickly took the hooks out, measured her, took some quick photos and gave some pretty awesome high fives! You can't catch them if you don't try! We were faced with some adversity this day. With sore backs, sore everything else, being beat up and humbled it's pretty easy to give up say let's try again but we didn't this day. Muskie fishing that's what it takes on most days to be successful. Thanks to my friends Bob and Rob for yet another great memory this season filled with yet another 50 incher.
See pictures below....
Make a memory!
Jeff "Breezer" Andersen
Bob's 51 inch hawg belly!
Pure emotion shown with a smile!
No comments:
Post a Comment