Muskellunge are a critter often associated with massive amounts of time, effort, and dedication to catch. Especially on the fly. I hadn't put in anywhere near the amount of effort typically associated when I trudged through the early fall woods on my way to a pool in a river in which I might possibly be able to find a muskie. The day prior my good friend Drew Price and I had floated a different stretch of the same river and I'd stuck a hook in my first muskie (the short story about that has been on Patreon for a while), And I'd increased the number of muskies I'd moved with a fly from one to... frankly I've forgotten the number, but it was a lot. We saw a tremendous number of fish that day. That bumped my experience a bit but not much. And now I was in unfamiliar territory again. Drew had told me there were muskies there, but other than that I was pretty much left of my own devices to try to catch one on foot. It was very much the sort of mission this angler is comfortable with. If you've read these chronicles long enough, you've read of many a grueling, ill-advised DIY effort that resulted in netter fish than I had any right to be able to catch. So, although I had no expectations, I felt very comfortable setting out with just my wading boots, shorts, a sling pack, and a couple rods to pursue one of the most notoriously difficult to catch predator fish in the country.
Shallow riffles and pocket water weaving through the trees gave way to a wide open pool, slow and dark and flanked by steep grass-covered banks. The bottom turned from rock and gravel to mud, and parts of the pool were lined with spare weed beds. This pool looked like a place some Esocids would inhabit, and in this case the top predator wasn't the pickerel and pike one would find back in Connecticut. I decided to work my way around the pool clockwise, starting at one side of the the head of the pool and working around the edge to the tailout, cross, then coming back up the other side. Though the head of the pool didn't show anything, I barely made more than 10 feet down the bank before I moved the first muskie of the day. It came slowly behind the fly, a small male of maybe 30 inches, shadowing with interest but not about to commit to eating. Working my way around the pool I'd move three more small muskies and one larger one. The small fish emerged from the weed bed, while the largest one materialized from the gloom of the middle of the pool. I'd noticed the day before that the largest three we saw weren't on the edge or in the structure, but rather out in the middle of the river. I found this odd, but many of the fish I target have larger predators to be worried about. A muskellunge doesn't really have that. A big old adult muskie isn't getting eaten by too many things. They can afford to hang out pretty much anywhere they want to that offers them the hydraulic needs to maintain their metabolism. As I ran out of pool to fish, I paused to take a break. I sat down in the tall grass, trying to avoid putting any exposed skin in the abundant stinging nettle, and grabbed a granola bar out of my pack. By that point it had become fairly clear that I was going to get clipped by the southern end of a line of thundershowers.
I sat and enjoyed my granola bar and assessed that there was very little point in trying to rush back to get a rain jacket. I'd be in a fairly safe spot as far as lightning, I'd just get a bit wet. That's okay, my bottom half already was anyway. I made my way to the tree line, looked at the canopy and tried to pick a place that might be fairly dry. The rain came loud and heavy, big droplets slapping the leaves and bubbling the surface of the river. My little spot was barely enough to keep my bag dry, and mostly because I hunched over it. The rain lasted probably 15 minutes, leaving a soaked angler trying to shake off and wring out his t-shirt while looking downriver at the next pool and wondering if the passage of that shower might have changed the mood of the fish. The day before, a big storm rolling through had seemed to turn the bite off. I worried that those listless follows might be as much as I'd see of a muskie on this trip. But the next pool down looked promising anyway. It was bigger and round, and looked like it could be harder to fish effectively on foot compared to the one above it. I was pretty much stuck with the head of the pool, which was the only chunk of the one above that didn't seem to be holding a fish. Not knowing if that really mattered, I set about working the head of it as thoroughly and consciously as I possibly could. I mixed and matched retrieves, but favored keeping the sink tip of the bottom with a steady two hand with occasional accelerations. I worked river right first, fanning twice, then crossed the stream to work the other side. The number of casts made on that side couldn't have been many when the line went tight. It wasn't a violent eat to feel, and I didn't see it, but the fish had to have eaten with some force because before coming tight there was actually quite a bit of slack. Then there was a moment of uncertainty where it wasn't fully clear to me that this was actually a fish. But it was. And not one of those little one either. The fight wasn't remarkable outside of the immediate urgency and fear I had of losing the fish. I don't experience it to the level I was in that moment very often. It would have hurt a lot if that fish came off. But it didn't. Everything somehow went to plan. The same angler than had stood under the trees with a slight frown just a short time prior now knelt in the water next to the river bank shaking with what must have been a look of sheer elation on his face.
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| Muskellunge, Esox masquinongy. Lifelist Fish #198. Rank: Species |