Wet T-Shirk Muskie Contest

 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. 

Muskellunge, Esox masquinongy. Lifelist Fish #198. Rank: Species

Muskie are a not insignificant fish in my personal history, despite my minimal time and effort targeting them. One of my first memories is seeing a muskie in the water at a lake in Northwestern Pennsylvania near where I was born. I'm not sure where on the timeline it fits exactly, nor is it the clearest memory I have, but it's the first fish memory I have. You might think that would make muskie fishing a somewhat bigger part of my agenda. I'm not really sure why it isn't outside of simply not having them around. With a fish so notorious for frustration, skunking, and heartbreak and an angler who frequently likes to have to work hard to catch the target, it would seem to be a match made in heaven. Maybe someday I will get totally muskie obsessed. It would seem to be a high likelihood. But for now, with a helping push from Drew and a bit of patience and persistence to get it done on foot in water I'd never seen before, I can be pretty satisfied with my first muskie on the fly. 

Thank you to my Patrons; Erin, David, John, Elizabeth, Brandon, Christopher, Shawn, Mike, Sara, Franky, Geof, Luke, Noah, Justin, Sean, Tom, Mark, Jake, Chris, Oliver, oddity on Display, and Sammy for making Connecticut Fly Angler possible. If you want to support this blog, look for the Patreon link at the top of the right side-bar in web version.

Lake Champlain Region on the Fly: Muskellunge

HERE LIES THE REMAINS OF

LOUIE SPRAY

THREE RECORD MUSKIES

IN HIS DAY

The muskellunge is about as iconic a fish as exists in the world. They are uncommon, large, and generally impressive looking creatures. Even in the most densely populated watersheds, muskie are one of if not the least common predator fish. That is very typical of apex predators: they reproduce slowly, they grow slowly, they never completely fill out an ecosystem or they'd destroy it and themselves in the process. Another trait of apex predators is a lack of shyness. Muskie simply don't care that you're there most of the time. They'll eat boat-side without hesitation. Find a laid up muskie, if it decides it doesn't want to be seen it won't spook and run like a trout or a bass, it'll sink deeper into the weeds or slowly cruise off. If a muskie isn't taking a fly or a lure, it's mostly because they run on a slow metabolism and only eat in tiny windows. Present something to a muskie outside those feeding windows, they'll follow without committing or just remain unseen. This behavior earned them the much deserved title of fish of a thousand casts. Many, many anglers are willing to make all those casts to catch one muskie because they are phenomenal specimens: thick, muscular, big, toothy, mean looking.

Hours and hours of work. A violent eat. A short but extraordinarily chaotic fight. An impressive fish in the net. That is muskie fishing. 

Aside from spending what many would consider an irrationally large amount of time on the water, muskie have driven anglers to do some crazy things. With such an iconic species, there will always be some dramatics. Hayward Wisconsin is the epicenter of musky country, and the final resting place of one of the most emblematic figures in angling history. The words that open this essay grace Louis Bolser Spray's tombstone. To this day, Louie Spray remains controversial. Did he actually catch three record muskies? Did he even catch one record fish? Was the almost inconceivably large 69lb 11oz muskie Louie claimed to have caught in 1949 actually real, or could it have been an exaggeration or even physically altered? And if it was real, was he the one that actually catch it? Claims that Spray bought fish from other anglers and that stomachs were packed with ground fish to increase weight have come out for more than half a century. The reality is, we may never know for certain. But the history runs deep in Wisconsin. When a new record in 1994 was discredited, to many it was the record coming back home. A muskie mount on the wall of a Hayward building is just as natural as a light switch. 

Miles from Hayward Wisconsin, in a place were musky are really just starting to become a blip on the radar, and fishing with tackle Louie Spray would probably have scoffed at, I moved my first musky with a fly. 

The day was slow anyway. Noah and I were frustrated, not sure of what to do or where to go, just grasping at straws. We found carp spawning. We marked fish in different areas that just wouldn't eat. We tried to find a non-existent bait and tackle shop.

Then, on a whim, we pulled into a random little park, looked briefly for worms to use for drum, then took a look at the river and found the sign found in my last post. I had a thought... if we were going to have such a hard time catching fish anyway, we might as well target big pike and musky. And so I did. 

I made a sacrifice to the fish gods.  Just a little bit of whiskey to the river powers that be. Give me a sign.

A sign.

Less than 100 yards from the launch, I laid out a 60 foot cast under an overhanging tree and alongside a sunken log. As the leader got to the tip of the rod, I began to L-turn the fly next to the kayak. When I'm streamer fishing, I don't focus on the fly. I look behind it. I know what the fly looks like, what I need to know to adjust my retrieve is if and how a fish is engaging with it. On this occasion, while peering into the murk behind my huge black fly, I saw a monster silently rise out of the depths. For a second time just stopped. I was looking at an alien monster, and it was looking back at me as if to say "Really dude? I'm not eating that". 

The amount of shaking my knees did for the next two hours was rough. 

Did either of us end up catching a musky? No. Did we need to? Not really. But the image of that fish coming up out of the darkness, more to check me out than to pursue the fly, won't leave me until I hold one of those fish. 

The afternoon was not without fish though. I caught a very good looking carp in deep water, Noah caught the only smallie of the weekend. 

Lake Champlain Region on the Fly: Rivers and Waterfalls

On Friday Noah and I left CT early enough that we would get to the part of Vermont we wanted to fish with plenty of time to work with in the afternoon and evening hours. The working plan from Friday night into Saturday morning was to start in the south end of one drainage and work north to the mouth. Basically it was and slow start in water with trout, fallfish, and panfish, then work up to pike and bass, then bigger pike, gar, drum, and, though we almost certainly wouldn't catch any....

In fishing a new watershed, there are a few types of structure I will always gravitate to. Dams and waterfalls are among the first spots I will fish on a new river. They are a choke point at the very least, a migration barrier at most for many species. There are always fish under a good dam or waterfall. 

Our first spot was probably the most likely to produce a trout. The water was cold and clear at 63 degrees. Some caddis were coming off. There were a lot of baitfish around including some of the biggest blacknose dace you could find. We caught no trout, though Noah did see what was most likely a large brookie. 

Fallfish, however, were willing participants. 

 Northward we continued, looking for more variety. We found it in a deeper pool bellow another waterfall. Bass, bluegill, pumpkinseeds, and an absurd number of cookie cutter rock bass provided an hour's entertainment, but it didn't seem like much of size was there and eating.

Numbers done.We didn't need to catch more of the same fish. We moved north once more that night, looking for pike in the spot where I caught my first on fly. The situation was very different from that trip, the water was more than four feet lower. The places I found fish that trip weren't fishable this time. It got dark before we could find any pike. It was an interesting night. Frogs and flies dominated the ambiance, though great horned owls and moose vocalizations interrupted the drone of grey tree frogs, green frogs, and mosquitoes.  Fire flies filled the field and the trees we camped near. 

The next morning we were up early to get to the final set of falls we would fish before actually reaching Champlain. 

The two species we really wanted here were freshwater drum and gar. It was pretty clear, based on the overall conditions that drum were probably the only of the two we could hope for. Gar are far easier to fish for if you can see them. Throughout the weekend, I saw gar come up and gulp air three times, all in deep murky water. What we needed was a calm, hot, sunny day. We just weren't getting that. It was the exact opposite. So we focused on drum. An unexpected amount of fishing pressure in the form of a derby probably threw of our chances. 

To find drum we needed to go right to the mouth of the river. We were seeing fish on the graph, lots of fish. A kayaker posted up right across from the launch was steadily filling a bucket with white perch.It seemed like we could get lucky here. But it seemed like finding a needle in a haystack. The needle wasn't a drum in general, it was the one drum out of the bunch that would be interested in eating something. Anything. And Noah found the needle. 

That was it, one of the two species we really made the trip for. Noah got his drum. In the end, I wouldn't find mine. Time would tell if I could add something else to my life list.