More muskie stories...

[John E. Sox]

After another snowstorm last week and missing my annual Indiana trip... spring fever has gotten the best of me. I can't get enough muskellunge info into my body right now! Duke's post was cool and made me think of some of my best stories. I'll share one and hopefully some of you will do the same.
I've never caught a 45 lber and have never seen one longer than the back of my boat so I will start with a pretty cool numbers story instead:

About 3 years ago my wife, my 1-year-old, her family and I headed to NW Ontario for a little vacation... on a selected muskie lake of course. The lake is considered a numbers lake but does offer a legitimate shot at a fish over 30 lbs. My in-law's barely fish and have never caught a muskie before. I took my father-in-law out the first morning and gave him a crash course in muskie fishing. Fishing was pretty good right away. I caught a couple 3-footers and lost a mid-40 incher on a figure 8 on about the tenth turn. I noticed how much this fish was responding to speed and decided to do some bucktail burning and speed trolling. The second day we got some Southerly winds and the fish responded in a chomping manner to our speedy presentations. My father-in-law and I hooked and bunch of fish in the morning, including a 41 incher for him. That afternoon my mother-in-law wanted to go out. So, I gave her a crash course on casting at the dock before her and my father-in-law headed out on the water. I was going to go cast a couple of spots myself when they were getting ready to head out. When I pushed my boat away from the dock I saw two fish tails swimming under my boat and they were both muskies! Pretty cool I thought. I decided to pull the boat back and see if I could get them to bite on a figure 8. I thought if I hooked one that I could hand the rod off to mother-in-law. I grabbed a rod with french-bladed bucktail, leaned over the side of the boat and got the lure zipping around. One of the fish got a little excited but didn't seem to want to come out from under the boat in the gin-clear water. I thought maybe the fish would be a little less shy if I could keep my bait in the shade so I hopped back on the dock, pushed the boat out a little ways and did my figure 8 between the dock and the boat. As soon as I got the bait up to speed I saw one of the fish get excited and, pretty quickly, got it to eat. I thought I had looked the situation over pretty good before hand but I didn't account for the rope that was holding the boat to the dock. I had to dip my rod under the rope and run to the end of the dock to have some room to fight the fish. So I accomplished this and just as I went to hand the rod off to mother-in-law the fish did a cartwheel. That made her a litttle nervous and she said she would wait to catch one that wasn't so acrobatic. I landed the fish which ended up being another 3 footer. I got the fish swimming a headed back to my boat. Same thing, got the bait cooking and hooked the other fish. Dipped the rod under the rope and tried to hand the rod off again but she woudn't take it because a small crowd had gathered. Landed that fish which was a twin to the first. I figured that I had caught both of them but thought I had better check to see if there were any more. There was! A couple of turns into my 8 I hooked a little bit bigger fish. This ended up being about 38 incher. Nothing hit on the 4th try. So, I gathered my stuff and headed out on the water. I got thinking, dang, I had caught three fish already and hadn't even made a cast! I had went 3 for 3 on figure 8's and landed 3 fish in about ten minutes!
The day ended with my mother-in-law catching two muskies trolling and one casting, my father-in-law got a 43-44 incher, and my wife got a 3 footer of her own. One of my most memorable muskie days for sure!