Since the weather has been so hot down south, my brothers and I decided to head north in search of cooler water and active muskies. We launched at Natalie around 2pm on Saturday, motored up river 15-20min, and then fished our way down for the first couple of hours. We moved fish on bucktails, topwater, shallow talonz cranks, and baby beaver with most of the action coming on bucktails and topwater. Most of the fish we saw were 36-38 with a handful being around 40 and with 1 being 42-44. I had one come screaming in on a topwater bait my brother made; the fish waked behind it the entire cast and then ate on a subsurface figure 8. Unfortunately it just grabbed the back hook and was off after one quick head-shake. About an hour later my brother catches a nice 36-38 fish on a homemade bucktail as the fish t-boned the bait about half way back to the boat. After drifting back down to the launch with no other fish caught, we decided to check out the dam area. It was our first time fishing the dam, but we did like being able to make longer casts as it's much more open. We moved a handful of fish near the dam again on topwater and bucktails. Nothing in the net for the rest of Saturday.

Sunday we decided to try a new stretch and launched at Mcphees and going down river. We started fishing right away and moved a couple small fish, but it is pretty narrow and shallow right around the launch so we decided to motor down river until it opened up more. The river opened up after just a couple of minutes driving and we started fishing with bucktails, topwater, twitchbaits, and baby beaver. This stretch was pretty nice as it was decently wide and wasn't nearly as 'twist turvy' as above Natalie. The water was more stained and decently deep so we were hoping the fish would be a little more willing to bite. We moved a half dozen fish in this section with most of them being mid-30s or so. Despite the dirtier water, the fish weren't more open to bite. We had to drive home still so only did a half day Sunday and nothing in the net to show for it. It's always nice landing a fish, but it's extra special doing it with family and in such a beautiful area.