How many casts does it take to make a good day of muskie fishing?<\/p>\n

One.<\/p>\n

We were out to accomplish one of fishing\u2019s most difficult feats\u2014a muskie on the fly.\u00a0 My two customers, Kris and Jordan, were up to the task, and we were fishing water that I know pretty well- the muskie are not as plentiful here as on some other popular rivers, but the average size is impressive.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go down the checklist– Water clarity-good.\u00a0 Water temperature\u2014good.\u00a0 Weather\u2014good.\u00a0 Angler skill level\u2014good.\u00a0 Guide skill level\u2014reasonable.<\/p>\n

I had a solid game plan\u2014we would run up river, hitting favorite spots along the way.\u00a0 Once to the top, we would fish our way back, revisiting spots where we had located fish on the way up.\u00a0 So what do you do when you get to the top, and the only action has been one pike boated and one small muskie follow?\u00a0 We had hit many of my best spots, spots with names like \u201cThe Muskie Channel\u201d, \u201cMunch Bend\u201d, and \u201cLower Two Fish\u201d, and with little to show for our efforts,\u00a0I decided to chance running upriver even farther.\u00a0 The water level was just high enough to allow safe passage,\u00a0 I had to force myself to watch the river and not my depth finder as I cruised on plane over 2 feet or less of water.\u00a0 The decision to go up farther was a good one, as we made contact with the first good sized muskie of the day at the \u201cUpper Two Fish\u201d hole.\u00a0 A yard-long fish chomped Kris\u2019s fly but came up short of the hook, and a thorough re-working of the spot gave no more action.\u00a0 I looked up the river, thinking of more spots waiting around almost every bend up there, but reluctantly decided to head back down river.<\/p>\n

Our cruise back down river was interrupted by my prop making pretty good contact with a rock while running at nearly full speed.\u00a0 Anyone thinking of launching their boat in a river should take a close look at the prop photo.\u00a0 I pulled up to shore, donned my waders, switched out the damaged prop, and we were back in action.\u00a0 A re-working of a few favorite spots revealed nothing, and I was now starting to get a little nervous.\u00a0 On even the slowest day up here usually there are pike and smallies to keep your interest in between muskie showings.\u00a0\u00a0I floated us down\u00a0into a \u201cB\u201d spot called \u201cApocalypse Now\u201d, it is a small but deep hole in a side channel. It has given up a couple of fish over the years, but not a top producer.\u00a0 Jordan was casting a big yellow streamer, and a couple of casts in he was a little too\u00a0eager to make a new cast, and he lifted the fly out of the water just as a 40+ inch torpedo shaped muskie made a dash for it.\u00a0I have done this same thing on more than one occasion, and it can really haunt you for the rest of the day. \u00a0Had the fly been left in the water just a second or two longer there is a very good chance the fish would have eaten it.\u00a0 The fish made another showing when it made a pass at Kris\u2019s fly a minute late, and again a thorough reworking of the spot produced nothing.<\/p>\n

We continued down the river, alternating from the east to west bank depending on how the water looked.\u00a0 As the sun sank to treetop level, it was starting to look like our quest would have to resume another day.\u00a0 After a LONG period of no activity, Jordan scored a nice sized pike, then Kris got one, and then a couple more pike hit, all in a 50 yard section in just a few minutes.\u00a0 \u201cThe fish are starting to move\u201d\u00a0 I thought to myself, wishing very much one of my high confidence spots was\u00a0closer than two miles away.\u00a0 I idled us back across the river to a likely looking shoreline.\u00a0 This spot had all the right characteristics\u2014deep water, slow current, and the right bottom content.\u00a0 Even though it looked perfect, I couldn’t recall ever having fished there before.\u00a0 Kris laid his big white streamer right next an eddy of foam and debris, and the call of \u00a0\u201cFISH ON!\u201d was the next thing we heard.\u00a0 The fish gave a spirited battle, including one jump where it came all the way out of the water right by the boat.\u00a0 Kris\u2019s \u00a010-weight eventually wore the fish down, and before long I had a firm grip on the muskie\u2019s peduncle.\u00a0 I\u2019ve hand landed hundreds of muskies, and I\u2019m not about to start carrying a net now!\u00a0 After a couple of quick photos the fish was back in the river, none the worse for wear.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t get an official measurement on it, but I don\u2019t think we\u2019re going to get called out if we call it 40\u201d.\u00a0 Not quite the \u201cRiver Monster\u201d we were hoping for, but a fine fish nonetheless.<\/p>\n

I was ready to call it at that point, end it on a good note I thought, but Jordan was eager to even the score.\u00a0 With very little daylight left we tried a few more likely runs, but it wasn\u2019t to be .\u00a0 Muskies stay active on the river through October and into November, there\u2019s still time to even the score!<\/p>\n

A few notes.\u00a0In the past I was known to have some pretty strong opinions of gear, rigging, and tactics–do it my way, or don\u2019t bother.\u00a0 Mind you, my way was always a good way, but that doesn\u2019t mean that other things ways couldn\u2019t be just as good, or maybe better. \u00a0A little older and wiser, I have learned to keep an open mind, and to not completely dismiss something just because I didn\u2019t think of it or discover it first.\u00a0 Kris has a nice set of \u201cBeulah\u201d brand fly rods.\u00a0 The name alone is enough to get me to dismiss them without a second glance.\u00a0 Turns out they are just right for the fishing we were doing, stiff and fast, they cast the big flies just great.\u00a0[He showed up with all three rods fully rigged, each with a different line with a fly tied on!] Speaking of flies, we were using flies tied by another muskie guide, Brad Bohen. Ten years ago I would have not considered using another guide\u2019s flies.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t heard, Brad is probably responsible for muskies caught on a fly than anyone, so I figured I oughta give his flies a fair chance. \u00a0Great design, great material, and nicely put together.\u00a0 The hook seemed small, but the way it is placed on the fly makes sense.\u00a0They cast great and I am not surprised to find they work well.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be busy at the tying bench before my next muskie outing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MUSKIE FISHING WITH A FLY TOP TEN LIST<\/p>\n

\n
1. Fish water with a good population of fish<\/li>\n
2. Have good boat control<\/li>\n
3. Have\u00a0the right\u00a0equipment, a\u00a010 weight rod [or heavier] with a line to match<\/li>\n
4. Use a short, heavy leader with wire bite tippet\u00a0 \u00a0[Kris’s fish had the fly all the way in its mouth, I would have been nervous without wire!]<\/li>\n
5. Strip the fly to within a few feet of your rod tip EVERY cast, watching for following fish<\/li>\n
6. Be\u00a0an efficient caster [can you make a 50′ cast with one back cast?]<\/li>\n
7. Use a big fly with a big sharp hook [about a 4\/0 or 5\/0]<\/li>\n
8. When a fish eats your fly, set the hook with a “strip set”.<\/li>\n
9. Fish when the conditions are right [extreme wind or cold-no good!]<\/li>\n
10. Have realistic expectations–casting all day for one or two “eats” is standard<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How many casts does it take to make a good day of muskie fishing? One. We were out to accomplish one of fishing\u2019s most difficult feats\u2014a muskie on the fly.\u00a0 My two customers, Kris and Jordan, were up to the task, and we were fishing water that I know pretty well- the muskie are not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":329,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wildsmallie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}