The Trip (day 4)

Our final day greeted us with overcast skies and no fog.  Yippee.   We headed out and found the birds and fish in the rips which were fueled into large standing waves by the stiff breeze.  My little whaler isn’t the best in these situations so even though we got a small bass we moved off for a drier fishing experience.  We ended up not being able to find any bass but we did find lots of Scup and then big powerful gator bluefish.  The wire leader we happened to have from the muskie made the day special.   

 Diner plate sized Scup

        Mr. Bluefish

               Matt with a big bluefish.  

The large blues fought incredibly hard and gave us cramps in our forearms.  As the tide started to ebb so did the fishing and we were greeted by the looming end of the trip.  In many ways it is the hardest part of the trip knowing that it is ending, that the magic of the last days will be lost to the thousands of mundane day to day things that need to get done in order to keep ones’ life rolling along.  This is quickly followed by talks of the next adventure. 

The trip (day 3)

The drive to the coast was uneventful.  When we got there we quickly launched the boat full of excitement.  As soon as we hit the outside of the river our spirits sank as we were greeted by a wall of fog.  Shit.  We pulled onto the nearby flats and tried to stalk the flats but the light sucked and the fog became even more dense.  After a while we moved off to a different spot by a small creek and some fish busted in the shallows.  I prodded my bud to cast and he looked at me doubtfully but cast anyway.  Halfway through his first cast he got his first striper albeit a small schoolie.   

                                                   My bud's first striper.

A few minutes later I got a hit and it was a small Sea Robin.  Interesting looking fish.

                                         Pec fin of a Sea Robin

 We ended up hanging out waiting for the fog to break and were eventually rewarded with a half mile of visibility.  We ran out to a good rip to try to get in some fishing.  As soon as we arrived we saw a couple of fish bust on top an encouraging sign.  This part is a little vague in my memory, maybe the result of the fog, but it seemed like we caught big stripers on every drift for an hour or so.  

                                                           Hooked up

                                      

                                         All the bass were big, this being the largest one. 

To say the least it was on and we had this popular place to ourselves.  After an hour or so the fog started to set in and we headed in. 

The Trip (day 2)

The next day found us on a different section of river.  Without knowing what lay ahead we eagerly set off armed with a little bit of knowledge and a lot more questions.  At the bottom of a large riffle the water deepened out and we found ourselves feeling the good vibes.  Sure as shit we got a follow by a big fish.  Again we anchored in the area and fished the hell out of the area with nothing to show for it.  At the bottom of the next riffle the water erupted twice but we got no Muskie love.  As we emerged from some islands there was a large house along the bank and a strangely sloped appendage on the side.  As we got closer it became clear that this was a huge 3 story water slide! 

                                            The "Redneck Yacht Club" and its killer slide.

 The sign behind the boat had it named the Redneck Yacht club.  Too f***ing funny.  The remainder of the float was empty except the occasional smallmouth.  We finished early and were in a bit of a pickle about what to do with the few hours we had left.  We could float the bottom section of yesterday’s water that we didn’t hit that hard or walk down to the where we knew there were two fish and have another go at them.   We finally decided to return to the spots of the morning.  At the head of the pool a bit above where we moved the fish this morning I got an explosive refusal on my first cast.  Two casts later the line came tight and fish number two was in the books.  

                                              Muskie number 2

 By this time my bud was getting disheartened while he had moved 4 fish and hooked one he hadn’t landed anything.  We’ve all been there and it sucks.  We headed down to the second spot and I felt good about his chances but didn’t say anything.   He fished it hard and nothing happened in the area where the fish was that morning.  It was going to be a long walk out and drive home but he keep fishing it through.  Then just like in a story his line came tight.  This one was big.   After a few nervous moments and a couple of minutes this beast came to shore.

                                          The beast.  It had about 8 1/4" fangs on either side of its lower jaw.  Would not want to be a fish in the receiving end of that. 

After high fives we hiked back to the car for the 4 hour drive home and a few hours of sleep before we headed south to the coast.   On the way home we stopped at a gas station and saw this strange set up across the street.  

                            Some kind of toilet bowl and bathtub flower arrangement

The Trip (day one)

It all started as a lark.  My buddy floated the idea of he and I headed out west for a fishing trip and my wife agreed that we should go.  I feigned protest because I didn’t want to go fishing out west.  Truth be told I had my own secret bucket list in my head and numerous western trout locations had already been visited.  I tossed the Everglades for baby Tarpon and the Deschutes for steelhead out, spots that interested me.  It was a go. 

My bud and I spent a good week or so discussing various scenarios until the realities of our schedules crystallized and any far ranging trip would be out of the question this year.   That still left us with numerous scenarios.  Atlantic salmon, Redfish and Muskie were the leading contenders.    After a bit of research which included phone calls, emails and reading it seemed like the best option given our time frame was Muskie fishing, the fish of 10,000 casts.  Enter beginner’s mind all over again as neither one of us knew squat about Muskie fishing.  More phone calls and emails were sent to learn what we could about Muskie fishing.  Large 8-10 inch flies we tied along with wire leaders.  Then the plans started morphing as the result of cooler than usual water temps this year.  Maybe a combination of Muskie and Kings were in order.  Then Muskie and the salt became an option.  Then finally all three.  As seen in my previous post I hit the Kings a few days prior so we were going a 4 day fishing binge.  Hopes were high.  

 We packed our half chicken sized flies, wire leaders, canoe and gear prior to heading northward.   

                                                One of the flies ready for action.

The river didn’t make any sense to us as it was super shallow and full of pockets, not the kind of water that would hold anything larger than a small trout or smallmouth.  Definitely not the kind of water that would hold a 30 plus inch fish.  As we floated the first two miles of pocket water we asked ourselves if we had been sent on a wild goose chase or if we didn’t understand ambush predator fish at all because we could not find any water that had the possibility of harboring such a fish.  Then the river’s character changed suddenly.  The current slowed down, the pockets went from the size of toilet bowls to swimming pools.  Things were looking more promising.  We worked this seam next to an island just trying to figure shit out and then all hell broke loose.  The water erupted then I felt weight on my line and I instinctively set the hook and it was on.  The savagery of the take imprinted an image in my mind that we had stumbled onto something special.  We were late to the Muskie party but oh so glad we finally made it.  After a short fight the small Muskie can to net.  The metallic green color that draped the sides of the fish blew me away.  These are stunningly beautiful fish.  I had no idea. 

 

 

I took the oars as my friend got some more bow time.  Within a relatively short period of time he moved a large fish.  It appeared for a second or two only to melt back into where it came from.  We set up in that area and threw every fly we had but we never saw it again.  Such are the habits of Muskie.  A while later my bud hooked up with a beast that came unbuttoned after a minute or so.  He was crushed.  The canoe was quiet for a while after that. 

The remainder of the day we caught a few large smallies, but didn’t see any other signs of Muskie.  All in all it was not a bad day for two green horns chasing a new species. 

Next up Day 2