Bill Lemke with an opening day P.B.
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Bill Lemke with an opening day P.B. |
Yahoo, it was finally here! May 1, 2010, opening day of fishing. The Wisconsin season always begins the first Saturday in May. And, this year, it was mercifully as early as it can be. Like any other fanatic, my anticipation for opening day starts somewhere around January 1st and steadily builds from there. The new fishing shows air. Sale fliers come in the mail. By March, I was already preparing for the day; new line, new leaders, new lures, new reel. The list goes on. My wife does her best to tolerate this affliction of nutzy-ness. This year was no exception. I planned to head upstate for the opener and fish with my father. My parents live in Crivitz, Wisconsin. It’s a small town about an hour straight north of Green Bay. My father is in his early eighties. He has been blessed with good health for his age. An ever-ready, avid fisherman, he will still brave the elements and fish all day. My grandfather was the same way. My brother and I are the same way. Ala “Star Wars”, the force runs strong in my family.
Our lake of choice was High Falls Flowage. High Falls is a 1496 acre impoundment of the Peshtigo River 10 miles northwest of Crivitz. It is long and relatively narrow for its size. Fish species include: northern, musky, perch, bluegill, walleye and large & smallmouth bass. The main part of the lake at a maximum depth of 57 feet has the typical old river channel meandering down the middle. The shoreline is a mixture of large granite outcroppings interspersed with sandy stretches. It is reminiscent of Canadian Shield lakes - very picturesque. A popular vacation spot in the summertime, there are multiple boat landings. Boat traffic can be somewhat problematic during the peak of the season.
Around 10:30 AM, we launched from Boat Landing #1, which is located on a bay in the southwest corner of the reservoir. This bay is the lake within a lake. It is relatively shallow averaging 1 - 3 feet deep with a lot of weeds. There are a few slightly deeper areas that are 5 - 6 feet deep. A half a dozen small islands are scattered around. Loggers came in before the reservoir was filled and took out much of the available timber. However, this section of the lake is still loaded with old stumps and downed trees. The stumps look like large octopus. Many of the logs are a foot thick at the base and taper over a 10 - 30 foot length. While some of this old forest debris is visible, much of it lies hidden just below the surface. No sane person runs fast here. If you value your boat and motor, this is strictly a slow, no wake, motor at full tilt, proposition. A spotter is highly preferential. Many times you can’t see the hazards until you are almost on top of them. We like it here because there are no water skiers, no jet skis, no pleasure boating, no sailboards, no cabins, etc. It is still a fairly secluded natural setting.
May 1st was also the third day after the April full moon. The water temperature was somewhere in the upper 50’s. The air temperature was 65 degrees with a projected high of 72. This was going to be downright pleasant compared to the many other open day scenarios I have experienced over the years. But, it was windy - real windy. The forecast called for 20 - 25 mph southwest winds with gusts to 35 mph. Annoyingly, the weathermen were uncharacteristically accurate. We knew we would get beat up. So, we began by exploring the protected nooks and crannies.
I was using one of my favorite lighter weight graphite spinning rods with a classic Swedish made Cardinal 4 reel. It was loaded with 17 lb. test Silverthread Excalibur line. For terminal tackle, I attached a hand tied 27 lb. test Sevenstrand wire leader with matching ball bearing swivel on one end and cross-lock snap on the other. This is my standard tackle for catching bass and northern. I intentionally left my heavy-duty musky gear at home. The state of Wisconsin is divided by Hwy 10 into a northern and southern fishing zone for pike and musky. In the northern zone, where we were, musky season doesn’t open until May 29th. If the game warden stops by to check your license, and you have obvious musky gear on board, you will not be able to convince him that you weren't using it. We were in my dad's 14 foot Starcraft, so I made sure that he took out all of his musky gear as well.
The day started slowly. I was throwing a shallow diving firetiger crankbait. I finally broke the ice with a 3 lb. largemouth. It came from just a few inches of water, literally. The wind nearly plopped my lure on dry land. The fish hit within a few cranks. Not bad for the first fish of the year. Later my dad caught a couple of very typical 18 - 20 inch northern on a double bladed orange willow leaf spinnerbait with a black skirt. About 2:00 PM, we decided that if we wanted a shot at more, and hopefully larger fish, we were going to have to brave the windswept open areas of the bay. I switched to one of my all time tried-and-true lures a #4 blaze orange Mepps spinner, plain no hair. I have caught all the standard gamefish species on this lure. We made our first drift. I picked up a small perch. The wind pushed us toward the northeast corner of the bay. About three quarters of the way across, my dad had a northern explode right next to the boat, but shook off almost immediately. It appeared to be in the 25 - 30 inch class. Disappointing that it didn’t hang on, but a good sign. At least one better fish was in this area. We motored back upwind and started our second pass.
Nothing much happened until we were getting towards the end of the drift. I felt the familiar tug of a fish. No explosion, no violent hit, no hole opening up in the water, just the usual feel of yet another 20 inch northern. I have caught literally hundreds of these over the years, so I knew the drill. A second later, it pulled a little harder and screeched the drag on my reel moving at a 45 degree angle to my left. I casually told my dad that this one felt a little better. He kept fishing, as I would have. Then, my reel went screech, screeech, screeeech losing about 10 -15 feet of line in the process. Again, I casually took note, "This one has a bit of an attitude". My dad asked if I needed the net. I responded, "Yeah probably". I didn’t say this because I thought the fish was that large, but it’s just easier to deal with a flopping northern under windy conditions that way. I have had my share of hooks poke my fingers way too many times in the past and did not wish a repeat performance. He stopped fishing and picked up the net expecting to use it momentarily.
The fish turned and swam slowly in a wide arc to the right. I was not able to turn it or gain line. Mentally I upped the size estimate to 28 - 30 inches. It dawned on me that maybe this thing didn’t know it was in trouble ----- yet. Instinctively, I backed off the drag two clicks. It kept circling to the right eventually moving past the stern forcing me to turn around in the seat so I wouldn't be fighting backwards. That’s when the fish dispensed with the cordial introductions. It muscled forward with brute strength heading into the wind. At that point, its attitude, remember I said it had an attitude, changed to, “I am going this way and you can't stop me”. It was right, I couldn't. My rod bent over. My drag sang out. Between the wind and the fish, line peeled off the spool at an alarming rate. I knew what was coming. It was going to run me out of line and part company. My drag was already set as tight as I dared. I quickly threw the trolling motor on full throttle and plowed backwards, waves slapping the stern in hot pursuit. I wasn't gaining, but I wasn't losing either.
When the fish finally slowed, it jumped half way out of the water. At this point, it was well over 100 feet away. We were looking directly toward the sun. What we saw of the fish was its white belly and throat. We could see that it was a decent fish My dad questioned, “Have you got a musky on there?” Having seen the northern earlier, we had assumed that this was a northern, too. I upped my mental size estimate to 34 - 38 inches. A short time later I pulled up to within 10 - 15 feet of it. I turned off the trolling motor. It was now time for “let’s see if we can break the line off on the hull or the motor”. From that point on, we played ring-around-the-rosy. It did everything in its bag of tricks to go around either end of the boat or underneath it.
Our stern mounted trolling motor has a small foot pedal. The speed control is on it as opposed to being on a twist grip on the tiller handle. I had the foot control on the seat next to me - why, the wind. I was trying to conserve battery power during the day by manually steering instead of using the motorized direction feature. So, while fighting the fish, I was simultaneously switching the rod between hands so I could change the speed or direction of the trolling motor in a sometimes frantic reaction to outmaneuver it. Collectively, we made at least six full 360 degree rotations, not all in the same direction and not all in continuous revolutions. In retrospect, controlling the motor by hand was a good thing. The motor would not have changed direction fast enough had I used the foot pedal as it was intended to be used.
The tug of war lasted about twenty minutes. The fish started to tire. It came up to about a foot of the surface shooting past me to my right. As we saw it flash by, we made a positive I.D. It was indeed a musky. I upped my mental size estimate to 39 - 40 inches. I started to gain some amount of control. I started leading the musky back around to the left. As it came up into full view, with growing concern, I asked my dad, "Is that net big enough?" It was a general purpose bass net. His response, "No! But we don't have any choice". He was right. My only other option would be landing it by hand, but the lure was not visible. I didn’t want to risk injury that way. We were also running out of time. The wind had pushed us close enough to the shallow shoreline to become an additional factor. I said, "Okay, now or never", leading the musky's head into the open hoop. It was only half-way in when the snout reached the bottom of the bag. Miraculously, my dad managed to get the body to bow allowing the rest of its length to slide in. The head was near the rim, the body fully filled the net and the tail was sticking out on the opposite side of the rim. My dad couldn't lift it in. He had the edge of the hoop near the handle resting on the gunwale. Every time he tried to lift or move the net away from the gunwale, the hoop started to bend at the handle. I yelled, "Don't lift! I'll help!" I opened my bail, set my rod down and moved forward. We repositioned the net so I had the handle and part of the hoop. My dad took hold of the opposite side of the hoop. We both pulled the fish aboard and laid it in the bottom of the boat. Instantly we realized we had underestimated its actual size. In unison, we said, "Holy Smoke! What a Sow!"
I took the musky out of the net. When I opened its mouth to remove the hook, three things were immediately apparent. First, the lure was just barely inside its mouth. This explains the uneventful initial hit. It must have followed behind the lure like muskies are known to do, and then just nipped it. On the other hand, a vicious hit may have cut my line immediately. Second, it wasn't really hooked per se. Only one barb of the single treble hook had its point positioned to pierce. But, it was trying to penetrate a bony part of the upper jaw and hadn't gone through. Take a pin and stick it in something just enough so you can't move it from side to side. That was it. The rest of the lure was more or less jammed between the teeth. When I grabbed the Mepps with my pliers, it nearly fell out. Had it opened its mouth more during the battle, it could have easily thrown the hook. Third, my mono was so stretched out that all it would do is twist itself together in multiple places.
The musky measured 46 inches long with a 23 inch girth. We had a scale that went up to 25 lbs. I hung the musky and it easily bottomed out. We took some quick photos and I placed the musky in the water to revive it. After a minute or two it slowly swam off. I looked at my dad and said in disbelief, "What happened? Nothing went wrong! There were a thousand things that could have gone wrong and didn't! The good Lord was sure smiling on me today!" When we got back to my dad's house later in the day, we jumped on the internet to look up the estimated weight. We checked 8 different calculators. The answer came back 28 - 35 lbs. I settled on 30.
I have learned over the years that fishing success tends to average out, so I expect that I have used up all my luck for quite some time. Is it the biggest musky ever caught? - certainly not. There are musky that size and larger caught every year. But, it is my personal best. What makes the catch stand out is that it came unexpectedly, unintentionally, on lighter tackle and was played out in a windblown minefield of hazards. Good fortune put me in the right place at the right time. I would like to believe skill and experience put the fish in the boat. As the saying goes, “Chance favors the prepared mind”. To me, my photographs are an affirmation of my claim of being an accomplished angler. It marks the end of wishful sighing at pictures of other people’s trophies. Not anymore! Today was that “Someday”! What made the day truly special is that my father was there with me.
Many fishermen have never had the opportunity to tie into a big musky, let alone land one. There are countless stories of “the one that got away”. Naturally, as a diehard fisherman, I aspire to catch an even bigger one. A fish over 45” is outstanding. I fish over 50” is exceptional. That’s my new goal. Realistically, I don’t get to ply big fish waters all that often. Work has a nasty habit of getting in the way. It took me years to catch this one. I may have caught the fish of a lifetime already. Either way, I am truly thankful. Yet, hope springs eternal. It’s the little boy inside that gets all excited for opening day. Providence may shine on me again. You never know, maybe this year, maybe next, Just one more cast………..
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Last updated on ...May 8, 2010
