ESOX HUNTER
No need for 10,000 casts at Pipestone, Yoke Lakes
By Tony Garitta   December 3 , 2005

Tony Garitta is an outdoor writer and this article appeared in Lexington Dispatch. Tony has graciously allowed me to post this article on the website.  All pictures can be made larger by clicking on them.

During my youth, I was mesmerized by fishing articles about muskies -- huge, powerful fish with razor-sharp teeth that were loners.   Once a muskie stakes out its territory, its claim goes unchallenged.   No other species wants to confront the meanest predator on the block. Fishing articles tout this hard-to-catch territorial loner as “the fish of ten thousand casts.”    A fisherman considers his outing successful if he raises (has the fish follow his lure) a muskie.

Three recent trips to Pipestone Lake near Emo, Canada, have dispelled those stories of a fish of ten thousand casts.   Maybe all those casts are necessary elsewhere but not where I fished.   Each year at Pipestone and Yoke lakes, almost every member of our party, mostly muskie novices, either landed, lost, raised, or saw a muskie -- and none of us were fishing for muskies.                       Tim Mead's 48 incher

Our trips to Pipestone took place the last week of May before the muskie season opens.   We caught muskies while fishing for smallmouth bass using mainly spinning tackle, 8- to 10-pound-test line without leaders, jigs, small crankbaits, topwaters, and jerkbaits, not exactly standard muskie gear or baits.   Our approach may have been bizarre, but who can argue with success? And fewer casts?

During my initial trip to Pipestone in 2001, I encountered my first muskie after my partner Harry Leamy of S.C. snagged his bait.    The Lund boats at Happy Landing Lodge come equipped with 25 hp Honda outboards but not trolling motors. Fishing is done by drifting with the wind or by puttering about with the 25 hp motor.   Leamy and I let the wind nudge our boat to shore where Leamy had snagged his bait.   As the boat neared the bank, I made a short cast to a rocky outcrop with a 1/4-ounce Wiggle Wart, which remained visible in Pipestone’s clear waters.    From the shallows, a streamlined mottled log with teeth came up behind my bait, gently engulfing, then gently expelling my bait.   I always thought a muskie would                       Tim Mead's 42 incher strike with terrible swiftness, but this attack occurred in slow motion.   I never set the hook, staring spellbound at the huge fish.   “You just raised a muskie,” said Leamy, having freed his bait in time to see the muskie swim off.  I’m not sure I wanted to hook that fish with this spinning gear or with any other gear,” I told Leamy as I recalled the savage image of the fish.   Leamy laughed at my musings.   “Lots of guys freeze up the first time they see a muskie, some in awe, some in terror,” he said.  The following day, I regained my composure enough to catch a 13-pound muskie, a bank-runner by Canadian standards, when I partnered with Charlotte’s Tim Mead.   Mead would later catch a 46-inch, 27-pound muskie from Yoke Lake, located within walking distance of Happy Landing Lodge.   Mead’s fish was taken on 8-pound-test line and a jig.    The huge fish shook free from Mead’s grasp as he held it up for me to photograph when I approached in another boat.   The fish tumbled overboard, then still exhausted from battle, swam casually along the surface, allowing Mead to net it again.   This time, Mead held it fast for photos.  

Mead later topped that muskie with a 53-inch, 32-pound brute from Pipestone, the largest muskie taken by a lodge guest that year. The catch earned Mead a free return trip to Pipestone.   The fish inhaled a Heddon Junior Spook topwater lure Mead tweaked along with spinning gear.  Other members of our party encountered muskies during the week.   Tim Middleton of New Jersey raised two muskies but never had them strike;   Bill Shumaker of Charlotte lost one when his light line was severed.   Five members of our six-man party either caught or tangled with the fish of ten thousand casts.

Subsequent trips proved as fruitful.   In 2003, two in our party of four caught muskies.   Charlotte’s Clyde Osborne landed a 46-inch                       Happy Landing Lodge muskie, and Mead grappled with a 40-inch muskie, both from Yoke Lake.    This past May, I caught a 37-inch muskie and Mead caught muskies 48-, 42-, 38-, and two 30-inches long, all taken from Pipestone with spinning gear and 8- to 10-pound-test line.    A third member of our four-man party, Mike Quinn of Penn., hung a muskie, but it shredded his 15-pound-test-line by surging beneath a log.  Our fourth member, Gordy Johnson of Wisconsin, the most experienced muskie fisherman of us all, ironically never caught a muskie but did get to net two of them.   Johnson consoled himself by catching smallmouth bass all week.

To be forthright, you can spend a week at Pipestone and Yoke lakes and never catch or see a muskie, but if you have to make ten thousand casts, these two lakes will likely reward your efforts.  For information on Happy Landing Lodge, visit www.happylandingfishing.com.

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Last updated on ... December 3, 2005