Took Matt Elsing, the owner of this property, out fishing again yesterday evening in search of that mounter walleye. Within the first 10 minutes, trolling a #5 crank under the Hwy 12 bridge, I hear the drag going nuts on Matt’s reel and as I’ve done a thousand times upon hearing that sound I throw the boat in reverse thinking Matt has a snag. 5 seconds later Matt says “I think it’s a fish”!
At this point we’re thinking Matt has the motherload of a walleye on the end of his line, coming in like dead weight.
He gets it near the boat and Matt’s saying “this is no walleye”. No sooner than saying that, we see the thing surface and there’s a musky staring right at us. I’m already standing at the edge of the boat, net in hand, more excited than Matt I think! After a brief struggle, I manage to get it netted and in the boat. We quickly throw it in the livewell, water already filling, secure our gear, and make the 100 yard dash at full throttle to the beach and I race to the shop to grab the digital. Snapped a few pics, measured it at 34 1/2 inches, revived the fish, and off we were trolling again.
An hour or so later we just did the turn around down by the trestle, working our way up the shoreline and lo and behold Matt has another “snag”. I throw the merc in neutral and hear Matt say again, “it’s a fish and it’s no little one”! As I’m grabbing the net I jokingly say “not another musky”. Must be a cat”. We had hooked a number of channels in this same area the past 2 weeks trolling. This one started fighting pretty good and took a bit to get to the boat where it finally surfaces and we see he has yet another musky on a #4 perch glass shad rap! This one seemed a bit wiser and wasn’t too happy to see me standing there with a net in my hand and after 5 attempts of trying to net, him seeing that net and thrashing about and taking off, I finally snatch him up and boat him amidst alot of “Hoohahs”!
Just in the boat he rips a big hole in the net, is on the floor and saved us the trouble of trying too free the lure.
This time, camera in hand, we once again snap a few pics, measure it in at 38 inches, revive and release.
After a few passses we decide to call it night. Walleye were slow and after 2 musky inside an hour, it seemed we just couldn’t improve on that night’s fishing any longer.
What an exciting hour of fishing!
