Father’s Day 2010

Not sure how to express how thrilled I am to publish this but Jerry called me out of the blue in the afternoon of Father’s Day and said let’s go out for a few hours.

Ho-hum I agreed. We hit one spot, nothing then with the electric we dropped into Mr. Bojangles home to see if he was till around but he wasn’t.

Jerry and I found this one spot on a big flat that we both agreed should hold fish but had yet produced.

I was working one of my lures and Jerry was working a glide bait. I am always so impressed when i fish with Jerry. He puts in so much effort and time to learn a lure and will often use a new lure much longer than I ever would without getting a fish.

I let out a long bomb and just as I heard the splash of my lure I heard commotion behind me and turned in time to see the swirl and the hook set.

Jerry said it hit about 15 feet away but from where I was standing it seemed so much closer. I remember reeling in as fast as I could, I so wanted to net this fish for Jerry more than I wanted to catch my own fish. Half way thru my reeling I could see Jerry already had the fish at the boat. For a second I thought about putting down my rod and reel but I paid $475 for the combo and wasn’t going to chance it.

I finally got my line in and like a Chinese fire drill I got the net ready. Jerry worked at getting the fish to the net and it just didn’t want to get it’s picture taken. I am pretty sure my heart was racing as much as Jerry’s was.

Then I pulled the bone head move and did what I tell everyone in my NOT TO DO. I reach for the fish, I so wanted to net her that I knocker her in the head. A real amateur move and worthy of being thrown overboard for. Thank god I didn’t knock her off. I really felt like shit but that passed once I scooped her up.

Jerry’s personal best casting at 36 1/2 inches.

What really makes this cool is we had talked just a bit earlier about how cool it would be to get a tagged fish. Well wouldn’t you know it, this fish was tagged. I must of had stupid for lunch because I couldn’t read the tag so I thought it was the best thing to do so I cut it off. More to follow.

Geez if it wasn’t 20 minutes later, same style lure, me with a full cast and Jerry hooks his second fish. I clearly remember giving Jerry heck for waiting until I was at a full cast before getting a fish.

This time I was a bit better at netting and not only was this also another tagged fish but it had a transmitter on it. I remember Sean telling us to remove the transmitters but I was still digesting my stupid lunch and removed the wrong transmitter. He wanted the ones with an antenna not without….DUH!

Another personal best at 39 inches.

Sean came by my place and picked up the tags and transmitter. He said the 36 1/2 was measured at 34 but his measuring is by tape and may not have been accurate. The 39 was measured at 39 and he told me the dates and locations of where they were tagged.

I have to say this was one of my top days fishing and I just couldn’t have been happier.

Saturday June 05

Musky opener

And I made the 50 inch club.

It was 5:30 am opening morning and on the drive to the launch I wasn't saying too much because I was trying to decide which spot I wanted to hit to start the season. We were on the water and under power just before 6 am when that little voice in my head finally decided for me to always go with your first instinct.

Many times I have reached into the tackle box to get a lure and then got distracted by another lure but decided to go with my first instinct on the lure choice and it has paid off. Now I can say the same for fishing locations. Go with your first instinct.

We were washing lures by just after 6 am. Topwater was the lure of choice as we were fishing shallow over top of the new weeds. I remember telling my buddy Jerry that I just could never imagine catching a 50 on topwater.

I have hooked into 2 musky before on topwater but lost them both at the boat. I have also had a few fish take a swipe at my topwater lure but come up short on hooking into them. When I fish topwater i am always watching for the wake of an approaching fish.

This fish came out of nowhere and took a huge swipe at my lure. before I could finish saying "whoa" it took another swipe and before I could finish saying "WOW" it took a third swipe and I felt the pull on the line, so I pulled back.

This fish was strong and even took a run under the boat. I wish I could say I enjoyed the fight but I would be a liar. I was terrified of loosing this fish and the last thing it wanted to do was get into the net.

Once in the net it thrashed and rolled a few times but the Stowmaster nets are so big that it quickly calmed down. I had one point of the treble right in the corner of it's mouth so the hook release was quick and painless.

We always take a minimum of 3 pictures. Inevitably there's always one of the 3 that doesn't come out well and just think if that was the only one you took. This fish was not happy being photographed and gave me a huge body wiggle and there was no way I was going to drop this fish. Tough to say who has the more teeth.

I was pretty freaked about picking this fish out of the net. It was huge and heavy and I thought for sure my hand was going to get raked by the gills. I must have done a good job because it thrashed during the picture taking and I managed to hold on pretty good.

I really like that we put the effort into taking release shots. Jerry was about a half second away from capturing the tail splash.

I like to think we did a good job with this fish because it was a really short revival and I got one of the best tail face washing goodbyes I can ever remember.