Good luck at St. Clair and...
Hey Red,
Hope you guys rock it out on St. Clair and can't wait to see the reports.
I just want to mention a couple of things that I've learned in my limited years of chasing Musky. This might feel long-winded, but here it goes. LOL
1) I am not trying to gain "points", but this is a great site to get a start on knowledge and hands on experience. Just the way it is.
2) There are a couple of other sites that I've found that offer similar type experiences but for other areas of the Musky world, but still well worth checking into.
3) Man, I am having a tough time with this since I was a "flyfishing trout snob" for about 20yrs, but whoa, us Musky guys can be a "tough pill to swallow" too.
4) Yes, we are all about conservation and catch and release. I love it and live it, but I try and hope to be as tactful toward my "audience" as possible. As I am not that appreciative of others "preaching" to me about how I should be dealing with things. I think most of us might feel that way. There is a good way to have this discussion.
Ultimately, I have been in the Musky game for about 7 or 8 years now(defintely a newbie). I ordered subscriptions to Musky Hunter, went with as many guides as I could and joined Muskies inc. I did everything that I could to learn as much about Musky fishing as possible, including finding as many Musky websites as possible too. Along the way, I have made many friends and have met many great people. However, I have run into quite a few folks that I'd not consider friends or even aquaintences. Those are the guys that are more than willing to throw buldawgs a lot closer to the boat than what might be called for. LOL
Sad part is that I wanted to wait at the boat launch for this particular individual, but decided a good dinner and a beer or two was more important. Luckily, I was "smarter" that day.
Look, we all want to catch more and bigger fish. We all want "our waters" to have the perfect mix of numbers and size. We are all fighting the same battle for all of these points. We need to find a better way of finding unity rather than a hierarchy.
I still renew my Muskies Inc. membership in hoping that I can contribute to the stocking and conservation of this incredible fish for all of us to chase. Maybe its time for us all to step back a bit and try to gain some more common ground. We can't all be experts, statistics just don't support that theory. So, maybe we all still have something to learn from each other.
Just some musings of a Musky hunter who has seen either too much, or too little. Not sure which. Good luck to you all out there.
Jay
