Member
"My trip is finally getting close enough that I can at last begin to let myself get excited about getting to Eagle Lake and seeing you guys and the other special people there.
Bill"
Bill: When are you arriving this year and how long are you staying up? Is your brother joining you or are you flying "solo?" Dan, Mike and I will arrive on 8-25 til
9-1. Really looking forward to the trip and counting down the days! Only seven more weeks.
Member
Chuck,
I will arrive on August 18 and stay three weeks. Brother Tom will join me from the 23rd through the 29th. It will be really good to see you and Dan there.
Bill
Member
Bill...We're looking forward to seeing you as well and meeting Tom. Lots to catch up on. Any of you other guys and/or gals have vivid memories or stories when you look at old fish photos? I see this thread has had quite a few hits and would like to read your fish memories.
Member
Chuck,
I recently came on an old photo that brought back a lot of memories. The picture itself isn't much...it's a low 40s muskie in the water somehow hooked to the outside of a net...but it was the first serious muskie I caught fishing by myself and that made the whole experience wonderful. I was fishing Osbourne Bay on the southeast part of Eagle Lake and my fishing companion was sick, so I went out alone for the first time. It was an adventure in those days to handle the boat by myself (no trolling motor, big wind), find my way around the lake, and just be out there alone experiencing the weather, the wildlife and having follows from fish that seemed scary to me (big follows are different when you are alone; try it sometime, especially late in the evening). In the early afternoon a moderate front came in and I could see lightning off to the north and rain coming and I knew enough to realize that I had better find a fishy spot to be on when the window opened, so I went to a complex bay I had discovered where there was relatively deep water off a large beaver lodge. I got there and started casting just as the rain began. My bait was a natural walnut crankbait I had made. The wood had interesting curl in the grain that made it look alive in the water and I had been catching big pike on it, so I felt good about it. As I worked toward the beaver lodge I could hear the kits inside mewling between the rumbling of the thunder and the sound of the rain on the lake. When I finally cast to the left edge of the lodge itself a muskie jumped out of the water and caught my bait in its mouth and crashed back into the water. I know that sounds weird, and I have never seen it again, but the fish must have seen the bait coming and just jumped up and ate it. When I felt the weight of the fish on the line I realized that the light spinning outfit I was using was going to make it hard to keep the muskie out of all the sticks and debris from the beavers, and I realized that at the same time I saw that the wind was pushing the boat into the logs. It was my first experience of having to do many things at once to land one of these great fish and I really cannot tell you how I managed it all, but soon the boat was squared away and the fish was near boatside ready to be netted, except the net was stashed with the handle pushed all the way in, so I had to free it and pull out the handle while fighting the fish, which I managed to do except that I didn't get the little spring-loaded pin in place to lock the handle to the net, so when I finally brought the fish nicely into the net, it thrashed and immediately turned the net upside down with the fish in the water and the bait hooked to the net. Realizing I might never get it in the boat, I took a quick photo of the fish beside the net before reaching out with the pliers to release it. Everything about that fish felt like a gift to me...finding it alone on water I had prospected, using my handmade bait, the intimacy of the storm in the bay...it wasn't a big one, but it was one of the most memorable muskies I have caught.
Bill
Junior Member
Originally Posted by Bill Hedden
NOW THAT is a GREAT fishing story!!!! That's a memory that can never be duplicated!!!!!
Beats Working!
Pro Staff
i'm sure we'll have some more stories to remeber by the end of the trips!!! looking forward to seeing you guys again.
herbie and the gang
Junior Member
My wife and two friend and I will be on our first AML visit the last week of August and noticed in reading the posts that you will too... looking forward to meeting you. And here'e one of my fish tales:
Last fall, my wife Pam and I, with our Labrador retriever, Tar, traveled to Manitowish Waters for a week of bass and musky angling. The first night (after check-in and boat launch) was anticipated--by the Solunar tables, and my buddy and me--to be awash in musky-raising alignments of sun and moon. So Pam, Tar and I set sail an hour before sunset to commence the hunt, full of anticipation. Indeed, we raised three fish in that first hour, but landed none. Still it was an exciting evening, with more, I was convinced, to offer.
So it was just as the setting sun cast a warm orange glow on the water, that I loaded my nearly new St Croix rod to cast a Topraider on the idyllic scene. There were only three, but they were beautiful long casts, with each retrieve’s plop, plop, plop enticing our prey to come out and play. Twenty yards from the boat, behind the gurgling bait, rose a denizen to answer the third call. It was the greatest musky head I have seen (but I stipulate that it is possible, as my wife claims, that it grows larger with each telling), the enormous mouth engulfing the bait without hesitation. A strong hookset triggered immediate aerobatics. Fish on!
Tar, who had been asleep in the cockpit of the boat, awoke, poked her head above the gunwales, saw the commotion, and immediately launched over the side to take a more active role in what looked to be a lot of fun. My wife, apparently also asleep in the back of the boat, awoke to Tar’s splash with a screech of “No Tar, NO!!” (She would continue this refrain throughout the next 60 seconds at full voice, bringing all the lake’s inhabitants to the end of their docks, looking in our direction, phones in hand, poised to dial 911 to report the apparent murder occurring in the middle of the lake).
While those 60 seconds remain a bit of a blur for me, I do recall: trying to work the fish to the other side of the boat to escape Tar’s most earnest efforts to retrieve the fish to hand; looking out to see Tar “mounting” the musky (she makes friends quickly), fully astride the enormous fish; and, the gaping, toothy maw of the fish boatside as it spat the bait, unfortunately, but with great accuracy, into Tar’s ear.
As the uncaptured fish returned to the depths, we dragged Tar aboard and removed the hook, which fortunately had not penetrated beyond the barb. While Tar and my wife retreated to the rear of the boat, I surveyed the carnage to discover that sometime during the melee, the top 10 inches of the rod had snapped off.
I do not know where in the episode the rod broke: it might have happened in the hookset, or with the exertion of pulling the fish to the other side of the boat; it might have happened when the fish spit the hook; or it might have happened when I carefully and gently (“hah!” my wife would say) set the rod down to pull the dog aboard—I just don’t know--but I do not in the slightest hold St Croix responsible under these extreme circumstances. [Although what a great endorsement it would have made to have actually landed the dog/fish without breaking the rod—I would have sent them a picture of dog, fish and angler with rod—with my blessing to use it in their advertising. My imagination envisions the picture would have become an iconic depiction of musky fishing—a renewal of bond between a man and his best friend in the joint pursuit of a great predator].
If you knew me, you would understand that for the rest of the evening, both wife and dog stayed as far away from me as an 18 foot boat allows. I mourned the loss of the rod and the fish; I was mortified by the shenanigans of my dog; I was humiliated by my wife’s vocalizations that called public attention to the unfolding calamity; and upon reflection in the next day’s light, I was embarrassed by my own bad behavior in the wake of the event. And in my superstitious funk, I knew without doubt—and was proven correct by time—that there would be no more muskies that evening, or on that trip. But time heals all and today, my wife still loves me, the dog curls at my feet without serious wound, and the monster awaits my return. The rod, alas, is beyond repair.
Good hunting,
Bruce
Junior Member
Hey guys,
Just got back from a few days of bass fishing on the St Lawrence River. My in-laws set me up with my wife's cousin to spend a day "muskie fishing". I'm not a big fan of trolling but I had heard they were boating some monsters in Alex Bay, so what the heck... As we're loading the boat, the guy tells me, "there's no muskie here in August, they're all down in lake Ontario". Needless to say, every minute I spent bumping worms off the bottom that day, all I could think about was casting baits on Eagle. The real challenge now is trying not to get speeding tickets while making the 1600 mile drive and daydreaming about big green shapes rising up behind my lure!
See you soon,
Tom Hedden
Senior Member
It'll be here soon enough Tom! :-) And yes, it's hard not to think about casting on Eagle...no matter where I am...that's what I am thinking about.
Dan
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