Headed up to the Flowage on Saturday. Stopped at D&B right away in the morning to get my hands on the much talked about, Flowage Boa bucktails. Since everyone on the site is wild on these things right now I decided to pick up 6 (sorry if you arrived after me to find empty shelves). I fished the double blade orange all morning and didn't have much action. Around 12:30 I entered my favorite bay on the lake. My fantastic casting skills showed as I backlashed my reel while casting toward the shoreline. The bait landed next to a small branch sticking out of the water so I was sure when I got the nest out, my bait would be stuck to some weeds on the bottom or tangled in the branch. After clearing the lash, I started to reel up the line that was peeled out. I felt a little tension on the line but just figured since my bait was laying on the flowage floor for what seemed like 10 minutes it was a snag or weeds. To my surprise, as I slowly pulled the "snag" up to the surface with approx. 20-25ft. of line out I saw this was no snag, it was a fish. I could see my whole bucktail + the fish, so I thought the fish just grabbed the very end of the marabou and no hooks.

At this time, a half million things ran through my mind: 1)Why is this fish on my line? 2)What would Ty do? 3)What should I do? 4)Grab the net! 5)Holy S***T its a muskie! 6)Oh, SET THE HOOK!

Here is how I responded to the those thoughts. 1)The fish was on my line because these bucktails are great, even if they sinking to the bottom and not being retrieved. 2)Ty would set the hook in epic fashion, possibly ripping this fish clean out of the water. 3)What I actually did was: freeze, shake like I was standing outside for an hour at -30, and stare at a fish that has clearly ate my bucktail. 4)I did yell "grab the net" like a jack@$$. 5)Yup, it was a fish. 6)I did the rookie, limp wrist, line pull. I don't think this hook set would drive the hooks into a Crappie, let alone a Muskie.

As expected, the fish waved at me on his way to the bottom of the lake. I tossed out a glider to try and coax the fish into eating but it was educated at that point. After I cursed at myself for at least 15 minutes it began to sink in. If you are familiar with these baits there is a colored chunk of marabou around the back hook. I did not see that orange color when the fish came to the surface. This means -- that fish had the entire rear hook in its mouth and the fish was turned away from me. This was a perfect opportunity missed on my part!

I would guess the fish to be 41-43" and was a nice fat Flowage Muskie. That was the only fish we saw all day.