July 5-10 Report

[Dave Hardy]

I was up on the Chip from July 5th - 10th, fishing exclusively muskie, mainly early AM and nighttime. The upshot of the fishing report is that it was brutal! We caught one small fish (32-33") and had a few other follows from two smaller fish and two low-40s. This was all the action we had in over 33 hours on the water--upwards of 100 man hours given that my brothers, dad and bro-in-law joined in a few times.

I have to say this was as tough as I have seen in my 20+ years on The Chip. I know the water very well and have consistently boated some nice fish each year...until now. I fished the classic and not-so-classic weed spots, sand, rock, wood, bogs, open water, slop, back bays, etc. I was doing everything I thought to do at what I felt were the peak times. In thinking about it, the one variable that was not in our favor was moon rise--which was occurring in the wee hours of the AM during this time frame. However, one night/morning I stayed out until moon rise (~ 2AM) and all I got was grief from my wife and family.

The one small fish we did boat came around 10PM from a little-fished weed hump on a Pacemaker. The cast prior to this fish I caught a nice small mouth throwing the Pacemaker. After this flurry of activity, all I did was cast, think, cast, re-think, cast and so on.

Well, I really hoped to report success and help anyone who is heading to The Chip in the next few weeks. My advice to you is to do whatever pre-trip muskie ritual you do and then hire Ty.

Good Luck, Dave Hardy