I’ve been fishing a lot but not too much. In fact, I’m fishing about what I expected to be fishing – at least once every three days if not more. It took a while to get to this point with all the house fixing stuff but I’m officially here. And the excitement of being surrounded by so much new water in Hayward, WI continues to blow me away. When Bob and I left Hayward at 5:55 AM in darkness this morning to meet up with Howie on Lake Namekagon, we were both amped to the max.
Howie drove his boat down from Iron River and met us at the boat ramp. It was just getting light when we all arrived. We got our rigs together and launched. I kept my gear simple today, I had my 9-weight Air Salt, my Sonar Sink Cold 300 gr sinking line and a big muskie fly, the Man-Bear-Pig.
Although it’s a month away from being to the point of really expecting to see muskies, one can always be hopeful. It seems that at some point we have to get lucky. Between Bob and I alone, we must have close to a thousand muskie rod casts this summer yet nothing to show for it. The three of us got after it hucking, chucking and ducking with the big sticks.
A long story short, and I we indeed put in a long day, we fished from about 6:50 AM till 8:05 PM – not bad. But all that time and we had exactly zero confirmed muskie sightings. There were a couple fish on and vicious strikes but those fish were all lost. So, we’ll never know.
What we do know however is that the fishing was good regardless of muskie cooperation. We caught at least a dozen or so pike. While they were mostly small (hammer handles) there were a few over 20” and honestly, no matter the size, any fish that smacks a 4”- 8” fly deserves some credit.
We caught a largemouth bass and a few perch to go with the pike today. And hands down, we got to see a pretty place. I actually ice fished Lake Namekagon often when I studied at Northland College up in Ashland from 1983-87. So, the lake wasn’t completely new to me today. But I was for sure reminded at just how beautiful this large lake is.
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