It was a bitter cold one this morning when I headed out to meet up with friends Bob, Josh, Brandon and Levi for a two boat float. The temperature was 34° and it was drizzly and rainy. I was expecting to see the first flurries of the year here in northern Wisconsin as I was driving. I was kind of hoping because as you have learned, muskies love terrible weather.
I got to the river about 8:30. The guys were just finishing our shuttles. I floated with Bob and being he landed a 45” three days ago, he told me to get up front and fish. Not only that, he said be ready to fish a lot! I banged this nice pike about an hour in. While some musky anglers don’t get too excited by pike, I was delighted. I love their smoking fast takes and pretty dang good fights in fast current. This one will be on the dinner table at the Currier Casa manana!
The float was awesome to say the least. There’s not a ton of leaves left on the trees but most the oaks are still hanging on. Them along with the white pines made an amazing back drop as the boys ran a light rapid above us. The only thing missing was a musky. At lunch each boat had seen one but both were missed. One by me and another by Josh. But both on the smaller side of 32”.
Over all fishing was slow. As always, I never stopped casting. Every one of us fished hard all day. I pried out a total of four pike like the one in the above photo. That was it amongst all of us except for one other fish. Late in the day, Josh managed to land a musky. Its no trophy but a beautiful fish nonetheless. And that’s three days, and three muskies.
Tomorrow is a work day for me. I’ll be preparing for a big talk I’m delivering Monday night in Minneapolis for Minnesota TU about fish conservation worldwide. It’s a custom talk and I’m really looking forward to it. But I aim to fish again on Friday when I take Howie and Neuman on a little adventure. Stay tuned – its musky time!