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Monday
Nov032008

9,999 and counting...

DateMonday, November 3, 2008 at 03:11PM

My summer goal for 2008 was to catch a muskie for the very first time. Boy did I not realize what a high goal I was setting for myself. Travis...who works on our team and is a legend fishing guide on Lake Minnetonka, at age 24, decided to help me reach my goal of landing a true water wolf. His tactic is bad weather = good muskie fishing. So, one rainy thunderstorm morning, we met at Lake Minnetonka at 5:30am. Yes, 5:30am, its dark and thundering...did I mention down pouring? I am now wondering what kind of goal I have set and repeatedly have to remind myself, that legend has it, catching this giant fish is worth all this craziness...they call it "Muskie Fever". For a moment I thought I had a fever to be fishing that early in those types of conditions. I had to trust my guide's rule of bad weather = good muskie fishing.

We head out onto the lake, and I make my first few casts, and immediately there is movement and swirls in the water like sharks in a feeding frenzy. I think to myself, this is going to be easy..what is all this nonsense about "10,000 casts to catch a muskie" as they are so excited and ready to eat. Well after a few casts and one bite (I was also so excited that I, of course, set the hook too early), we move on to a new location. We continued to cast with no luck, so we moved on again. This happened for approximately 4 hours...I am now starting to understand the "10,000 casts" phenomenon.

The sun is now up and when that happens the Muskies get VERY sleepy. We could practically poke them with our fishing rods and they would just slowly swim away. Travis had warned me that it's slower fishing when it's sunny but not impossible to land the big one. My entire body is now sore from casting such a large lure into the water, however we trudge on to try ONE more spot. By this point I have cast so much that I wasn't really paying attention to my lure when Travis yelled, "you have one following!" I looked at my lure and there is "Jaws of Lake Minnetonka" following it....his mouth was open so wide, a small dog could have crawled in it. This fish was huge and even Travis said so. I patiently waited for him to tell me to set the hook...he yelled "Take it!"...I set that hook so hard, the fish whipped its head left, and then right and to my disbelief my lure flew through the air and hit our camera man on the boat. I was devastated but I didn't realize what I had missed until I saw the look on Travis's face. He told me I had just lost a 55" Muskie which would have been the biggest fish landed in his boat on Lake Minnetonka. Right then I realized I had missed a fish of a lifetime.

After seeing the size of that fish, I was determined to go out with Travis a few more stormy mornings...but only racked up my # of casts and missed bites vs. landing a fish.
I have to be close to 10,000 casts or at least it feels that way however, now that summer has come to an end, my goal of landing the elusive water wolf will have to wait. But something else happened this summer on Lake Minnetonka...I caught a fever...a Muskie fever that is.

AuthorLaura Schara | Comment6 Comments | Reference1 Reference |

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