It’s not very often that lightening strikes twice in the same place, and even though this is not exactly the “same place”, it was close enough to get my attention!
Here’s how my week went: I had 4 trips, On Monday we landed one 40 pounder and two a little over 20 pounds. Wednesday we landed two over 23 pounds, a 43 incher and a 44 incher. Thursday my fishing pal and fellow Guide John and I landed one over 40 inches, 21 pounds. Finally Saturday, my two clients landed two, a small one of about 25 inches and another monster going around 38 to 40 pounds. I pinch myself every hour or so just to make sure I’m still alive, because if this isn’t Musky heaven, then perhaps some day I’ll very excellent afterlife! I just don’t know how it could be much better.
I am completely convinced that the combination of the unusually warm fall and rapid water cool down in the past week greatly contributed to our success. Water temps went from the low 50′s to the low to mid 40′s in a matter of a couple of days, this made the fish move, closer to their wintering areas. During this movement, the fish would naturally feed, especially as they moved into unfamiliar waters where they were suddenly in areas with much more food than where they came from. The smaller baitfish would have moved a couple of days earlier forcing the big female Muskies to seek out more fertile waters.
Since Suckers are the main food source of larger Muskies at this time of the year, I had already switched from the Perch colored flies to larger Sucker colored ones. In past years my experience told me the fish would go for lighter colored Sucker flies for a short period of time while the water was still relatively warm, once the water temps dropped below that magic 48 degree mark, the fish would switch to the darker colored sucker patterns. We got our first big one on Monday on the Light Sucker Figure-8. The water temps continued to drop throughout the week, even though it was unseasonably warm in the air, the cool nights made the water temps go down. We got the second big one on Saturday on the Dark Sucker Figure-8. Both fish were still a few miles away form their wintering holes, but they were on the move and that gave us the advantage. By now they both are probably within about a mile of each other, these two fish may well represent the two largest fish in this section of the river, they spend most of their time far apart, but the cold winters force them into the same areas to survive the cold winter weather. This scenario is conjecture on my part, but it is based on my observations of Musky movement, (migration), from the past 25 years or so, without radio telemetry, we’ll never know for sure, but I think I’m pretty close to correct.
Whatever the exact reasons for these big fish being where they were, I’m really glad I just happened to be there as well!
Have a great winter, I’ll see you on the water come next spring,
Bill Sherer’s We Tie It Fly Shop
www.wetieit.com
