Dave Beck

Last week I shared some Canadian musky stories about my net man Ricky because, well, he had a terrific trip. I had a terrific trip being his net man, which is the next best thing to being the guy on the business end of a musky battle. Now that doesn’t mean that I didn’t have some action of my own because I did. Any musky you catch north of the border is a trophy when considering the time, effort and expense to put yourself in that position.

So for one more week I will continue with the focus being musky. The calendar and the seasons will be changing and shorter days and longer nights mean hunting seasons are coming quickly. I’m not saying I’m done with the fishing season or talking about it, especially if I catch a really big one.

This season has been an epic one for me but not in a good way. I have a new record for the least amount of hours I’ve spent on the water in almost 30 years. I previously journaled about the record high water temperatures which is the main reason for such little boat time. Record low hours of boat time translates to record low musky numbers caught. I have put some fish in the boat so my streak for the year remains intact. The following is true and a pretty fair representation of the way my season has gone.

On a recent outing I hit up a local lake and fished my way to one of my all-time favorite spots. There is a dock that seems to attract muskies. If you paid me, I couldn’t tell you what makes it musky hallowed water, but it is. The closer I got to the dock the more excited I got. I fired a cast to run parallel with the dock and as soon as my lure hit the water a fish ate it. I set the hook and an instant later I felt the weight and a head shake of a respectable fish.

It was at that point that I lost control of the fight. The fish circled a dock post and looped back to deeper water. I turned the trolling motor towards the dock and hoped for the best. Then the unexpected happened.  The fish back tracked and freed itself and my line from the dock post.  It was a minor miracle that the hooks held.

My relief from the dock post was very short lived as the fish darted back toward the dock a second time and wrapped itself around a second dock post. Since this all happened so quickly the boat was still heading toward the dock and in instant later, I could see the fish wrapped around the second dock post. I groaned with disappointment when I saw the fish. It was a dang northern pike!  

What are the chances of landing a fish that takes you around two dock posts and the hooks hold? Well, apparently the chances are extremely high because that’s exactly what happened. I can almost guarantee you that it could never happen if it was a musky on the other end of the line.  

A quick sidenote about northern pike: while I do enjoy eating them, I would prefer not to catch and deal with them while I’m out musky fishing. I prefer to just keep casting for muskies. Whenever I release a northern pike, I tell the fish to go hit a really young or a really old person’s line and make their day.

Okay, back on task. Two minutes after dealing with that pike a musky hammered my lure and inhaled it. I was certain that I would land this one. I saw the whole thing and my confidence soared. I felt two massive head shakes and then it was over. My line went slack and the water smoothed out. It was over so quickly that if you weren’t looking, you would never have known anything happened.

I really have no idea how I caught that northern pike. The plain truth is that I shouldn’t have after dealing with not one, but two dock posts. The exact opposite was the case with that big musky. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t catch it, but that’s fishing and that’s the way my season has been going. So the point of this entire story is that I would rather have a poor season than none at all.

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