If you’ve followed this space for any amount of time you know that musky fishing is at the top of the list of outdoor pursuits for me. I’d rather have a bad day of musky fishing than a good day of walleye fishing. To be clear, I do enjoy walleye fishing and especially like the fish fries but have a deeper fondness for chucking bigger lures at bigger fish. 

As I watched the conclusion of the NFL season, I heard several times announcers talking about ending the season with a win and setting a positive tone going into next season. I heard that and wondered if it really matters what happens on the last game of the season and if that has an impact on the first game of next year. Having laid that groundwork, now I can tell you about the last musky outing of the year. 

That’s when it gets harder to catch a musky and easier to shoot a buck. 

When the weather starts to cool in the fall I tend to ease up on musky fishing and slide into archery mode. That’s right about the time muskies get less active and bucks get more active. In other words, there is a saying similar in deer hunting but muskies are called the fish of 10,000 casts. Now I don’t believe that because that means you would have to make a cast per minute every day and night for seven days. I’ve had some lengthy musky slumps but nothing like that.  

Okay, that’s enough table setting, now to the main course.

I hit the water on a great fall morning. The wind was light, the sun was high, and the temperature was Indian summer. It felt like a bonus outing and I hoped that the musky gods were willing to reward me for the effort, and the deer gods didn’t notice my absence from the woods.

I worked my way around the lake and looked for weeds and baitfish. That’s the winning formula for musky fishing no matter what time of year it is. I fished a bunch of spots and probably the same amount of lures. Even if you have the right spot and the right lure you still have be there at the right time. That’s probably where the fish of 10,000 casts came from.

Without warning I felt a tug on my umpteenth cast. I set the hook and my immediate thought was that I had a northern pike on the line. I casually fought the fish and thought about what a great supper it would make, Y bones be damned. I’ve cleaned enough pike in my day that Y bones don’t intimidate me. I reeled the fish in thinking it was my pike supper and had it almost to the boat when I had the revelation. The fish on the end of my line had vertical bars not horizontal stripes. The fish was A MUSKY!   

I feel the same way about all muskies as I do all bucks, no matter how big or small, they are all trophies. The fish on my line was a beautiful, 33-inch iridescent green musky that was probably around 6 years old. Given the fact that I caught it on the last outing of the year, the fish was bigger then it’s true size.

So there you have it. That’s what happened on my last musky outing of the year. Time will tell if my luck and good fortune will carry over to the first outing of next year. But I can tell you this. It does feel better when I look back at last year and can think about the win I had on the last musky outing of the year.

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