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Great fall days on the water

Posted 10/13/2014 3:30 PM (#734738)
Subject: Great fall days on the water

Posts: 1828

This story goes back to the fall 2013. The October full moon weekend last year gave me huge confidence in mid-fall fishing. One evening, while waiting for the duck hunting crew to get up to the cabin, I headed out fishing by myself. I only had one hour to kill before going to scout out our duck lake at sunset. In that time, I caught one musky from shore (wading in the water), in the figure 8 ("leg-side"), and it was my 2nd biggest ever - 47.5". We had planned to fish the next afternoon, so when the guys got up, we determined our hunting and fishing game plan for the next day. We had to be sure to be on a particular type of spot at moonrise/sunset.

Hunting that Saturday was a total bust due to bad spot selection. The desire to catch some fish to save the weekend was very high, as was my confidence. We fished almost four hours through the afternoon without seeing a single fish. Then in the last hour of daylight, the switch came on and we put 4 in the boat - 38, 40, 43.5, and 44", and lost a fifth. The last musky was actually hooked as the third one was being released! Talk about action!

Fast-forward almost one year. We planned to duplicate last year's October full moon weekend, but 100% landed on last Wednesday. This Saturday's duck hunt was an instant pressure-relief when we filled out in 20 minutes. A better spot choice, based on last year's struggle, and a huge amount of birds made that possible. The fishing trip was thus just for fun, and any fish would be icing on the cake. We fished the same areas as last year, and timed it so we could fish the best spots at the major and again at sunset.

ONE fish was encountered. No other follows, no other strikes. One pasty-white 13" sucker got the attention of a FAT 46.5" after a mag-dawg and a big twitched were cast through the spot. The fish had the sucker perfectly T-boned, and was slowly swimming away as I caught up within feet of her for my buddy's perfect hookset.

Pictured below are the 47 caught solo and the four fish from day 2 last year, then "20 minute limit" from this Saturday, followed by my buddy's heaviest (but not longest) musky after the duck hunt.

I shared this story mostly because I really enjoy reading other people's musky successes. We're learning a lot of lessons, too, and maybe some will get discussed in this thread.

Edited by jaultman 10/14/2014 7:12 AM