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Posts: 8834
| Here are some of mine...
Throwing a topraider... Had about a 40" fish come flying out of the water, went completely airborne. Calm day, scared the crap out of me. Funny thing is it was a solid 20 feet behind my lure. That one obviously needed glasses.
Hot, flat, #*#* day, hadn't even seen a fish in 6 hours. I sat down and said "I give up, man. There are no fish in this lake! Well, except for that one right there... and his friend. Two decent size fish, just swimming along in the shade next to the boat.
Had another day where I raised a fish, coming in fairly hot. When I sped up into the first turn next to the boat it just kept going straight. Under the boat, out the other side, and off to wherever it were headed. A few casts later, same story. That kept up for over an hour. Didn't matter what baits we threw. Speed up, slow down, cast off the other side of the boat, nothing. Fish after fish after fish.
I know better, but sometimes I sear they do stuff like that just to mess with your head.
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Posts: 174
Location: Alexandria, MN | esoxaddict - 8/11/2025 8:30 PM
Here are some of mine...
Throwing a topraider... Had about a 40" fish come flying out of the water, went completely airborne. Calm day, scared the crap out of me. Funny thing is it was a solid 20 feet behind my lure. That one obviously needed glasses.
Hot, flat, #*#* day, hadn't even seen a fish in 6 hours. I sat down and said "I give up, man. There are no fish in this lake! Well, except for that one right there... and his friend. Two decent size fish, just swimming along in the shade next to the boat.
Had another day where I raised a fish, coming in fairly hot. When I sped up into the first turn next to the boat it just kept going straight. Under the boat, out the other side, and off to wherever it were headed. A few casts later, same story. That kept up for over an hour. Didn't matter what baits we threw. Speed up, slow down, cast off the other side of the boat, nothing. Fish after fish after fish.
I know better, but sometimes I sear they do stuff like that just to mess with your head.
Had a couple fish up at Lac Seul do just what you're talking about - come charging in hot and when I started my 8 they just kept going straight underneath the boat and out the other side - never to be seen again. Also - while throwing a prop-style topwater, had a mid 40's follow about 10 feet to the side with its head out of the water for a while. Goofy fish. |
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Location: PA Angler | I fish from shore a lot. Had one beach itself like a killer whale going for my lure. Missed it but was fun watching it shoot out of the water then turned back into the water. Another that gets me is I fish on some big rocks below a dam. They always wait to the lure is right by my feet and then come out from nowhere to hit the lure. I’ve missed a lot cause some make me jump and I’ll pull the lure away. Haha. |
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| Something I have had happen on top water is for the fish to miss more than one time when going for the bait. How do they not starve? Biggest fish I have seen on the small lake where I live missed a Fat B* twice in 50 feet. Mouth wide open, coming in hot, missed by almost a foot both times. Something similar with a Weagle several times, but at least there you could blame the irregular movement. |
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Posts: 1327
Location: E. Tenn | What would have easily been my PB came screaming in on a Phantom with its mouth open, ready to eat and made a hard turn away just a couple feet from the bait..
One moonless night had one blow up on a buzzbait four times on the same cast before it finally connected. Good thing we were wearing headlamps.. |
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Posts: 7090
Location: Northwest Chicago Burbs | Staring at the trolling motor head.
Running into the side of the boat on a figure 8.
40lb class fish chase in a Rumbler allllll the way to the boat, take a hard right and chase off a loon 20 yards from the boat.
They're not smart. |
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Posts: 174
Location: Alexandria, MN | Had one smack the trolling motor up at Eagle once. I switched to a double 13 bucktail..... all that did was increase my pain level. |
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Posts: 8834
| Ashamed to admit this... Fishing down near pecker point, West arm... Andrew, you fish Eagle so you'll know what I mean when I say you can't miss a follow down there on a sunny calm day. Moving some fish, nothing to write home about. I look down and there's a jumbo. Big blondie. Sitting there, right off the bow, just... lookin'. At the trolling motor. So instead of trying to cast at it, or even throw a bait in the water and figure 8 I decided to sit down with the pedal and mess with it a bit. *WHIRRRR - stop* Fish comes closer. *left, right, left right, on off* Fish backs up. I never knew they could do that! On, off, on off. *Bump* WTF, it's STILL there?! My head is over the bow, I'm on my knees playing the TM pedal with both hands like Simon (remember that game?) and the fish is just playing along, completely oblivious to the fact that I'm staring at it from 3 feet away. *Whirrrrr* BAM!! Game over... There are now teeth marks on my trolling motor. Thankfully I was alone in the boat so there was nobody around to tell me what an idiot I was for not trying to catch that fish. I named her her Kota... |
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Posts: 171
Location: Cedarburg, WI. | My dad raised a big blondie on lotw. She came up, barely went into the 8 and disappeared. Reappeared minutes later and just stared at the prop of the outboard for a minute or 2, ignored any lure we ran near her. Then slowly sank away never to be seen again by us. |
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Posts: 2311
Location: SE, WI. | Throwing a deep diver, then doing the rip up boatside, had a fish miss the crank and jump right in the boat. Tuff esox mag at that time…let it jump around before grabbing the wild thing. Yep, boated fish with no hooks in her;) Fishing one of my custom flaptails…had a huge wake coming for about 50’….next thing U know it spooks and whoosh away. I look up and there’s a Blue Heron flying toward my boat 15 ft. Above the water with a pronounced look downward at the following fish …That Heron spooked that ski , costed me that ski with its 6 ft wingspan;( JD |
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Posts: 1564
Location: Brighton CO. | There are a lot of great sticks who live close to Muskie country who's season blows my life time of part time fishing away. Hats off to you. I think back to all the folks I knew in the 70's who have passed on would be blown a way with what we catch today.
Well over the years we have seen some fish swimming by the boat or just sitting down in the water and holly crap how big is that! World records? not even close just plain big. Like a lot of you we have had Muskies hit our trolling motor and do all kinds of weird stuff of fish trying to get at our lures. We've had trips where you can hear people talking across the lake "those are the only guy's in camp not catching fish!" or we have had trips where everything was just right and every day was multiple fish day with a large average size. A few weird things my dad lost a large fish in front of my grandparents home only to catch it's twin 25 years later in to the day in Canada the fish was released it he would have caught the first one in 1977 it would have gotten clubbed. The first Muskie I caught was the first muskie I hooked and it was on the first cast of the day.
Years latter I caught a Muskie on the first cast again, and my nephew caught his first true Muskie on the first cast of the day only to catch a second fish on his second cast the second fish was a dink but still two Muskie on two casts. My nephews very first muskie was a Tiger he caught here in Colorado, I netted it and took the hook out of it and hand it to him "let me get your picture" "what about the measurement? after the picture. I took the picture and he put it on the makeshift bumpboard gets the measurement 31" then it jumps out of his hand and back in the lake. How hid you know that was going to happen?
I got tangled up with a 22-24 inch Pike on a cane pole and it got away and my life has never been the same. |
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Location: Athens, Ohio | Fishing home waters in Marina Bay, I hooked a decent fish who gave me a couple good jumps. Boatside, she decided to jump again, right into the boat! I had my camera sitting on the back deck and after I got her into the water and into the net, I saw it was gone. Looked all over for it, thought it went swimming, but found it weeks later in the bilge. whew! m |
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Posts: 166
Location: West Central WI | I was with my brother on LOTW when a particularly feisty muskie hit my topwater, flying out of the water twice, going head over heals. On the second jump it hit the water and then nothing. It was still attached but pulled in like an old dead stick. I told my brother that I thought the muskie had a heart attack and died. Leading the "dead" muskie into the net, I noticed that on the last jump, it had thrashed so hard that the tail had caught the bait and was hooked in the mouth and the flesh just forward of the tail fin. It looked like two ends of a ring baloney tied together. I bet when that fish was released and swam away it thought, "'I'll never do that again." |
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Posts: 8834
| Not particularly spectacular, but the first fish I encountered that would have gone over 50" nipped at my bucktail, a giant Shumway flasher, fresh out of the package, and tore off the entire back part of the skirt. (Those of you who don't know the flashers, they're maraboo) Fish swam right past me with this big black blob of stuff sticking out of it's mouth that made the fish look like it was sporting a ZZ Topp beard. "You ruined my bait, you bastard!" |
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Posts: 2378
Location: Chisholm, MN | Rotorhead - 8/17/2025 9:19 AM
I was with my brother on LOTW when a particularly feisty muskie hit my topwater, flying out of the water twice, going head over heals. On the second jump it hit the water and then nothing. It was still attached but pulled in like an old dead stick. I told my brother that I thought the muskie had a heart attack and died. Leading the "dead" muskie into the net, I noticed that on the last jump, it had thrashed so hard that the tail had caught the bait and was hooked in the mouth and the flesh just forward of the tail fin. It looked like two ends of a ring baloney tied together. I bet when that fish was released and swam away it thought, "'I'll never do that again."
That's a new one! Poor bastard lol |
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| Kirby Budrow - 8/21/2025 8:23 AM
Rotorhead - 8/17/2025 9:19 AM
I was with my brother on LOTW when a particularly feisty muskie hit my topwater, flying out of the water twice, going head over heals. On the second jump it hit the water and then nothing. It was still attached but pulled in like an old dead stick. I told my brother that I thought the muskie had a heart attack and died. Leading the "dead" muskie into the net, I noticed that on the last jump, it had thrashed so hard that the tail had caught the bait and was hooked in the mouth and the flesh just forward of the tail fin. It looked like two ends of a ring baloney tied together. I bet when that fish was released and swam away it thought, "'I'll never do that again."
That's a new one! Poor bastard lol
Holy crap! That is crazy and maybe one of a kind! |
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Posts: 1274
Location: Walker, MN | I've had them try to eat my yellow planer boards several times. One persistent one made three attempts before cutting the line off. |
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Posts: 272
Location: Oregon, WI | Was trolling with my son on castle rock and felt a thump. Asked my son if we hit something because we were in 12' of water. He looked in behind boat and said big musky right behind the big motor stainless prop, we were using kicker. I went back there and sure enough.
Have had them stare at trolling motor and have had them actually run into it too.
Like said above, have had them hit planer boards too. |
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Posts: 2378
Location: Chisholm, MN | One time I pulled up to a spot and I was going to try out a new Hoosier Hand Made topwater glider. I dropped it over the side of the boat and gave it one twitch and a low 30" musky came up and grabbed it instantly. Didn't get hooks but I am now more careful of putting my hands in the water. |
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Posts: 20253
Location: oswego, il | I have had fish eat planer boards on 3 occasions. Last time the fish ate the lure immediately, a 42"er. I had a few times where the.trolling motor blade went d-d-d-d-d and I look and nothing is there. |
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Posts: 8834
| We were putting across the lake one day, just sort of BS'ing about this and that... *WHAM!!"
We look at each other like "WHAT?!?" Buddy kills the motor and trims it up, we're looking at the skeg and the prop...
"Dude, what did you just hit?!"
"I didn't hit anything! There's nothing to hit out here, we're in 15 feet of water!"
So we circle back around thinking maybe we hit a log or something floating in the water... Clear water, sandy bottom, Nothing we can see, nothing on the graph.
I've heard stories about muskies going after outboards, but I never really believed it. Don't even know if that's what it was, but what else could it have been? |
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Posts: 4
| I was fishing one of my favorite weedbeds on a dead calm late evening, retrieving a pacemaker kind of getting lulled to sleep by then plop, plop of the tail when a thick mid 40" fish comes straight up out of the water like a Poseidon missile. Upside down, two feet out of the water, mouth chomping trying to find the bait, all about 20' from me, I almost fell into the back of the boat. |
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