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Posts: 151
Location: Chippewa Falls, WI | So, I just finished my first week long muskie trip as an adult and simply put it was a good week but extremely frustrating. I was up to LOTW with my Dad and one of my Brothers. We boated a dozen muskies ( the largest was 49" and one other fat 45" with 4 others over 40") which was well above our expectations going into it but I lost several fish after hooking up, missed a few nippers on figure 8's, and then had the largest fish of the week and my life pull a Houdini after she was already in the net.
We were fishing a bar out in a big wind and my Dad said he had just seen the flash of a big fish as she left, just seeing the tail and about a foot in front of it. "BIG FISH", "BIG FISH" as he put it. I asked if I could throw back to her as he ran an 8, he pointed out the back of the boat right on top of a 2' bar and said she went right back to it...I threw in my bait which was the same as the one he was throwing just a different color and about 10' from the boat I could already see her behind it. I was running a shallow invader, running it with long pulls and long pauses so I kept that going until boat side and then reeled quickly to pull it up and went into a good smooth 8 like I had been doing all week...SHE INHALED IT ON THE PAUSE ON THE FIRST OUTSIDE TURN! (just like the book says they are supposed to) I set the hooks for all I was worth as she was still going away from the boat. She thrashed at my feet for what seemed like too long even though I was doing my best to get her head down. Finally she went down and went into a power run straight away. I fish with my drag all the way locked down so by the time I was just about to my knees my best option was to free spool her and thankfully it worked. I got her turned to come to the boat and my Brother was waiting for her (I was off his back deck and he was to my right, down in the middle of the boat) She was still full of fight and he thought she might go too deep so he pulled the net and let her go under the boat and then she turned back out on two more big power runs as I free spooled her again (the power of that fish was unbelievable) . I got her turned out of the front of the boated and she came right back to the boat and again swam right under my feet for the second time, I realized as she went under my that time just how big she was! (I had just netted a fat 45" 20 minutes earlier and a 49" for my brother the previous evening along with several other net jobs earlier in the week and an insane amount of follows to get fairly good at calling lengths) This time I got her turned out of the back of the boat going away at about 10 o'clock to us and she turned into a torpedo on top of the water just gliding to the net, I looked closely and saw that both trebles were buried into the outside corner of her mouth and the celebration was about to begin...I knew it was all over but the bump board and a few pics...I was pulling her in on top of the water and the angle to the boat was a little sharp rather then having her come along the entire side of the boat I pulled her from the outside turn right to my Brother who was waiting with the net. He put the rim of the net flat to the water and attempted to let her swim into it completely and then lift the net as she cleared the back of it. Problem was she was so long by the time her tail cleared the back of the net her head was already at the other side. (I was oblivious to all of this and the only thing I saw was her head, body, and tail all in the net!!!) It's literally all over at this point and I'm setting my rod down to scream like a 5 yr old that just opened his favorite present on christmas morning.....WHEN IT HAPPENED. She went into a crocodile death roll hooking both trebles into the bag and rolled her self on the rim of the net and fell out...before my brother could get the rim high enough to keep her in it and she was...FREE TO GO! I immediately went ballistic yelling things I would never want anyone else to hear and then proceeded to shed more than one tear in shock and disappointment. It took us about 20 minutes to even say a word in the boat as we floated along with the wind. We headed back to camp, drank a few cold ones and tried to talk our way through what we could have done differently. At the end of the day we came up with never net a big fish that isn't going parallel to the boat so your net man never has to attempt to scoop them in the net rather then letting them swim into the bag.
I'm looking for some feedback on others experiences with netting big fish like this and suggestions for handling fish that are coming towards the boat rather than down it or what we could have both done differently to prevent this, assuming we get the chance at another fish of that caliber. I'm hesitant to say exactly how big that fish was but we all agreed significantly longer and heavier than anything we had seen or boated. Realistically 53" or better was our best guess...We both feel terrible that it happened and know we both did our best but we certainly don't want a repeat performance!!
thanks,
Adubs
Edited by adubs 8/11/2013 7:20 PM
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Posts: 1660
Location: central Wisconsin | Relax, don't say anything that you will regret later, and always have the net rim perpendicular to the water and guide the fish into it head first and scoop it completely out of the water as you gain control. Sounds like a great week with family, I am jealous. |
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Posts: 151
Location: Chippewa Falls, WI | It was a really good week..My Dad and two brothers are my best friends. Nothing that was said was directed at anyone, it just wasn't PG rated  We don't have the most experience when it comes to landing big fish and I want to learn from this and be a better fisherman because of it. He feels the same way, I feel bad for putting him in that position with the fish coming right at him and he obviously feels like it was his fault she got out of the bag. At the end of the day it's a fish and we haven't lost sight of that... |
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Posts: 173
| Big fish get off sometimes. Just part of the game. That said , JMO more are lost due to locked down drags than are caught. Been lucky enough to fish with some top notch musky guys [ Doug J and Thorpe among others] and they all never lock down the drag. |
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