Sunday, August 15, 2004

Recycling muskies on the Eagle River chain WOCA meetings traditionally end with a half day of fishing in the Eagle River area. Local guides donate their services to take WOCA members and guests out after a variety of species. Most of us target muskies, but others try for walleyes, bass or panfish. This morning, under a cloudless sky and with the mercury hovering in the 40s, WOCA president Rick Wulterkens and I joined vice president-elect (and guide coordinator) Roger Sabota to try for muskies on Catfish Lake on the Eagle River chain. Another guide, Gary Myshak took president-elect Tim Eisele and Jerry Kiesow out on the same lake. Myshak beat us to the landing at Braywood Resort, but only because Roger stopped at Guide's Choice Pro Shop to show us "Ranger" Rick Krueger's huge in-store aquarium filled with muskies and other local fish. Among the muskies, I spotted a smallmouth or two and a northern. There were probably some walleyes in there, too, though we didn't stick around long enough to look for them. As Roger parked his rig, I talked with a guy who had spent the weekend fishing the chain with his brother. They had come north to fish, but had not hired a guide. "We caught a bunch of little panfish," he told me. Too many people make that same mistake. Hire a guide. You'll learn more in a half day of fishing than you will in a week on your own. Launching about 7:00 a.m., we saw a few other boats already muskie fishing. Spotting them is a no-brainer, even from a distance. In each boat, one or two anglers stood and cast toward shoreline cover or a mid-lake bar. Roger first took us along a shaded shoreline ("because later we won't have that option," he said). He threw a Bucher Top Raider, Rick a small bucktail and I a big, yellow Mepps Musky Marabou. The shady shoreline did not show us a fish. We picked up and motored around a point guarded by a pair of deer sculptures, as Roger told us about the guy who cut that corner too close one night after leaving a local tavern and claimed he almost "ran over two horses on that point." We stopped in a weedy bay and worked slowly back to the south along the sunlit shore, casting to shoreline woody cover and retrieving out over a deep weed edge. Before too long, Roger shouted "Nice fish!" and went into a figure-eight, but the muskie had already dived beneath the boat. We noted the spot and continued. Rick's years as a bass angler were evident, as he lobbed cast after cast under overhanging limbs and tight against docks and swimming rafts. My casting was surprisingly accurate, too, but I had a lot of help from the St. Croix Avid 7 1/2-foot rod I borrowed from Roger. I hate to take away a guide's pet rod, but he didn't complain too loudly. I like a rod that does most of the work, and that Avid loads beautifully. The only problem I had was when I tried to throw too far and spun into a backlash. The 100-lb.-test Power Pro made picking out those birds' nests a piece of cake. I handed the rod back to Roger on a couple tough ones, but got most of them out quickly myself. OK, so I was trying too hard. Once the wind came up, I overdid it trying to launch a lightweight bucktail or non-aerodynamic Little Ernie. We completed that run with no further action, then motored over to a weedy bar off Rechlitz's High Pines Resort. Roger tossed out a marker buoy and we made several passes on the deep and shallow sides of the bar to no avail. While we did this, the wind picked up from the southwest and pleasure boats began to join us on the lake. "Hangovers keep most people off the water until about 9:30," Roger said. Sure enough, the first PWC's zipped past at 9:28. Once the pleasure boaters started chewing up the bar, we headed back to the shoreline where Roger had seen that fish. I switched from the Top Raider to a Shallow Raider, then to a Buchertail in a sunset pattern, all on Roger's advice. I know enough not to argue with the guide. I prophetically announced to my partners that I was done messing around, and that if they weren't going to catch one pretty soon, I'd have to. Usually, that is just a hollow threat. This time, though, about three casts later something hammered the Buchertail and I was into a fish. The long rod made this fish seem bigger, but it also wore him down pretty quickly. Soon, Roger slid the net under my first muskie of the year. Then the Keystone Kops fire drill took over. While Roger tried to unhook the fish, Rick and I readied our cameras. The fish got in a couple good licks as Roger unhooked the bucktail from its upper lip, and he came up bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig. He grabbed a towel, and then it was my turn. I slid one hand under its jaw, but got my thumb on top of its upper lip and one of those umpteen razor teeth promptly cut me good. Here we were, both of us bleeding all over the place and the muskie still in the net in the water. I managed to get a grip on myself and the fish, and Rick and Rog snapped a few shots, then we put the tape on the fish and got an honest 38 inches. I got it back in the water and held it there until it swam off, none the worse for its ordeal. Meanwhile, Rog was sopping up blood off everything in the boat. I pinched my thumb and held it over my head for five minutes or so, then slapped on a bandage that is still in place 11 hours later. I'll look at it in the morning, but I think it's fine. Rick said he had heard muskies' mouths or teeth exude something that encourages bleeding. Not that they need it. Rog concurred. I don't doubt it a bit. We continued our drift along that shoreline, past a pontoon boat full of kids parked right on the weed edge. They were catching perch, which explains why we were seeing action on bucktails the color of orange sherbet. Ten minutes later, another muskie about the same size as the one I caught followed my Buchertail right to the boat, then dove. Its nose was right on the hair, but it wouldn't eat. Before we quit, Roger boated a 32-incher on another orange bucktail to end the action for the day. The Eagle River Chain is not noted for its big fish, but in four hours of steady fishing, we had seen four muskies and boated two. I'll take an action lake any day! Back at Trees for Tomorrow, Gary told us his boat had seen three muskies, including one that came out of the water at boatside after a bucktail Jerry was dangling over the side of the boat. Gary had just clipped the bait on Jerry's line and he wanted to see what it looked like in the water. Ka-Boom! Looked pretty good, I'd say. When we showed Gary a Polaroid shot of my muskie, he exclaimed, "I caught that fish once!" The muskie had a circular wound near the dorsal fin and the top half of that fin was chewed off. Natural marks like those two are as good as a tag on a fish. Nice to see these muskies get recycled and live to bite again. As were were saying our good-byes in the parking lot, a bald eagle flew upriver, its white head shining against the bright blue sky. "Deer grazing on the lawn when we got here, two muskies in the boat and now an eagle," I said. "What haven't we seen this trip?" "A bear," Rog said. (Rog has a kill permit for this fall, after eight years of waiting, so bears are on that boy's mind.) Last trip north, a big bear ambled across 51 as I drove home near Tomahawk. "Maybe I'll see one on the way home again," I said. Turned out, I didn't, but that didn't spoil a perfect weekend up north with old friends. Later... 8:33:40 PM    comment []

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