The fish that becomes and addiction

The

Dave Richey plays a big Lake St. Clair muskie.

Muskies have been a preferred species of mine for many years, in many states and the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and it’s my sincere belief they are the most unpredictable, ornery and cantankerous and unpredictable fresh water game fish in North America.

They may hit well one day, but may go several days before they decide to hit again. Sometimes they will follow a lure to the boat, look it over and sink out of sight with total disdain.

The result can be something like a baseball game. No hits, no runs, no errors, and no fish either.

There is very little about muskie fishing that is easy. Most of it is hard work.

Muskies are finicky, and each day the angler fishes, he just knows this will be the one he has waited for all his life. Once the day ends without a muskie or a strike, most anglers become mildly dejected.

That soon passes as fishermen assume the philosophy: Well, maybe they will hit tomorrow. Sometimes they do but more often than not, they won’t.

Muskie Fever affects different people in oddly different ways. It’s difficult for non-fishermen to understand, and year after year, muskie fans return to their favorite waters with high expectations. All they want is one legal muskie, but unless one fishes Lake St. Clair, that can be as lofty a goal as hitting the Lotto jackpot.

Lake St. Clair is the lake of choice for many catch-and-release muskie anglers. Many of the fish are caught trolling, and that’s fine. However, some anglers will stand and cast crankbaits, jerkbaits and spinnerbaits until their arm wears out.

For this latter group, catching a legal muskellunge is one of fishing’s most difficult pursuits. It’s even more difficult to catch a legal fish, but Lake St. Clair is producing some 50-inch fish but anyone who has fished for muskies before knows that a fish that size doesn’t come along very often.

Stand-up casting has been my forte for many years, and I enjoy pitching a big plug or spinnerbait out, time after time, and noting a following fish can be as meaningful as catching one.

Trolling with in-line planer boards is the best bet for Lake St. Clair muskies; here's Al Stewart with a 30-pounder.

Trolling is a terrific way to catch Lake St. Clair muskies, and I’ve had days with Captain Steve VanAssche of Harrison Township where our crew has landed over 20 muskellunge in one day. Some are smaller than legal size, some are just legal, and on occasion a fish weighing 30 or more pounds is caught.

The trick with trolling is using planer boards, and three lines are legal in Michigan waters while only one line per angler can be used in Ontario. Put six people aboard a boat, and you have six or 12 lines out, depending on where you fish, and it increases the odds of hooking fish.

The stand-up-and-cast angler is a glutton for punishment. He or she will stand, hour after hour, and make one cast after another. If a following fish is seen but doesn’t hit, they try a different lure or different color. No hits, they return every two hours in hopes of raising the fish again.

They do a Figure 8 or Letter J rod-tip movement with the lure at the side of the boat at the end of every cast, and once in a great while this method will produce a strike. It’s been my experience that most muskies that hit are never seen until they arrow up from bottom and slam the bucktail or other lure.

Michigan has many good muskie waters but Lake St. Clair is the nation’s best.

There are numerous good muskie lakes in this state for the angler that prefers to cast for them. Budd Lake at Harrison is a good bet, as is Skegemog Lake near Traverse City. Other lakes near Skegemog that produce the occasional muskie include Elk, Intermediate and Torch.

Lac Vieux Desert on the Michigan-Wisconsin border is a great lake and noted for its big fish. Iron Lake in Iron County produces some big fish, and Munuscong Bay in Chippewa County is another steady producer.

Indian between Burt and Mullett lakes produces some fish. Long Lake at Traverse City produces very few muskies but those that are landed often weigh 30 pounds or more.

Muskie fishing can be an addiction. What anglers become addicted to is not the fish as much as that heart-stopping strike, the feeling of power as a big fish strips heavy line off the reel, and the effort required to pump that hooked fish off bottom.

Sometimes that muskie will come to the boat, open his mouth, and the big lure will fall out. The fish slowly sinks from sight, and that hooks the angler again. We fish muskies, not just for the fish, but for the adrenalin rush that comes when we have a solid hook-up.

The only cure for this disease is to go fishing again. Muskie, slimy and ugly, grab hold of our emotions and only death or infirmity rids us of this malady.

Honey, Just A Few More Lures?

A pair of big muskie plugs plus a small tackle box of ice fishing lures.

There are more tackle boxes in my basement storeroom than any sane man needs. Every one is almost overflowing with fishing lures, so why should I need more?

It's a bit like fishing and hunting books. A man can never have too many good books, and I'm as guilty of buying more than I will probably ever need or read. Much the same is true with lures.

There are four huge tackle boxes filled just with muskie plugs, and a smaller one that holds some smaller muskie lures. I've got some 10-inch muskie plugs and great huge spinnerbaits in the big boxes. However, every year I see someone with a Bobbie or Eddie bait or a Suick or Brunner Runner in a hot new color.

I’m over-run with fishing lures and tackle boxes.

It doesn't mean that the other guy's oddly colored Suick hasn't worked for him. It could, and there I'd be without one painted in that strange color that every muskie fishermen needs to own. Sadly, seldom do they produce fish, but against all odds, they could produce if we just believe in them and cast them often enough.

There are two more beastly huge tackle boxes filled with nothing but salmon spoons and big salmon plugs. I own most colors of J-Plugs, Dardevles, Silver Streaks and other fishing spoons, but I keep bumping into newer sizes with different paint and  tape patterns that seem to beckon to me with eyes that look deep into mine and seem to whisper "Buy me and take me home!" It's the old siren song that we all know.

The eyes have it. I've been adding stick-on eyes to my lures for many years, and now more and more lures are being made with prominent and well-colored eyes. I think eyes make lures more appealing to fish but wonder if they really produce more often. One can only hope.

OK, how about Herring Dodgers? I have two smaller boxes filled with them. There are red ones, white and yellow ones, chrome plated, some home-painted a dull black color (don't laugh because they work ... sometimes), half silver-half bronze, chartreuse models, and some with dazzling tape and some without. There are small ones, large ones, those of normal size, and Hoochie Mamas. Got me some of them too.

Herring Dodgers and Hootchie Mamas. Gotta have ‘em.

If we're going after lake trout I tote 50-60 different sizes, shapes and colors of cowbells and perhaps half that many different colors of P-nuts. Another tackle box is filled with various trolling weights for inland trout lakes, and some stainless steel needles to sew shiners onto my hook.

One tackle box is loaded with more Dardevles in a variety of colors although my best pike fishing comes with two color combinations -- red with a white stripe and silver back or yellow with five red diamonds and a brass back. There are other pike spoons and plugs in the box, and although most of my largest pike come on the two colors noted above, there are another two dozen other patterns for when the pike get picky. And then there is a box of spinnerbaits in several sizes that work for muskies and pike.

Oh my, I nearly forgot. One box is filled with body baits like Rapalas, Rebels, FasTracs, Long A Bombers and other similar lures. They too are in an infinite variety of great colors, and some have never been in the water but boy, do they look pretty.

Still another box is filled with wood FlatFish and Tadpollys from my guiding days when I used the dropback method on the Manistee River below Tippy Dam or when trolling Manistee, Pentwater or Pere Marquette lakes for late-fall steelhead. The FlatFish come in two varieties: those with the tiny treble gang hooks or with two larger hooks. In that box are extra hook hangers for the small treble hooks that I prefer to use.

A hundred pounds of leadhead jigs in a dazzling display of colors.

I'm a big fan of vertical jigging on the Detroit, Kalamazoo, Saginaw and Tittabawassee rivers, and there are two heavy tackle boxes filled with jigs weighing from 1/8 to 1 ounce, depending on the depth of water and current speed at each location. Half of one box is filled with oodles of grub bodies and twister-tail bodies in a rainbow of colors.

And as nice as freshly painted jigs look in their trays, I often scrape the paint off and use just the bare lead and a lip-hooked minnow. It works!
One small box holds nothing but Mepps spinners, and another holds nothing but weight-forward spinners like Erie Dearies. Another small box is nothing special except it contains lures purchased when I was 15-17 years of age from the Wanigas Fly Shop near Saginaw, Michigan. The shop was owned by Art Neumann, a co-founder of Trout Unlimited, and it holds a bunch of small trout-size spoons that are rarely seen these days except in a lure collection.

Then there are some collectible Heddon lures that I normally leave home, and other scarce Creek Chub Pikie minnows, etc. And did I mention two small boxes of ice fishing lures?

C’mon, Honey, I just need a few more for this season.

So, do I really need several more lures? Probably not, but once one or two new lures wink at me and catch my eye, I go into a feeding frenzy until I have them. Many times, after such a cabin-fever purchase, I try the lure once and take an active dislike to its action, color or lack of fishing-catching abilities.

Someone once told me that fishing lures catch more anglers than fish, and I suspect that is quite true. However, gazing upon tray after tray of various colors and sizes of lures makes me feel good.

So, why not, honey? All I need is two or three more $20 muskie plugs. There are still a few Suick colors I don't have. You never know when one of these odd-ball color combinations will tempt a trophy muskie. And I’ll even put up storm windows when I can find the time.

Posted via email from Dave Richey Outdoors