I have a feeling that musky fishermen fall into one of two categories; you either love the experience (regardless of landing a fish) or you didn’t enjoy much of it and don’t choose to suffer through it again. I could be wrong….so, please don’t send me any nasty emails. Provided my theory is correct…then I fall into the group of the former. I love musky fishing; OK, so hear me out…I don’t like the cold, the wet, the sore body parts…but I sure do like the idea that at any moment, the apex freshwater predator…could smash my fly…that leaves me needing more and more of the same!
As you can probably tell from the title, I didn’t end up catching a Wisconsin musky. So, I may not have been musky fishing…but I was for sure fishing for musky! Certainly one of the elements we can’t control as fly-guys is the weather and my week up north was wet, really wet…so wet that the rivers were out of their banks, forcing me to look for toothy predators on the relatively calm waters of a lake.
As previously mentioned…I love being out and knowing that you are close to a fish that wants to eat basically every other fish in the same body of water. Frankly to do so from a float tube and with a fly-rod in hand…also changes the experience. As you watch the video and follow me through a couple of days of casting and trying to keep my float tube in place…understand that probably, at some point, I was close, maybe very close to a 40 inch or better fish. I have read lots on musky fishing on the fly and honestly it may be one of those very sick addictions that a guy falls into…not knowing that he has in deed become addicted.
I spent two days on Mission Lake. Mission Lake is part of the Marathon County Parks Dept. and is a natural, 93 acre lake that is both clear and yet has a bit of a stain that in my mind…just spells musky. If you are every north and in the Wausau area…you should for sure put it on your bucket list of lakes to fish. As you will see I managed to stay alive and even landed a pike of about 30 inches. Hope you like what you see and if you have any questions you can email me at flyfishingwithjeff@gmail.com.
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