The 2012 Musky Hunt

Last week I headed up to Wildwood Float Trips headquarters up in Minnesota. I went up there a few days early to get some prefishing in and get to hang out with some old and new friends. The first day I fished with Kip Vieth of Wildwood and Jon Luke of Eastern Fly Fishing Magazine. Jon started the day off quickly with a little 30 incher. Later on I had a bruiser of 19.5 inch smallie inhaled my musky fly. Then about 3 minutes later this guy came straight up from the bottom and and scared the crap out of me.

Here's another shot of of us releasing the bruiser.

Thanks again Jon for those photos! The next day Jon and I fished with a cool bloke named Gabe from MN that is crazy about musky on the fly. Unfortunately we didn't hookup or land any musky that day but I did have a big guy follow my fly and follow the figure 8 around twice. Oh and I missed probably a dozen northerns and bass that all took swipes at my fly. Finally the next day I had clients in boat. I had some cool old timers in my boat. One of them, Jim, I've had in my boat before fishing for musky a few weeks earlier. Bill, my other client, moved a 40 plus incher pretty early in the morning but the hook never found it's home and we never got him to come back. Jim had a follow a little later and got into a couple of bruise bass to round off the day. The next day I had two guys from Chicago, Bubba (yes Bubba!) and Jeff. Bubba got lucky and got the front of the boat and we found Bill's fish and he wanted that fly again and just attacked it again.

Bubba had a follow a little later and Bubba got a couple of nice smallies to hand. en Jeff had an awesome eat from a musky which unfortunately cut through the 80 pound floro like it wasn't there. The third day unortunately was bust as far as musky go but some bass and northerns to hand.