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Nymping Musky,
Had a Musky follow to the boat last weekend that did the usual Musky crap. Follow, chase, sniff the fly, taste the water, then settle just below it. The clear water and the new GPS anchor on my trolling motor allowed me to stay with this fish though. I’ve always suspected that I could get these fish to eat a smaller offering but conditions were never perfect. This time it was prefect. My friend in the back of the boat didn’t think I had a snowballs chance in hell of getting an eat. I put a heavy weighted Crayfish about 1.5” long, right in from of her and jigged it until the fly disappeared. She managed to break free shortly after but it was still one of those eats that I won’t soon forget and when Musky fishing eats count!
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I was using 20#fluro so that the smaller fly would swim more natural. I use a 40# fluro bite tippet for the big flies.
No, he brought that coffee for me and put it there. I drink espresso, and would only drink coffee if somehow I couldn't get an espresso fix. Like a zombie invasion or something like that.
He's been known to get baked when fishing. I assume that's why he had the fight with the net.
Sunday turned out to be the first snow of the year (early November) and we rowed around the lake, more or less clueless, for about 2 hours, casting flies more or less at random. Eventually we decided this was madness, and we agreed to try one last fly pattern then head in. I tied on a big yellow bunny leech and tossed it towards a submerged log -- as I stripped it back, what seemed like the toothiest mouth I'd ever seen came up to grab it just before it hit the surface.
The fish was only 34" and kinda sluggish -- I landed it pretty quickly on my 6wt and we put it back after the requisite photos (which have since been lost). But under 3 hours total angling time to my first (and last) flyrod muskie must be some sort of record....at least, a personal best.
The Army War College in Carlisle has a kids' fishing derby every year, using stocked rainbow kamikazes. These days it is held at a pond, but up until about a dozen years ago they dumped them in the College's stretch of the Letort the morning of the derby. Most of the survivors would drift downstream to the mouth where it emptied into the Conodoguinet Creek, where muskies would be waiting after a day or two. Heavy bait casting or light surf tackle and big plugs were used. I had a couple of break-offs but never landed one.