By John Zychowicz © 2007
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It was a long week for me. I work for the heckles marina so I don’t have a lot of time off...so I took the week off to Musky fish.
The week started out bad. On Tuesday I was fishing a lake in Shawano county with my 11 year old son. We where on the water for 3 hours and saw no fish at all, not even a bass.
we decided to move to another spot on the lake that we know...an area where a few nice fish are and on the third cast on this spot all the sudden the water flew.
Bang we had one on...I told Austin to get the net ready. it was a nice fish and I fought it for about eleven minutes. When we got it next to the boat, Austin tried landing it. When it was in the net the tally wacker got caught in the net but the fish was not all the way in the net. All the sudden things got crazy and she swam off...,we estimated her between 45 to 47 inches long. We where both pretty upset, but that’s why it's called fishing.
We had this fishing trip coming up at the end of the week...things where not looking good yet. Once we got to the big Chip on Thursday we stayed at Sisko's Resort where the family setup camp and afterwards I set out to go musky hunting.
It was starting to be long days staying with bucktails until Saturday afternoon...from Thursday evening to Saturday afternoon I only saw one fish. it was not looking good at all, so at 3 in the afternoon I went back to the resort had some lunch and relaxed.
It was getting dark and a front was moving thru. It was 6:30 and I decided to go to top water. I was in the cedar tops around 8:00 at night and just like that I got a real nice raise from a respectable fish. Just like that my blood was pumping all over again and at 8;30 I went back to camp and told the wife I raised a nice fish.
She told me to get up in the morning and go get him but when Sunday morning came around we got a late start we didn’t get out on the water until 9:00 in the morning. My dad assured me that everything would be fine. Sunday morning was cold, 55 degrees and a stiff northwest wind blowing. My dad said either it will shut them down or turn them on, so right away we went back where I had the follow the night before.
We spent 30 minutes there and nothing so we pulled lines out of the water and moved to another part of the flowage that the mean depth was at 8 feet and very weedy. We started on the north end of the lake and drifted with the wind also casting the weed lines breaks and island edges. We where 100 yards into the drift I was still using top water...we were at a island point where the wind was pushing in and I had another raise.
It hit the bait and I could not stay with it. It was coming right towards the boat and I could not set the hook then again the big goose egg.
By this time I knew top water was the answer. Dad had caught two bass off the same point and by this time it was about 10:15 in the morning. We had gone two hundred yards when we decided to go shallow because we saw small pike feeding.
Dad said its your call, so I steered in shallow less than four feet deep. We had gone 200 yards and one caught a bass when we went between two islands still in shallow water. There where two distinctive weed beds ahead of us so my dad and I started to cast towards them. On my dad's fourth cast he hooked something. As soon as his bait hit the water the water flew. We saw the back part of the fish and I yelled "it’s a hybrid, and a nice one too".
I Saw the fish once more it was in the the mid forty inch range and then the fish ended up going in the weeds and he could not pull it out and just like that it was gone.
By this time we just could not believe it...two fish in three hundred yards and it was 0 for 3. At this time we had to decide to stay shallow or go deep...we stayed shallow. We had drifted another hundred yards with no fish when we went over a real shallow spot less then a foot. We went around the island into a bay of three to for feet. I took a long cast with my top raider and half way back to the boat I saw a wake and the water flew...my rod went down and this time I hooked one.
It circled on top of the water and my dad saw it hit and the few seconds it was on top, he said it's an easy 4 footer. It had no were to go...it was in three feet of water and the whole time I was shaking real bad. I said to dad that this is worse than deer hunting. He said just fight it out its not going any where...you got him just take your time.
We had a little problem getting her into the net, mainly because I was afraid that she would try everything to get out and she did but we got her in the boat. Afterwards, I thru my rod down and helped my dad get her over the side…..Steve at Sisko's did a great job wrapping her up for the trip home
