Canada, Musky, or lack there of and a few days back home

 

 

It’s been a while I know.  Sure I’ve been fishing.  The latest adventure was to Canada, my home country.  My Cousins from England came to visit.  This is it.  This is my shot at showing the family the top predator in the freshwater world.  We were going to visit two famous rivers in our travels that arguably could produce the next world record.  That and spend quality time with family that I haven’t seen in years.  Fishing or not.  Normally on vacations, especially on Canadian vacations, is when I save up all my reserved energy.  It’s a time when I can get some fishing in just as long as it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the family and I appear to be spending all my undivided attention with the rest of the family, including extended and beyond.  So basically I just have to do most of my fishing when everyone is sleeping.  That means early morning and if I have the balls, sorry, courage, in the middle of the night…. Which is often what it takes on pressured trophy waters when the top predator, trophy fish has seen it all.  The fish that I am after is pushing the 20 year old mark, who knows, 40 year old.  It’s been around a while, has seen it all and has basically had a Harvard education on every lure manufacturers imaginable.  No doubt those prehistoric surviving fish have had their fair share of encounters with the wittiest of fishermen.  Like this one Field and Stream comic I once saw with a picture of this enormous largemouth bass hiding in his layer.  On his wall were mounted lures he’d “stolen” from fishermen.  The fish I was hunting had its own fair share of plaques on the wall.  I wasn’t interested in the smallmouth fishing… even though they can grow to world record proportions on that lake.  I knew from past experience that the bass fishing can be quite challenging in August.  It’s a totally different ball game then near the bass opener that last weekend in June.  Sure in June you can find bass painting the shallows either on nests or guarding freshly hatched young and are biting at the lip to attack anything that invades their personal space.  These bass are so stuffed full of the invasive gobies that they look more like hump back whales with tiger stripes then they do any bulimic smallmouth bass back home on the Potomac.  Okay, so I should have fished for smallmouth more…. I later found out they were on the mid water shoals.  I needed to concentrate on depths in the 20 foot range near much deeper water.  Complete opposite from the mid June though early July habits of shoreline structure or shallow flats.  Oh well.  But one benefit in that equation is that musky also inhabit those mid water shoals.  Or so I later found out. 

 

I want to take the time now to explain what I did to prepare for this trip.  It borders on insanity.  I would have been so much better off in the wallet, mind, not to mention time if I had just set aside one or two days during vacation to devote with a well respected guide.  And save the rest of the time for undivided attention with my son, cousins and wife.  I was reminded time and time again, that I need to set aside quality time with my wife.  We were on vacation, we were entertaining out of town family but there still needs to be that alone time with your significant other.  After all, they are our each others better halves.  She deserves it.  We deserve it.  I could do it I thought.  Sleep can come later when I return to the mundane 8 to 5. This is the first time I’ve been back to Canada well equipped (more on that later) in two years.  The education I’ve received in those two years has crazy thoughts flying through my head of tail walking giants exploding on top raiders.  So I told myself the last time I went to Canada, mid June, unemployed, with just my son and I two years ago, that I would not come back without a competent boat.  A decent boat.  I’ve had this 14’ aluminum v hull that’s as light as a feather with a power plant of merely 9 horses. It barely gets on plane and is not the boat you want in big water.  Well, one evening I drove 3 hours after work to Harrisonburg, Va to look at a 16’ v hull aluminum.  The engine was decent; the boat looked like it would sink at any moment.  The transom was so rotten I could poke my finger through it.  No thanks.  Then a legendary 16’ triple thick Lund was still for sale up the road from my house.  Ok then, thank you very much.  Good boat.  Pull start 30hp 2 stroke yami with very little use.   I didn’t like the idea of not having electric start but so be it.  First week I took the boat to the bay twice, got into some excellent striper fishing on the bay bridge pilings.  Tons of fish up to 24 inches.  Easy easy.  But I had no electronics.  So…. Off to BPS and bought a state of the art Lowrance, dual beam color sonar, chart plotter/gps combo.  What the heck do I need all that for?  I can’t hold enough fuel to go that far.  This thing drinks fuel like a college degenerate drunk goes through Beast Ice.  Carborated 2 stroke engines will do that.  It literally burns about what my 130HP four stroke Honda used to burn on a 22’ boat!  Oh well.  Fuel burned on the water is good no matter what.  It means you are getting out.  The cost of fishing.  It’s 1000x better than fuel burned in your car sitting in traffic, that’s for sure.  So I could have already booked Ottawa River Musky Factory on the Ottawa River, a stones through from our Cottage for the entire week with the price I was into the boat and electronics.  Not to mention title fees, registration BS.  F U Maryland! 

 

The Ottawa River Musky Factory you ask?  Well they are musky fishing charter in Treadwell, Ontario.  About 3 miles from Presquile where we stayed and used to stay as kids back in the 80s.  The Ottawa River is a musky factory alright.  Arguable one of the top choices for the next world record.  As kids my brother caught numerous musky from shore fishing this island we stay on.  Then one day my brother and I were trolling in a paddle boat right out front of the island in about 50 feet of water (we didn’t know that at the time) dragging a couple of bass spinner baits.  Well, he gets hit.  More like annihilated.  We somehow land a musky bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.  This fish stretched from one side of the paddle boat to the other.  It took both of us to hold it and I never moved from my seat.  A true giant.  Our friend’s father back on the island was screaming at us and I will never forget what he said, “either you let that thing got now or it’s likely to kill you or you kill it.” We did get a picture of that fish.  But I’ve got no idea where that picture is.  Believe me; I’ve dug through every crevasse of my parent’s house looking for it too.  I think we used the picture in some school project 20 something years ago.  But there just might be a negative some place.  I might just find it when I go to move my parents out of the house into some “assisted living place”.  I almost used another term.  They might just read this one day.  Back to the Ottawa River Musky Factory.  I found them on the internet and then Facebook.  The outfitter sounded perfect.  Not to mention the week before our trip he had the band, Alice n Chains with him for a few days Musky fishing.  Who knew those guys are toothy critter nuts?!  Musky fishing isn’t for everyone.  It’s often a slow game with very little reward.  But those few rewards, oh those sweet rewards.  Just casting into water like the Ottawa sends this transcendence feeling through your body.  Every crank of the power handle, every wobble of the #10 Colorado blade sends impulses into your brain that any second now a beast from deep could come knocking.  So… Alice N Chains scored multiple fish.  The guide even phoned me, leaving this ever so persuasive voice message that they got a 52 and ¾ inch fish that day.  He even said to me, “we’ll get you that 50”.  He obviously did a little looking on my facebook page and knew I’m still 50less.  That means I’ve never actually caught a 50 inch striper or musky.  Two of my favorite fish.  The third is a steelhead and a 50 inch steelhead would swallow the world.  They don’t exist.  A 40 inch would be pushing the world record and they only come from the land of Kamchatka.  So…. When you don’t know what you are doing, do yourself a favor, don’t drop thousands of dollars on gear for a boat and just wing it on your own.  Book a guide.  Designate a day or two to fishing and save the rest for family time.  Sure the sticker price for a guide for a day is always so threatening.  It’s just for a day right.  It’s twice or three times what you make in a day.  You can’t take it home with you.  Well….. yes you can.  Chances are a guide will increase your chances at a trophy ten times over.  Plus the education you receive from one day with a veteran of those waters will last you a life time.  It literally cuts the learning curve for a weekend warrior or a once a year trip kind of person by years, maybe even decades.  You get the where, the how, the when…. It’s an education that all the musky periodicals, movies, workshops could never duplicate.  I knew this coming in but tried to wing it and failed… miserably.  I didn’t get one positive ID on a musky hit.  Sure I missed some nice bow up on top water.  Sure I caught some decent pike but it wasn’t meant to be.  However, I did get my cousin into his first musky, actually his first two muskys.  On the new moon near moon set.  And guess what.  When I get home I look at facebook again at the ORMF page.  He had this write up with numerous pictures of this magical time.  What the heck matters about a moon rise and set on a new moon?!  There is no moon when it’s new!  Well, ORMF caught three that afternoon, all over 45” including an absolute giant.  Local knowledge is invaluable. 

Below are the muskies ORMF (Ottawa River Musky Factory) caught on the New Moon/Moon Rise.

 

 

 

 Oh.. And Alice-N- Chains a few weeks prior

 

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Ottawa-River-Musky-Factory/233536866661194

Back to my Cousin Andy’s fish.  The Ottawa river is a huge river system with deep slow moving currents.  Literally within a cast from shore we could hit 50 feet of water.  Right out front it drops to 145 feet.  These fish could be anywhere.  It’s a total different ball game than Lake Ontario or the St. Lawrence that has gin clear water.  The water on the Ottawa is a dark, tannic stained water.  Weed growth is confined to the shallows.  There’s a distinct line on your sonar unit at about 8 feet where light does not penetrate and the weeds cannot grow.  But the shallow bays are absolutely chocked with weeds.  On this river the fish patrol the weed edge.  It should be that 8 foot line then right?  Well, it was three years ago when I last made the trip.  I got into a few fish right on that 7/8 foot depth next to an impenetrable weed bed.  Sure I saw some big splashes and even hooked a good fish right smack in the middle of those weeds too.  I knew this trip I’d have to fish the edge a little harder.  I was going to need some weedless type baits like the “Slop master” spoon to get in there.  I figured some Tony Accetta, run of the mill striped bass spoons would do the job.  I couldn’t find a slop master to save my life.  I almost paid $45 shipping for two lures that were around $7 a piece.  There’s a reason I thought why everyone is sold out of them.  Oh well.  Well, Andy wanted to fish shallow.  Typically only small pike inhabit shallow stuff in my experience. ON the one afternoon on the Ottawa that Andy and I had together we decided to try a River Mouth.  A similar pattern we’d fish back home.  But how deep was this river mouth?  Would there be a temperature difference.  We really wanted to venture up inside the river but it was in Quebec and we didn’t have licenses for Quebec.  So the mouth it was.  On the downstream side there was a point created by deposition that to me looked text book.  It dropped off into more than 50 feet but the point was perfect, with weeds on all sides, shallow enough….. No dice. Then we went right up to the mouth.  I’m working the trolling motor up front throwing big, #10 blade spinner baits with 6 inch sassy shad trailers.  Andy is working the back of the boat cleaning up my scraps and throwing the average bass spinner bait with tiny blades on a medium action spinning rod.  I don’t get a sniff.  Then Andy hooks up.  Cool, another bass or pike.  Then I see a big swirl… humm?  Time to set the next up.  Sure enough… MUSKY!  It comes out of the water like a tarpon…. With a picture perfect tailwalk.  I go for the net job and blew it.  The fish takes off as I rub its side with the net.  I swung too soon, premature netting is a bad disease.  Around the boat we go and he’s in the net.  High fives screams and laughs.  We did it!  Andy traveled 2000 miles, spend thousands of dollars for this fish and it was all good.  Except it wasn’t a giant, not the world record.  Nothing we couldn’t expect back home on the Potomac.  But it was a musky, a respectable Canadian native musky, more than respectable.  38 inch fish from 2 feet of water in the middle of the weeds at a creek mouth.  I ate some words for a while.  Andy always wanted to fish shallow and look what happened.  Ask a good bass fisherman but rookie musky fishermen how you catch a musky and the answer is almost always, “fish for bass.”  Sure they luck into a few but it’s not supposed to happen like that.  Oh… Andy caught another musky that evening too.  Small one, two year old 24 incher.  But hey, it’s a musky. 

 

 

Andy's first

And second, an hour apart! 

 

As for the kids, they enjoyed casting off the dock to the plethora of fish species.  I think they are just as happy catching 4” perch then to catch a 50” musky.  The one fish the kids kept catching and loved was a new species for me called a “mooneye.”  They are supposed to be common from Ohio north through Canada and prefer clear moving water.  Well the Ottawa slow moving turbid, dark water but oh well.  There were lots of them.  They could be seen every evening sipping bugs off the surface like trout and hit night crawlers under floats very well for the kids.  They looked like perfect musky forage and a few times we saw them jump clear out of the water as if a predator was hot on their tails.  I tried fishing them whole but they would die so soon.  I’ve never met a fish that died that easily.  They were just like a gizzard shad but more silver, a larger eye and had teeth on the tongue.  The teeth would actually cut through 6 pond mono too.  If we could somehow just figure out how to properly hook one on a quick strike rig and not kill it in the process.  I’m sure a musky would jump all over it too.  We should have tried that more. 

 

 

Mooneye.... aka pussy fish.  But they did fight well and jump high but would die the second they came in the boat.

 

 

The inside of our lodge

 

 

 

 

The outside from the water looking at the pool. 

 

 

Evan with a nice Canadian Smallie

 

 

 

Top Water Pre_dawn in the land of giants. There's just something about that feeling that makes it all worth while.

 

When we were in Kingston at my parents which is on the north shore of Lake Ontario, technically outside of the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and partially protected by Amherst Island.  However a southwest wind beats the place to death and there’s no way you’re launching a boat in a SW wind, even a 5mph SW wind.  I tried anyway.  The smallmouth just were no on the shallow areas like they normally are.  There were very few pike and Largemouth in the creek behind their place and things were not looking good.  They new Lowrance was so accurate we were picking off gobies on the bottom.  The kids didn’t mind catching them and when used for bait the gobies actually caught fish.  But then the smallmouth would rub the line on the zebra muscles and just about cut us off or abrade the mono leader every single time.  Well, one night it was too windy for me to put the boat back on the trailer and I had to run 3 miles down wind to the local public ramp inside a well protected bay.  As I was getting chased by 4 foot rollers a threatening thunderstorm, another well equipped great lakes Lowe boat came flying past me to the ramp.  This guy was rigged to the teeth and was fishing solo like me.  I always try to take the opportunity at a ramp to pick the brain of local fishermen.  This is your one chance to learn something from a regular, that’s of course you don’t book a guide.  There literally were not any guides in the area either.  So I was always under the impression that you had to go well inside the St. Lawrence to find any decent populations of musky.  Or at least that’s what the first musky guide I’ve used near Gananoque did.  I’ve heard stories of huge Lake Ontario muskys on the offshore shoals but you need a sport fish boat to get to them… or so I thought.  I started talking to this knowledgeable local and the next 5 minute conversation just about made my trip.  So what are you fishing for I asked, he answered, “Musky.”  Like duhh, you didn’t know that?  What?  Musky this far into Lake Ontario?  I was so excited.  He knew right there and then I was a little over the edge.  But that’s what it takes to be a decent fishermen.  We hit it off well I think.  I said what kind of water am I looking for?  Deep stuff, shallow?  You don’t have to be very specific.  Thinking there’s no way he was going to tell me exact spots.  It takes a lifetime to figure them out.  He said they are on the shoals.  Like right out front there’s a good shoal.  I had just purchased the Lowarance chart application for my phone.  The guy said you have the Lowrance chip right?  Here I’ll show you.  I couldn’t believe it.  He spent the next 20 minutes discussing exact locations and showing me on the chart where to go, how to do it and when.  I eventually got too much information.  He was filling my brain with possibilities that would be near suicide if I tried them with my boat.  But wow do I want to.  One story he said is the something something shoal outside Wolf Island, there’s a light house, you can’t miss it.  The only fish I’ve caught out there have been big, you know, very big.  The kind of fish that when it hits it literally scares you.  He said you see them first on your sonar.  I said, what do they look like.  He says yea, there are fish everywhere but you know it’s a musky.  It’s the biggest thing out there.  Its’ a friggin sea monster.    Sea monster I thought.!  Now we’re talking.  This guy had me as giddy as a child.  Ohh and guess what, it was raining, my wife was waiting in the car at the ramp for me like an amazing wife she is and I was sitting out there getting ignoring her but sucking up information like a sponge.  It’s on I thought.  First light tomorrow.  They are here.  I have a place to stay.  Three miles one way and three miles the other. But were leaving in two days.  No time.  Maybe next year. Okay, so I went to both shoals on the last two mornings.  Left bright and early long before anyone woke up and after a night of too many gin and tonics too.  But I did it.  There just isn’t anyway to calm the wind machine on that lake.  I left to flat glass and returned to two footers.  Not pretty.  No fish either but those shoals sure look pretty.  The sheer fact of knowing there are musky within reach of my parents dock is as good as sex. 

 

So, back home now.  Spent a little less than a week without a fishing rod and then just couldn’t take it anymore.  The following weekend I floated a section of the river closest to home but traveled an under fished, hard to get to route through the islands that offered incredible fishing.  Nothing huge but more action than you can shake a stick at.  I think in a 4 hour float with Diego and Ryan we caught more fish than we did collectively the whole time in Canada!  Every fish in the river was looking up!  That was Saturday afternoon.  Saturday evening I went out on a date with my wife.  She fell asleep in the movie!  I must be doing it wrong?!  But it was a nice evening.  Then on Sunday after spending time wit the family some and working around the house I was given the pass to go on fishing on my own.  Sure… well… are you sure it’s okay?  Rain was threatening, the family thought about coming with me but bailed.  Okay, I’ve got 5 hours, enough time to drive an hour into musky Country back home.  I went to the spot where this one fish has been tormenting me all June.  I missed him several times on a Savage 9 inch swim bait.  Very similar to Larry Dahlberg’s “Mr. Wiggly.”  It was mid afternoon when I got there… 4 ish, so I thought I’d save that spot for last.  I ran up river, burned some fuel and searched for fish.  Nothing.  Decided at sunset to return to my friend.  He was there alright but not exactly where I thought.  He normally sits right next to shore and I came in too quickly.  Even with the trolling motor.  Once I got within a far cast of his presumed lair, he surfaced right next to the boat.  Why?  It was like a snakehead or a tarpon rolling when they gulp air to regulate their swim bladders.  I was certain I spooked him.  Decided to do a trolling run around the River for ten minutes and try again. It was getting that time, the sun was low, the full moon was about to rise.  Nothing for an hour but right at sun set either this fish was doing laps around the boat surfacing or there were multiple fish around me.  I’ve never seen them do this before.  Then a huge surface explosion on the surface right on shore in the flat calm, eerie quite evening.  Something just got eaten.  But why is he not showing interest to my lures.  Then I tried the old standby… I walk the dog Rapala xwalk.  Not quite big enough to be considered a regular musky lure but I’ve caught more musky on that lure than any other.  A fish follows it to the boat.  I go into a figure 8 just as the fish turns around seemingly losing interest but the 8 did the trick… for a second or two.  It followed it again.  Thought for sure it would commit.  No dice.  20 minutes later, no fish.  Okay, time for something else.  Live bait.  Rigged a quick strike rig, 8 inch fallfish and sent it out.  The fish had followed the lure to the boat with the live bait out right in front of him and he ignored it.  But in that magic hour of sunset/moon rise, the fish hit the live bait and took off.  This was one of the better fights I’ve had in a long time.  The fish measured only 36 inches but certainly made up for it in attitude.  Just when you think the fish is lazy, or possibly even injured with its multiple lazy surface swirls, it sure surprised me when it took off pulling drag and boat many times.  Good fun.  5 hours back home on the Potomac out produced world renowned water in Canada.  I always say, never leave the Potomac.

 

I’m not quite done yet.  Monday evening John C was free and we knew the Yellow Breeches was hot with the start of the White fly hatch.  This was the only day of the week where it would work well with our schedules.  I was hesitant to ask the boss and my wife but did it anyway.  Game on.  Didn’t get there till 4 or so.  Saw my first hex at 530pm and caught my first fish at 531.  Proceeded to miss 4 more on a giant hex fly, actually I tried a crane fly, but close enough.  The white flies and spinner hex’s did show in numbers until 730.  Sunset was around 745 maybe, it was completely dark just after 8 but wow was that hatch intense.  Both species of bugs covering the riffle.  Fish were not quite in suicide mode but at the peak of it there were rises ever second.  Multiple rises around your fly is a little disheartening.  Once it got dark the bugs kept coming.  That’s when it gets really tough trying to figure out which rise was for your fly.  Multiple misses, hundreds probably.  But we caught enough I suppose.  Just the sheer excitement of having that many bugs and that many rising fish around you is worth the trip.  But every year we rarely catch that many or any size for whatever reason. 

 

 I pulled these guys off my face, even after peak hatch.

 

 

So I spend a week in Canada chasing muskys on arguably the two top trophy musky waters in the world and get skunked.  But I did get my Cousin into his first two muskys on the new moon/moon rise.  I left discouraged and badly beaten.  I come home and spend 4 hours targeting musky on my home waters of the Potomac and score on Sunday evening.  This fish was taunting me all afternoon but didn't commit until moon rise/sunset, two days shy of the full moon.

 

 

Yea Okay, I'm very fortunate to be able to fish so much.  So yesterday (Monday) after work I headed an hour and a half north into Pa to fish the white fly/ hex hatch on the yellow breeches for trout. The hatch was intense.  The hex's are like flying humming birds and the white flies fill the air to the point where you need to cover your mouth at times.  The trout try to commit suicide too but only for that magic 20 minutes before complete darkness.  But we still managed to land a few well after dark. So in three days I fished for smallmouth first on Saturday with excellent results right next to home.  Every fish in the river was looking up, even in the middle of the day.  On Saturday night take my wife out to a nice meal and a movie date.  On Sunday afternoon I sneak out of the house for musky and catch a fish that has been taunting me all summer.  On Monday late afternoon I fish in Pennsylvania for tiny natural and stocked trout during a blinding mayfly hatch.  Not bad for three days.  Today I won my court case.  4 for 4.