Close Encounters of the Muskie Kind

Date: May 20, 2007
Location: P. Trizzy
Air Temp: 40s - 60s
Water temp: ?
Hatches:
Fish landed: 1 24"(or so)Northern Pike(Tim), Assorted Bass, Crappies, and Bluegills

Present members of the Fly Anglers Guild :|: Upper Midwest Chapter, for this outing were:

QuickDraw
Tim

Well the day started out on the cold side, which is natural for outings with Tim and I to P. Trizzy. Today we were hunting the big boys of P. Trizzy, El Chupacabra and Pygmy SkunkApe be damned. We were out for a nautical adventure sipping on PBR and Bacardi Cokes in the morning while halfway around the world the Legendary Cutty Sark was engulfed in flames. By the time we were underway there was a mist coming off of the water, it was damym cold this morning, did I mention it was cold(and windy)?

well tim quickly picked up a decent Northern on a large black and redheaded streamer, it was sweet! Shortly after that I decided that it was time to bust out the heavy tackle, Tim then gave me a Quick lesson in Double Haul Casting which I think I actually understood, It's a must when casting my 8 weight in wind. Then We started to hit the top water flys, I was using a green "Joom Diver" and tim had a white and red, mouse like poper thingie, we were fishing basically in about 5' of water, casting up to shore. Suddenly Tim was like "OMG OMG OMG" when I looked over I saw a Large freshwater Croc folowing his poper, then the fish opened his mouth and took a grab at the tail. pretty insane, the fish quickly lost interest though and creeped out of sight into the deep. After that Tim needed to sit down a bit as he was shaking and nervous from the near miss. The PBR helped to calm his nerves.

We spent the next few hours trying to figure out what was going to work. We tried some of the usual good spots, drifting across the J-hole, the point, weed Island, then we tried the shallows in the cove behind the point. When we spotted a monster(est size around 35") in about 1' of water just chilling. I threw a clouser next to him and he was off like a prom dress.

well all in all not a bad day,

A)We were able to get the boat started
B)We actually caught fish
C)Tim Caught his first Pike on the fly
D)I learned to Double haul
E)PBR and Bacardi was consumed
F)Monsters were sighted and tempted