Weekend of firsts

[Arkman]

I'm just going to copy and paste my blog post for you all to see. I don't know if I can link to it or not under forum rules.

Let’s start with the obvious. This weekend was an interesting one, which prompted me to get off my butt and write my first blog post. I’ve been working on this for a while. Just never had the motivation to get it working…until now.

When I started planning out my holiday weekend a couple weeks ago it was shaping up to be an epic weekend. As the week before the fourth went by that wasn’t the case. A co-worker had me fix a friends computer, which turned out to be one of the most frustrating computer fixes I’ve done yet. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I had originally planned to head to the cabin and be fishing by 3pm Friday. Well, we didn’t leave our house until after 3pm and by the time we got to the cabin it was storming. I thought for sure that it was going to rain all night. Not a huge deal since the real show wasn’t supposed to happen until Saturday night, but it was disappointing.

We decided to go to dinner and by the time we were done the storm had passed. We hurried back to the cabin and grabbed the boat. When we got to the lake I launched the boat and as my wife drove the truck away I realized one of my rods was gone. It was the very first rod that I built with a brand new reel on it. As I backed up the trailer, in the rush, I hit my boat with the trailer roller. I now have a nice new dent. In addition to the dent I noticed one of my trailer lights was smashed. I know I didn’t do that, but something did. And I wasn’t happy about it. Needless to say fishing that night was less than enjoyable.

After another late night we woke up early to go look for the rod. After an hour of driving really slow and looking in all the ditches I found nothing. Back to bed for me, I was too crabby to talk to anyone.

I’ll fast forward to the good stuff. In my research on how to bag my first Musky, I found a stand up guy that wanted to take me out and show me the ropes. He offered and I didn’t think twice about accepting. The trip was on. Meet at the launch Saturday afternoon and fish until midnight. I was so excited the week before (when I wasn’t mad about the computer problems) I could hardly stand it. I’m sure my wife was more that sick of me talking about it. We got to the launch, had our introductions and headed out. I’m not sure if he knew just how excited I was.

About 20 minutes into the trip I looked down as I reeled the lure and there it was. My first follow. I have no idea where it came from. I think it was actually in front of my lure. I just appeared out of the depths. I said, ”Fish,” started my figure 8 and she turned!!! But as quick as she appeared…she was gone. My guide for the day said he was impressed with how calm I was. I didn’t scream “Fish!”, I didn’t freak out. It was nothing to be impressed by…I was frozen in fear. It all happened so fast I didn’t even know what was going on. Like so many have said before, this sport is like a drug, I was hooked.

Many people think its weird that I go out fishing and diving with people I’ve never actually met. They find me or I find them online and we head out. I don’t think its weird. It’s a good way to find people to do stuff with. An hour or so into the trip my guides phone rang. It was his wife. He hung up and said “I was supposed to text her and tell her you weren’t and ax murderer.” It was funny, I had just texted my wife not long before and told her I wasn’t a lamp yet. We had planned on him texting my wife and asking what color shade I should be. I guess the fishing got the best of us. We forgot, but maybe that was for the best.

That was the only follow we had all night. We moved around the lake to all the secret spots, we switched lures again and again. Nothing. Until right around sunset. We had moved to one of his best producing spots and put on the secret lure. I thought I was ready, boy was I in for a treat. It always seems like my best luck comes when I’m not paying attention. Apparently it was the same for my guide. I think we both we a little less focused that we should have been, which worked to our advantage. In the middle of a sentence, he screamed, “FISH!!!” All I remember is him screaming fish and a couple seconds later saying it was a musky on the line. The next thing I knew the beast was in the net. After a few seconds of us screaming like a little kids, he looked at me and thanked me for a nice net job. There it was. The first musky I’ve ever seen and my first net job.

50 and 3/4 inches!!! That thing was huge! I’ve seen pictures of hundreds of big fish like that but that will never do justice to the feeling of actually seeing one in the flesh. We snapped a few photos and took some measurements. I got to see the real power of these fish during the photo session. That thing kicked his butt. They don’t flop around like anything I’ve ever seen before. So powerful. It was incredible.

It was important to both of us to get that fish in and out of the water ASAP. No way we wanted anything bad to happen to her. He let me do the release. Man, what an experience. Holding that monster until she was ready to go away. I had never experience anything like that fishing before. It was magical to watch her swim away, afraid of nothing. My first release.

We stopped and laughed a little. A few high fives and a couple hand shakes and I turned around to see another boat approaching. I could see a badge on his shirt sleeve. Sure enough, it was the conservation officer. He stopped and talked to us, checked our lights and licences and sent us on our way. Much less exciting, but my first run in with the DNR. Who scares the [PoorWordUsage] out of me. Luckily he was a super nice guy.

I was pumped. I couldn’t believe that had just happened. At that point I was ready to fish for another 24 hours if I needed to. I wanted to see another one. It didn’t take 24 hours, only about another hour. Again, we both were a little less than focused and he had another one on. I think it was just as exciting as the first. We got it in the net. It looked huge. Did the measurements and photos. A solid 44 1/2″. She was a little thicker than the last fish. What a tank.

Two Big fish in one night. No way this gets any better. We were set to fish until about midnight. At least that was the plan. We fished that same spot for a while longer and then headed back to where we raised the first one. Hoping she’d eat this time around. As another hour went by I was getting frustrated. They call these things the fish of 10,000 cast for a reason. I had tried so hard to prepare myself. There was a good chance I wasn’t going to catch a fish that night. The odds were against me. But lets be honest, there isn’t a person in this world that can watch almost 100 inches of musky come into the boat and not get a little disappointed they hadn’t got one.

The minutes felt like seconds. Every cast I knew I was getting closer to my last one of the night. Every cast it was getting harder. My spirits were a little down, every part of my body hurt, my fingers couldn’t move in any shape other than to hold the reel. I was spent. The next few minutes were like something out of a movie. But honest to God, this is the way it happened.

My guide turned to me and said something like “Dude, its 1:30. I think we need to call it a night.” Crank, Crank, Crank. There it was! I yelled, “Fish!” but I don’t think he believed me totally until we heard the headshake. I couldn’t have been more than 10 yards from the boat when she hit. The next who knows how long was a blur. People say that it must have been a big fight. To be honest, I don’t remember. I don’t know anything that really happen until he looked up and screamed, “It’s in the net!” I do remember the split second before that happened looking down and seeing my lure stuck to the side of the net with no fish attached. Talk about panic. Thankfully that panic only lasted a second. She was feisty. It took a few minutes to collect myself and pull her out of the net. If there is anything harder than an 8 hour day of musky fishing, it’s trying to give each other a high five in the pitch black.

I knew it was a nice fish, but I had no idea until I lifted her up. Like I said earlier, I had seen pictures, I had seen a fish in the flesh. None of that prepared me for the feeling of holding that monster.

50 inches! Can you believe it. Almost on the nose. Like I said, it’s like something out of a movie. It couldn’t have been more than a couple cranks after he said we had to pack it in. I don’t even know if he got the words out of his mouth completely. I was so giddy it’s almost embarrassing to show the pictures, almost. I mean, there is a 50″ musky in my hands. I get to be as giddy as I want. There it was. MY FIRST MUSKY!

The release was awesome. Holding that monster until it was ready to go was like nothing I’ve ever done fishing before. Once she was ready, she slowly swam off into the dark. I don’t really remember much else of the night. I couldn’t wait to get back to the cabin to tell my wife and the family. Even though it was 3:30am. They all got to hear the story.

Overall it will probably be the most memorable night fishing I’ll ever have. I learned so much from him in one night. I can’t thank him enough. One hell of a guy. Almost 2 years to the day someone took him out for his first fish. Now he returned the favor. It shows how many good people are out there. I will sure do my best to pass it on. Thanks for the great trip…and thanks for not making me into a lamp…yet.

I realize the title of this blog is Red River Fly and this fish was neither in the Red river nor was it on a fly. But how could I resist posting this? Don’t worry, there is more to come…I promise!

Check out the rest of the photos here.

[muskiemanAD]

Good story and a great first fish to boot!

[mrklean]

great story and awesome fish

[Arkman]

I wanted to point out that my "Guide" for the day was Shoot2Kill (Ryan) from the forum here. He graciously offered to take me out and show me the ropes. And, as you can tell, he did. Maybe a little too good!

Thanks again Ryan. I can't wait for our next outing!

[Shoot2Kill]

I wanted to point out that my "Guide" for the day was Shoot2Kill (Ryan) from the forum here. He graciously offered to take me out and show me the ropes. And, as you can tell, he did. Maybe a little too good!

Thanks again Ryan. I can't wait for our next outing!

Haha, you bet man, it was my pleasure and a ton of fun. That FM Muskies Inc chapter better watch out....I'm afraid I created a monster.

[Shoot2Kill]

I thought these pics of Josh's fish were worth posting....truly a beast of a fish!

Anyone that knows me knows that as long as the fish is safe I take a rediculous amount of pictures. In the end it's all you have!

This was my favorite shot of the night, I love this pic! This was one of those "lean way out over the water praying you don't drop your camera in the lake or fall out of the boat and point the camera at the fish and hope for the best"! No cropping at all, this is how it turned out! Perfect!

Another favorite of mine.....

[RuKiddingMe]

Nice work guys, that is one impressive night on the water.

I gotta get out of the freaking metro!!!!!

[Tragic_Mishap]

Congratulations Arkman...a great story and a great fish, especially for your first.

[TurnUpTheFishing]

Great fish. I love the release photos.

[MichaelSwan]

Sweet story and photos! Great job!

[Musky_Madness]

Congrats Arkman! Looks like you did your homework and perservered!

[cbrooks]

great pictures

[Arkman]

Thanks everyone. It was a great night. I never expected three nice fish like that. I got the bug really bad now.

I'm heading out again tomorrow night with someone I met through shoot2kill. I have every intention of doing better tomorrow night than WE did the other night.

[iceman16]

Congrats! thats a night of muskie fishing youll NEVER forget and a night we all dream about. 145" in muskies is a GREAT night!

iceman

[Scoot]

Great job! Congrats!!!

[RK]

Hiya -

Congrats on a great fish. You'll never forget it. Awesome release shots too. Far and away my favorite type of "fish picture." The grin in that first release shot is priceless...

Cheers,

Rob Kimm

[Zelmsdawg]

Awesome story, thanks for sharing

Zelmsdawg