Big one boatside!

[redbandit]

I had the whole lake to myself at about 10:00 pm on Wed night. The water was like glass, not a breeze or even a ripple on the water. After previously fishing some shallow coontail till sunset I moved down to a narrows. With just the glow of the bow lights and my headlamp illuminating the water the corner of my eye caught something. All I could make out was an outline of something wide and long just inches below the surface. Finally the green side of the bow lights lit up the full length of this musky as it slowly made it's way along the full length of my boat 3 ft off the side. With inexperience and awe I froze, second guesing myself being able to land this thing on my own. I've been fishing for these things since August with two boched net jobs for myself (1 under 40" and one over 40") and landing my budies 40". The fish on Wed. night pushed over 50" judging by it's length compared to my 14' boat. This was my first "swim by" catching me off gaurd. I assume it was a follow or maybe it was just attracted to the boat lights. Nevertheless, upon freezing up I failed to aggresively pursue her (figure 8/0) until she swam away.

With not wanting to miss out on a good thing again, has anybody else had a fish lumber by directly in front of them, and what would be some good techniques?

Good Fishing!

[bronzeback]

I've never been able to attract a fish that's cruising by me.

I've had it happen 4 or 5 times on the Mississippi and they are just never interested. I did see a fish cruise by me once into the back of a dam generator. I casted in on him twice and he followed out, but I assume he cruised back there chasing bait and I didn't turn him on his initial pass so that's a different situation. That follow was probably the best follow I've ever had. The fish came out of the back of this generator area and he flew out of the shadow cast by this thing and the light and the water were perfect and i could see every detail of the fish. Looked like she had been caught recently but was in good shape. Great color. Upper 40's fish could've knicked the 50 mark. Absolutely great.

[b1gf1sh1]

Quote:

has anybody else had a fish lumber by directly in front of them, and what would be some good techniques?

many times over the years. back when i did figure 8's i'd do a figure 8. now i just wait a second or two, grab my pre-rigged second line with a tube/twisty or eel and toss it in about ten feet off to the side from where i saw it last, or the way it was going at least, and finnese it. i have ok success i guess. if i don't get a hook up, i mark the spot and try it at another time or.... however many times it takes to get that 50+. tell you something redbandit, untill you feel a 50+ on the other end you never really ''get'' how much these fish can really pull. when they jump they absolutely control ''you'' and not the other way around. just the feeling is completely different. it's a much slower more powerfull head shake than a smaller one. it's a whole new experience and i hope you get to feel it. good luck.

[JRedig]

Hugobox and I had 4-5 fish this weekend that we saw swimming with their heads out of the water. We converted all of them into follows and had a couple take swipes at baits(where we proceeded to miss the hook up), i've never had any luck doing that before and haven't ever heard of it. Usually you always hear about people seeing them and not being able to do anything, we were surprised to say the least!

[b1gf1sh1]

Quote:

Hugobox and I had 4-5 fish this weekend that we saw swimming with their heads out of the water

aint that something? what are those crazy fish doing? i don't ever remember seeing that on a river. it's been bugging me why they do it. but it happens in the fall, at least thats when i've seen it. not really on the scale your talking about though. one here this year or maybe two that year, maybe none. 4-5 in a day? wow. of course i almost never fish lakes anymore...

i always figured it might have something to do with the turn-over for some reason. or maybe they are looking for migrating mice lol. who knows for sure. but it's cool when they come at your boat like a torpedo and turn a few feet off and splash under. never had any luck myself getting any interest from them and this is the first i've heard of anyone else having it.

or maybe this is a stocked fish thing. like maybe in the rearing pond they would search the surface for floating food when they were hungry. and they are having a hard time finding food so they revert back in time to the pond. can you tell it bugs me? lol.

[copterjohn]

I saw a 30" pike doing that the other day and was actually able to troll up along it with the electric and grab it behind the head. It was totally fine and swam away when tossed back in. Totally weird.

[redbandit]

Maybe it's something to do with the cooling temps before turnover or like b1gf1sh1 said, a forage opportunity. I'd sure like to know what their looking for. Maybe it's low flying birds and we should start throwing bird lures.

[bronzeback]

haha I would like to think the bird theory was true. flying lures would be wild.

But I dont know if it has anything to do with the cooler temps or turnover, I saw it happen a lot earlier in the summer when water temps were mild and stable.