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- Apr 5, 2011
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From about 1970 to 1978 we took our summer vacations at Pine Ridge Resort on Big Sissabagama Lake at Stone Lake, Wisconsin. The resort was owned by my good friend and pheasant-hunting buddy Les Saumweber. I had read a lot about musky fishing but had never fished for them until Les invited us up from Warrenville, IL for a weekend.
I managed to catch a small musky that first trip and was hooked for life. More important, my son, John, who was about 4 at the time, decided that catching muskies was going to be his life's quest.
Timing and location were convenient. I did a one day seminar at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire each summer so I would take the family to Pine Ridge, drive down to Eau Claire for the day, and back to Pine Ridge for the rest of the week.
The following year I managed to catch a "keeper" (over 30"). John insisted on having his picture taken with that fish, which you'll see on page 64. In those days catch and release was a concept of the future. We steaked, broiled and ate that fish. Yum!
John's every waking minute was spent trying to catch a musky from the shore and the dock with his Zebco 404 outfit and a Mepps #5 spinner. About dusk one evening on that trip the love of my life, our three teenaged girls and I were in the lodge visiting with Les and his family when an uproar on the porch got our attention. There was John with about a 15-18" musky dangling from the end of his rod. He was in little boy heaven. The photos of that event are lost, but the glow on his face is permanently imprinted in my memories.
It broke my heart to require that fish to be released. John didn't understand at all and pouted for three days. In those days of 30" minimum keeper sizes and most people keeping their fish, "Big Sis" as we called the lake didn't have many muskies that would be considered respectable these days, but even 20-29" muskies put up a fine scrap on light tackle.
After that John fished from a boat with me and "graduated" to a Zebco 888 and a stouter rod. Every year we would boat a few small muskies and I occasionally caught a keeper(the keeper limit was one per day) but the keepers continued to elude John. He didn't waver. He tossed his Mepps and a 18S Rapala thousands of times every day, and every evening he would vow that "Tomorrow I am going to catch a big one."
Then in 1978 when John was 12 we went to a rock bar where we had caught a few small ones and some very respectable walleyes. It was a typically gorgeous northern Wisconsin late June day. There was very little traffic on the lake, it was about 70 degrees and the breeze was light. John was fishing with his 18S Rapala. I was tossing a #3 Mepps in hopes of finding a nice walleye or two for dinner.
Suddenly two things happened at once. The rudimentary drag on John's Zebco 888 squawked and a very nice musky jumped a good 2 feet out of the water right beside the boat, twisting and throwing glittering drops of water in every direction, its mouth was wide open and displayed a big, 18S Rapala. John grunted as his rod doubled over and the drag made sounds like dragging your fingernails on a blackboard. The fish ran out about 20 feet of line and jumped again, spinning like a top and sending showers of diamonds into the air.
After about five minutes (it seemed more like five hours) and numerous jumps and short runs the tiring fish was alongside and I slipped the net over its head (it wouldn't fit in all the way). As I started to lift it into the boat the Rapala flew into the air, but the fish was caught. John seemed remarkably calm. "I knew I would get one sooner or later", he remarked. That was the best fish of the trip, and the best for us in the 1970s. About 40", it was one of the top muskies from Big Sis that year.
Twenty eight years later in 2006 John and I spent a week on Lake Of The Woods, where we had been fishing a week or so each summer since the early 90s. Many muskies had visited our boats over those years and 40" seemed to be the standard to meet or beat. John boated six respectable muskies that week, including a 44" and a 45" beauty. Now it is a fifty incher that he seeks, and I don't think he will give up until he has one in his resume. Musky fishing can do that to you.