Fall non fly fishing trip

[Poopdeck 0]

I love fishing in spring and I love fishing in fall. Spring for the numbers and fall for the size. Even though the leaves are starting to reek havoc on the jet intake, fall is completely magical. Today I only caught 5 bass with the two biggest coming in at chunky 15 and 16 inchers but the most memorable was a 9” bass that I hooked on a rapala rip n shad. The water is crystal clear so it’s fun to watch the fish come from the deep and inhale the bait. I got the.  bass halfway to the boat when a good size, I’m saying 40” or larger came up and inhaled the bass. The fight was on as the musky did a complete circle around the outside of the boat as I did a circle around the inside of the boat while keeping the line out of the gas motor in the back and the electric motor up front. The fish was pulling drag on my medium lite action SMB rod. I got the fish within about 10’ of the boat when all of a sudden it let go shooting the 9” SMB out of the water and into my head, knocking my hat off. Initially I wasn’t sure what happened since the bass was landed and my jerk bait was still in his mouth. I quick look at the fish and I could see the musky had the bass in his teeth up to his head but did not himself catch a hook in the lip. I was shocked, I could not believe how much that musky wanted the that bass and was not releasing it.  Had I known he wasn’t actually hooked I would have fed him some line until he got the bass all the way in. I just assumed the musky was hooked but he was not. I learned a lesson today so it was a great day. 
 

sorry, no pictures. I don’t take pictures so it’s just a fish story. Perhaps if I landed the musky I would have taken a picture but perhaps not since I don’t take pictures. 

[Mark Knapp 0]

1 hour ago, Poopdeck said:

I love fishing in spring and I love fishing in fall. Spring for the numbers and fall for the size. Even though the leaves are starting to reek havoc on the jet intake, fall is completely magical. Today I only caught 5 bass with the two biggest coming in at chunky 15 and 16 inchers but the most memorable was a 9” bass that I hooked on a rapala rip n shad. The water is crystal clear so it’s fun to watch the fish come from the deep and inhale the bait. I got the.  bass halfway to the boat when a good size, I’m saying 40” or larger came up and inhaled the bass. The fight was on as the musky did a complete circle around the outside of the boat as I did a circle around the inside of the boat while keeping the line out of the gas motor in the back and the electric motor up front. The fish was pulling drag on my medium lite action SMB rod. I got the fish within about 10’ of the boat when all of a sudden it let go shooting the 9” SMB out of the water and into my head, knocking my hat off. Initially I wasn’t sure what happened since the bass was landed and my jerk bait was still in his mouth. I quick look at the fish and I could see the musky had the bass in his teeth up to his head but did not himself catch a hook in the lip. I was shocked, I could not believe how much that musky wanted the that bass and was not releasing it.  Had I known he wasn’t actually hooked I would have fed him some line until he got the bass all the way in. I just assumed the musky was hooked but he was not. I learned a lesson today so it was a great day. 
 

sorry, no pictures. I don’t take pictures so it’s just a fish story. Perhaps if I landed the musky I would have taken a picture but perhaps not since I don’t take pictures. 

Great story, sounds like a lot of fun.

[niveker 0]

15 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

shooting the 9” SMB out of the water and into my head, knocking my hat off

That is a good story, I'll be chuckling about that mental image all day.  

[mikechell 0]

Decades ago, I had a similar situation, except I didn't get as much fight.  I hooked a 3 or 4 inch Bluegill on a 5" Original Rapala.  I was letting it swim back and forth in the clear water when a 20" or so Striper came from under the boat and sucked both the fish and the lure in.  Dummy me, I just started pulling, rather than setting the hook.  The Striper spit out the lure but the Bluegill was no longer on it.

Sounds like yours was a good fight until it decided to prank you!

[skeet3t 0]

Similar story happened to me while fishing a small farm pond in Kentucky. I had hooked a bluegill and was pulling it past a clump of cattails when a bass swam out and grabbed it. Not enough to get hooked but it was something I still remember after 39 years.

[Poopdeck 0]

I had the same thing happen where a large mouth bass came up ate a blue Gill I was reeling in and spit it out. I wasn’t hit with the blue Gill though. I went back the next day with a popper and on the 2nd cast watched the bass come out from the same rock and inhale my popper. 
 

you know the whole I was fighting the musky my buddy was saying, “be ready for the bass to come back at you.” I had no idea what he was talking about. He must have saw the musky wasn’t actually hooked. 

[Mark Knapp 0]

44 minutes ago, Poopdeck said:

I had the same thing happen where a large mouth bass came up ate a blue Gill I was reeling in and spit it out. I wasn’t hit with the blue Gill though. I went back the next day with a popper and on the 2nd cast watched the bass come out from the same rock and inhale my popper. 
 

you know the whole I was fighting the musky my buddy was saying, “be ready for the bass to come back at you.” I had no idea what he was talking about. He must have saw the musky wasn’t actually hooked. 

We catch a lot of ling cod like that on rock fish. One day last year we boated five like that. We call them "cling-ons"

[Steeldrifter 0]

 

Oh come on, you know someone had to do it 😁😉

[vicrider 0]

So many of us have stories of how big fish eat the little fish we catch and often scare the heck out of us. There is a lake out of Isabella MN called Dumbbell Lake. It's named for the two large sections connected with a narrow section, not the people who fish it. Well, I have no idea what the lake is like today since it's been 30 years since I've been up north to fish. This lake was one of the best walleye lakes in an area full of walleye lakes. Not far away was a small off the main trail lake called Wye Lake. Don't know why? The DNR used small Wye Lake to stock with a bunch of musky fingerlings, throwing in different other fish like walleye fry and even salmon and trout to feed musky, The musky shot up to about 25" or so but then kind of bottomed out in this small lake. The DNR then sent in a crew with trap nets and pulled everything they could from the Wye and took it to Dumbbell.

Those musky just took off in that lake. Within a couple of years 15-20 pound fish were common and one of the fun things about them was being on the lake on a quiet evening and suddenly hearing a shreek from someone whose walleye was ripped off the hook by a big musky. Twice a friend and I led musky with quiet persuasion to the net, scooped them up and then dropped them back in where they'd just explode. The lake had not hit the musky fisherman's radar yet (I'm sure it is now) but I had a lot of musky gear and bait from my WI time and could go out and catch 4-6 fish a trip with lots and lots of follows. 

[Poopdeck 0]

I’ve never specifically fished for them and this is only the 2nd musky run in and 4th sighting I’ve had on the river in 30 years of fishing it. There’s a legion of fisherman who do fish exclusively for the musky but it’s a species where most days they don’t even see one which is why they count follows. They actually seem to be doing well on the river, better then the bass population. 
 

Steve, Your right, somebody had to do it. I wish I had a video of it because the water was so clear the entire scene would have been captured. Assuming I had a polarized lens, the sun was at the right angle and the camera was in the right position. Just wait till next time…..I’ll still not take a picture.

[Steeldrifter 0]

6 hours ago, vicrider said:

So many of us have stories of how big fish eat the little fish we catch and often scare the heck out of us.

Yup. It's always a cool thing to see though and just never gets old. My most memorable one was about 10 yrs ago, had a small 6" rainbow take a caddis dry fly, was stripping him in and all the sudden it gained about 4 lbs. A beautiful 20"-22" range brown hit him and had him crossways in his mouth. I yelled for my buddy Todd to come over and tryin net it for me, he got the net within 3ft of the brown and just as he was about to slide the net under it the fish opened it's mouth letting the rainbow go and just slowly slid out of sight. I love when unexpected things like that involving good size fish happens, they give you memories to last a lifetime.

 

2 hours ago, Poopdeck said:

Just wait till next time…..I’ll still not take a picture.

😆

[caloosa bug 0]

Great story! 😆 It’s always The Big One that wows you, then when you try to do everything right and think you’ve won the battle,.. smacks you in the face!