This post may put me in some hot water - I am not sure if stealing a mans fish is a major "bro code" or "fisherman's oath" infraction but in my mind this was a story worth telling...
Thanks to my older brother my outdoors life took a wicked upturn in my early 20's. Dave (smart guy) decided that since he had cheap rent and a good job in the city that he was going to invest in lakefront property. He found a sweet little cottage in Haliburton and best of all the lake had a really healthy population of smallmouth and largemouth bass as well as a small population of muskie. It was heaven and I wrote about it here The Cottage
If you have spent any time in my other blog posts you will know that one of my good fishing buddies is Colin. Colin and I have been friends for close to 30 years now and spend a lot of time fishing, golfing and hanging out in the great outdoors. In fact I believe I was the one who introduced Colin to fishing and golfing Colin Post
The final piece of background is that months earlier Colin, Dave and myself were up at the cottage and while casting off the dock Colin had a good sized muskie continually follow his lure but not strike. The muskie seemed to be hanging along the shore near this one large rock.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving, my family decided that we would have our dinner up at the cottage on the Saturday, The next day my parents were on the way home and Colin had arrived for an afternoon of fishing and some pints and cards that night. He has also brought a snow storm.
Dave was fiddling around with something at the cottage and with the snow had decided to skip out on our fish (wimp). So Colin and I headed out with 1 rod set up for bass and 1 rod set up for muskie. With the sudden cold front the bass were being uncooperative and casting was damn cold! I turned to Colin and said "on Musky Hunter guy's are always trolling in this weather and catching huge muskies want to give it a try" Always game Colin said sure, lets give it a go.
We trolled a few shorelines that have historically been really good to us but not a bite. We tried a few passes down the middle of the lake across the basin and still no luck. Teeth now chattering in the cold we decided to troll our way back to the cottage and head in for a break.
Approaching the dock I stopped that boat and said to Colin "you know what, I am going to cast and catch your muskie" "Yeah right" he said, "Good luck with that". I reeled in my Rapala Super Shad Rap (Minnow colour) and turned and flipped a weak, short cast towards the rock, I barely turned the reel when a muskie flashed under the lure and it was fish on! I yelled at Colin that I had a fish and honestly his first response was "no way, you as#%" A short fight later and we had a 30 inch muskie in the net and unhooked. Having no camera with us we called up to the cottage for Dave to come down with a camera. He was also skeptical but eventually our yelling got him to come down. With snow covering me from head to toe I held the fish up and a picture was taken.
Sadly I do not have this picture, for you kids out there you need to remember this is before digital camera's existed and the picture was on a old film camera which my brother has never been able to find much to my chagrin. However I do have a great memory and I can still get a rise out of Colin by saying "Remember when I stole your muskie off the rock?"
Cheers
Andrew