On a whim, last year on fathers day I decided I wanted to catch a fish. We have a pontoon boat on a heavily pressure and pretty vegetated lake in the midwest and I always would see anglers out there and decided to give it a try. Walked into the tackle shop by our marina and they set me up with a nice little shimano spinning combo, and handful of lures, and a tub of worms. Sure enough it took about 5 minutes to catch my first fish as a 37 year old man, just a dinky little crappie but still fun. Caught a bunch more little doinks until my worms ran out.
Decided to make fishing my new hobby. When I get into something new, I get deep into understanding as much about it as possible. Bought a bunch of useless crap off of amazon. Slowly added to my collection of equipment, added a slightly beefier spinning combo and then eventually a couple casters. Learned a ton over the summer.
Took a couple days off of work a few weeks ago and had a buddy come to visit. We fished all day for two days straight. Mostly just hitting docks as the boat drifted with the wind. This summer I've caught a lot of panfish, a fair amount of largemouth, and a fair amount of pike, but I mostly just go for bass, and if something else hits it, then so be it.
Right off the bat, my buddy hooks into 2-3 off the dock in the span of ten minutes as I'm getting the boat ready. It was a good omen. The first hour we're just lazily making our way down the shoreline and we're bringing in fish at a good rate. He loves inline spinners and split blade spinners. I'm throwing swim jigs and these little 3 inch soft swimbaits with a little spinner for some flash. I cast at a moored sailboat and the second it hits the water their is a whorling violent eruption and it starts running with my line.
Long story short, it takes the two of us to get it into the net and onto the boat. I have no idea how it didn't break the line or spot my lure as I was running braid. no leader, and a fairly tiny single hook on my swimbait. I'm standing right on the bow and it makes a run under the boat and I thought that was it, but we muscled it in. I'm not sure if I could have netted him and got it in the boat alone.
Anyways, that's the story of how I caught a muskie. He was very unhappy and to be blunt, it was a little intimidating as this was by far the biggest fish I had ever caught. Eventually get the hook out, get a few quick pics, my buddy had the tape measure and said 44-45 inches. He was HEAVY. I didn't know exactly where the scale was and he was already out of the water for too long so no weight.
We caught a bunch more fish that day, we even saw another muskie in clear shallower water later in the afternoon. I was going to post a bunch more tidbits that I learned I'll just leave a few:
- if you land a big fish, step one is to cut the line and get the rod out of the way
- the net and your essential tools should be kept in one spot throughout the day so there's no scrambling to find shit.
- My essential tools that I took everywhere and used most days include scissors, a knife, a lip gripper, handling gloves, hook extractor or surgical hemostats, hook cutter for the deep ones
- I became a strong advocate for snap swivels, but I know this one can be controversial
- Your rod tells you what weight lure its rated for and what line to use. I didn't realize this initially.
- don't be scared about trying a baitcaster. To me, it's way more enjoyable and controllable once you get the hang of it. I learned on a shitty one and struggled. Eventually upgraded to a dc curado and it's idiot proof after learning on the cheaper one first.
- As far as baitcasters go, to me it's was more enjoyable to get a left handed retrieve (if you're a righty), but this obviously comes down to personal preference. I'm casting a covering a lot of water, it does get tiresome to cast and then switch the rod to your left hand 500 times a day.
That's all I've got for now, thanks for reading. I am thoroughly addicted now after this summer… the only downside is that my golf game has suffered due to fishing more on my days off 🙂
Posted by AhhhBROTHERS