Our Thursday and Friday Musky Trip

[Whopper Stopper]

Had a great time fishing Mille Lacs on Thursday and Friday. Thursday was a little windy with our boat doing some good rocking and bobbing. I hooked into my first Musky about 6:21 AM, it was a nice 44" that tried hard to give my wife and sister-in-law a show worth paying for. After about a 3-5 minute fight and a quick picture we were back to fishing by 6:35. About 9 am I hooked into my next one which turned out to be a beautiful 42" that gave us all a good rush and offered us a chance to snap a couple of pictures before watching her slip back to the sea. We stopped fishing about 11 and headed back to the Red Door for some lunch and a nap. The weather got a little too rough for us on Thursday night, so we took a ride into Brainerd for a pizza and a look around at Reeds. Friday AM we were back on the lake at day break and I started out with a musky hammering my bait and giving me a 2 min. fight before spitting the hook and leaving me talking to anyone who cared to listen. I had about 4 other strikes that either missed my bait or were on for just a couple of minutes before getting off. About mid morning, my sister-in-law hooked into a dandy 41.5 inch that once again had us all pumped and excited. Again another couple of pictures followed by a quick release and the fish was good to go. We headed in for a while and returned again for fishing at about 4 in the afternoon and with the winds calming down we had a beautiful afternoon and evening of fishing. We all had several follows and again I had a couple of hits but always some dang thing happened to screw me up. For example, I was using a Suick and just as it was coming in a Ranger boat came up behind us. For whatever reason I turned around and looked at it (as if I would have known them anyway!) and when I turned back to my Suick a big old hog was mouthing my bait and when I went to set the hook she just swam off. Another time, I had a small over run and when I was plucking away at the line, a Musky took a shot at my Suick that was just laying on the surface with 20 extra feet of slack line out. It is actually funny the things that can escape out of your mouth when something like that happens. Just before dark, I was pulling in my Suick when a monster nailed it. I set the hook and it peeled the line out from my drag without any problem. The wake from that hog was unlike any I had witnessed thus far and unfortunately after probably 30 seconds she came off. I can now see why people use 100 + pound leaders when fishing on Mille Lacs. By days end we had a bunch of follows and a numerous sightings and without question a fantastic day on the water. Saturday we were again out at first light and for the first hour or so all was pretty quiet. Some time around 8, we started spotting fish laying in 2-3 feet of water. For the next couple of hours we looked at well over 70 fish, sometimes 4 at a time laying together uninterested in anything we tried or offered. The sky was clear without a cloud and from the looks of it the only thing the fish were interested in was hanging out and not being bothered by us. What an experience for us to see! We headed for home about 11 AM, laughing, reminiscing and already are making plans of a return very soon.

WS

[eyes54]

Sounds like you had some great luck. Were you on the noth end the whole time. Just courious because I have been having most of my luck in viland bay this year. My other question is what is a suick I am kind of new to this whole musky thing. Thanks for all the great info.

[Stratosman]

The suick is one of the classic baits of all time...a flat style jerk bait with a metal fin on the rear for adjustment. Been around for decades.