to take a little break for a drink of water and a candy bar and just enjoy the excellent day on the water. After the break, I looked over the area I had fished and decided that the water had been covered really well. If there was a Musky looming, he just wasn’t on the bite. I got ready to move onto another spot when that feeling hit me again about "Knuckle Busters". It was almost a compulsion to try a few more casts. Well, I didn’t HAVE to be anywhere else, so I picked up the rod with the bucktail and fired toward the deep edge of a weed bed. After about 3 cranks on the reel my hard work and compulsion was rewarded with a solid Musky strike. This Musky hit that bucktail aggressively and all I had to do was hold on as he set the hook on himself. The Musky hit about 20 feet from the boat and must have come up from under the bucktail as it passed over him. There was a tenacious thrashing as he went to swim away with his "prey". The water foamed and I held on for all I was worth. Finally, the Musky started to come toward the boat. I had the rod tip high as I reeled in the line trying to keep the line tight. This is usually the moment of truth during a fight when you either loose the fish or you find yourself in the thick of a battle…for me, this time, it was the latter. As the Musky came toward the boat, I got my first look at him. It was a healthy sized fish with nice broad shoulders and I was excited to see him hooked very well. As concerned anglers, we all want to limit the time we fight a Musky in order to keep him from exhaustion and thereby ensure a good release. The problem is trying to find that perfect time when the fish is just tired enough and positioned just right for a good "net job". Being alone in the boat and trying to fight the fish and coordinate a net landing is no easy task as anyone who has done it knows.
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