Pulling a “Hail Mary”

Day two of Takeshi’s fishing trip and we awoke to the sound of rain. It was to be a real wet one and we didn’t care! It rained all day long with only a couple of small breaks in the weather allowing us to remove the hoods from our rain gear. This year I actually had a client ask me if fish bite in the rain! My reply was that they were already wet and didn’t care, so yes they bite in the rain! Today was definitely the proof as they bit all day long once more. Although we had to endure this misery, at least Tak was hooking up regularly on everything he threw. Most of the fish were a little lethargic and seemed like they were locked on the bottom, so tubes were the best choice again. There weren’t as many fish caught as yesterday, but under these conditions, I think he did pretty well. We also left this water and travelled to another lake in the afternoon and lost some valuable bass fishing time. I wanted to see if I could get him a Muskie and he was all for it! He had seen some of the pictures of these fish caught lately and wanted to catch at least one of his own. With this low cloud cover, I knew we would be pressed for time and that we had only a small window to accomplish the task. We trolled for about an hour in different areas without even a single rip. I was just about to tell him to bring in the lines and then it happened. The outside rod fired and the reel began to scream! I yelled, “Fish” and he quickly grabbed the rod as I reeled the other line in to avoid any unnecessary incidents. He couldn’t believe the strength of the fish on this heavy tackle as it continued to scream out more line. I thought he had a giant by the way she was acting and then it went airborne. She must have cleared the water at least 3 feet way behind the boat and in the dim light I thought he might have fouled a sturgeon. Fortunately for us, it was the real deal as we caught a glimpse of this beast alongside the boat. I quickly locked the boga onto the fish and cut out the hooks. No sense chancing an accident, as every one of these toothy creatures is a potential trip to the hospital! As I brought the muskie over the rail and into the boat, Takeshi’s eyes lit up! “Big Fish”, he said! We took a few quick pics and returned her back to the water unharmed. As it was now getting darker, I decided to call it a day and head back to the ramp. He had had another great day and this was the icing on the cake. Along with the 75 or so smallies he caught up to 4.5 pounds, this 45-inch muskie definitely made his day! We had accomplished what we had set out to do and all were satisfied!