A Multi Species Kinda Day

Today, I fished with Darren & Max on a local lake for a Multi Species kind of day! The weather looked perfect with a wind out of the SW at 5 to 10 knots and sunny skies. Water temps were around 67 degrees and the air temps climbed to the mid to upper 70’s by days end. We began our day by trolling for Muskie in anticipation of at least one big bite. This was to prove to be the right choice as the reel fired about 90 minutes into the day with a real screamer. I had been marking good fish in the areas being trolled but up until now had no luck in enticing any of them into hitting. Darren was into the first muskie of the day and the battle was on! Fortunately it had hit on the long line and there was plenty of room to play the fish as we cleared the other lines. Eventually I was able to boga grip the fish and bring it aboard for a few quick picks and back she went. It took only a few minutes to revive the fish before she bolted back to the depths and soaked Max in the process. He got a little too close to the water and the fish and received a nice shower from the tail kick. We continued trolling and marking good fish and hoped for one more so that Max could feel the power, but it never happened. I thought we would change it up a bit and get into some action with the bass, so we relocated and began casting spinnerbaits, jerk-baits and tubes for smallies. It didn’t take long before both of them were with bent rods and this lasted pretty much all day long. There were low periods, but when we found fish, they were schooled. Each time we took 10 or so fish from the schools and lost probably more as they just came off. Late in the afternoon, we decided to try one last attempt at getting Max into a muskie and trolled for a couple more hours. Once again, good fish were marking, but nothing was taking! We each grabbed a rod to bring them in and while reeling the lures back to the boat; Max got slammed by a Mack truck! He said that something hit him so hard that he felt like the lure had run into a brick wall. Darren got a quick glimpse of this fish but was unable to determine how big it was and it was gone as fast as it appeared. Somebody more experienced may have been able to bring it back with a figure eight, but it happened too fast for Max to react in time. Close, but no cigar! Back to the bass for the last hour or so before we were to call it a day and apparently the right choice too. Both Max & Darren began hooking up almost immediately and there was another 10 fish or so landed before we packed it up for the day. There was also at least that many lost as well! All in all a great day on the water with 30 to 40 bass landed and who knows how many others lost. The Muskie would have gone 43 inches and pretty close to 25 pounds with a quick estimate. This was the icing on the cake!