Fishing for Muskie with Murray.

(painting by the author)

The only way it could have been better is if I'd caught it instead of Murray. I sure had my chance. Mountain Lake was glassy clear this morning. Where the pine pollen and mayfly carcasses had thinned out we could see fifteen feet to the bottom. It was like an aquarium. The first muskie materialized in the deep shadow of the drop off drifting slowly upwards toward our glittering, panicked minnows. Iridescent sides marked it a native Kawartha silver muskie. Greenish sides flash in the dawning sun. Not a taker this one, but still a good sign. It sniffed at the bait, then slowly sank from sight. Perhaps we should have stopped trolling and let the doomed bait hang there, but onward to the rock piles, the smallmouth breeding grounds and the feeding range for you know who. Here we found not muskie but a school of slab-sided bass, the size of footballs with big, flat tails stuck on. They nosed about our baits with no genuine interest but that's okay, bass season is still two weeks off and it was exciting enough just to watch as they blended in and out from the shadows of the rocks below. Of course we had to feed the loons again. The mountain Lake loons exact tribute from all who would dip bait. Murray may have started this some years ago when he caught a tiny bass that killed itself on his muskie hook. He never noticed the loon he says, but he tossed the bass right in its path. The loon caught on quickly and came around for another so Murray, now caught up in the game, tossed it a perch and another until the loon had had its fill and from then on the loon has required its share of the bait. Over the years the game has become refined so that now the loons will take the bait right out of your hand. (A cautious friend feeds them from the pail and keeps his fingers well clear of the saw-tooth beaks.) Having settled accounts with Loon we crossed to the South shore where a deep-water shoal lay by the edge of deeper water still. There's this thing about muskies, especially big ones. You can be gazing into the water and a piece of the water will move and turn into a fish. A three and a half foot torpedo will glide by and your perch will flush to the surface or dive to the bottom if the line will let it. This particular torpedo was brown and deep in the sides. Twenty pounds anyway, maybe more, he was there and then he was gone. This time we stayed. We let our baits hang over the dark water at the edge of the deep amber rocks. Soon the shadow returned and morphed into a muskie. Nosing first to one bait then the other. Murray's. mine. Murray's. Then he was gone and I looked up to see Murray's line running smoothly out toward the deep center of the lake. Here's what happens when it's your line running smoothly out to the center of the lake: First you give them time to turn the bait in their mouths. You tighten the line and if it feels at all solid you hit them three times hard. Then the rod bucks and the reel makes this gloriously awful noise as if it's going to wind up tight and burst. This happens again and again as you pull the fish toward you and then drop your rod quick and reel in fast gaining some line and bringing the fish closer to the boat. Time passes as you do this over and over again and the big muskie is worked in, getting tired. Then the line starts to come up from the depth flattening as it gains the surface and this huge shape shatters up with a lashing leap which literally aereates the water around the boat, and then it clears in an angry backward bending arch. The eye when it catches yours has hate in it. There were many more of these moments before the muskie was close enough to fill my camera lens. I missed the big jump, I was too excited to do anything but stare and holler. (missed the shot too) Beside the boat at last and still thrashing and soaking us both, but somehow we get measurements and I get to cut the hook free with Murray's wire cutters. I'd rather try and grab an angry tomcat by the upper lip than do that again, but I got it done and straight away, down he sank to be swallowed by the shadows again. See you next year, monster!