2.08.2011

They Just Keep on Comin'

At times it can seem almost unfair, at least when you find yourself right smack dab in the middle of days like this. Brandon won the biggest northern prize of the day with that brute up top. And Matt, who had lost a nice one earlier in the morning on account of, um, well, let's just call it "an equipment malfunction", landed his first tip up northern this year...
I had hooked into the first fish of the day with this handsome fella.
I was just about to knock off for the day just a little earlier than everyone else, so I made my rounds one last time and checked my tip ups, just to make sure everything was still all good. Not two minutes after I had reset my second tip up, and literally right under my feet,( as we were standing right over the hole), I had a flag up, and I had hooked up with a right stubborn monster. A minute into the fight, and it finally showed itself at the hole, a muskie! At that point, my hands were already trembling, half cold, half full of adrenaline, and then seeing what was on the other end, that only made it worse. Now my tip up was rigged downright ghetto, with some old 20 lb. braided line and a small pimple with a smaller stinger, no leader, no nice thick vinyl tip up line. That fish came up a couple of times, dipped back out of sight and finally, just parked his head right up under the edge of the hole and wouldn't budge, and then he made a break for it ripping line from the spool at an alarming rate. All I could really do was hope that my line didn't get hung up on the underside of the hole, try to keep it tight, and tire 'em out. And, thankfully, in the end, that is exactly how it all played out. Brandon braved the frigid water and scooped 'em up, bare hands and all, and that right there, is the very first muskie that any of the three of us had ever seen come through the ice.

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