Hey all,
I wanted some opinions on what the biggest hit I've ever gotten was. It was such a weird situation to me that I'm still not sure it was a fish. I'll do my best to describe the conditions and what happened.
I was on a large lake off of GB. I had a Rapala X-Rap Walk tied onto 20lb test braid on a 9" heavy action rod. It was a cloudy morning, I actually had to get off the water at around 8AM and I got back on at about 9AM. There were clouds that had past in the far distance but were throwing lighting bolts so, better safe than sorry. I got a little drizzle but no major rain.
As I worked my way into a nifty little bay I know,. the clouds parted and the sun came out - it was getting hot. Imagine a big circle, O. At one o'clock you have a narrow waterway that's funneling water from a higher lake. There's a good current to it, but it's not a river. At Three or Four O'clock there is a fairly rocky bank, but no huge boulders, just Canadian Shield/forest and immediately pebbles on the shore. At 6 O'clock there is a great weeded area that backs into somewhat of a mini-marsh (gets shallow and weedy really quickly). And lastly at 10/11 O'clock there is another waterway leading out back into a larger lake. In the middle there is a nice deep area - the weeds drop off incredibly quickly, the shore kind of slowly tapers off and then just falls quickly, and the two currents from the waterway meet in the middle. Some lucky bugger has a cottage here... I'm jealous.
This particular body of water is known for it's trophy warm-blooded predators, but from experience, it's a tough lake to fish ... hours, days, months... but the payoff can be glorious (if this is too much of a give away I'll edit it out.. let me know). The reason I bring that up is I've still convinced myself this wasn't a fish, but Pike and Muskie are definitely top contenders on this one.
By the time I got back onto the water and to the spot, it was just getting to midday, and it was getting hot. The clouds parted, the sun was shining and I noted the temperature at about 17-18 degrees, but about 25 maybe more with the sun. I usually use a texas rig on a fat senko worm worked slow as hell and it produces nice bass hits, so using the X-Rap was a little of an experiment.
I was casting just onto the shore and 'walking the dog', working fast, from the shore to the boat (about 30-40ft). This is a surface lure, and about 2ft. from the shore I got an enormous hit. I know it's lore that fishermen's stories are always inflated, but the way this thing took did not remind me of anything I've ever encountered. The was this enormous splash of water (and the water was calm), didn't see fins or anything, just a wall of white probably about 2-3ft high. Imagine throwing a boulder about the size of a basketball into the water from a 20ft cliff.. that's the best I can describe it. I felt this massive tug, and then nothing. Of course I tried to set the hook and it felt like I had snagged on something, but the line was actually moving into the deeper water, fairly slowly, so I reeled up a bit to tighten the line and then it moved back into the shallows, and all of a sudden it was off... no fight at all. It's like nothing happened either, the bait just popped back up to the surface and that was it...
A few notes on why I don't think this was a pike or a Muskie. I know Pike tend to sit in the shallows and 'warm up' on sunny days, but this was shady and under a brush. I've never caught a Muskie before, but I was under the impression they very rarely hit baits on the move and tend to grab them last minute after stalking them a bit (hence the figure 8 ) I've also heard they can be quite aggressive when hooked - this was like a pothead. Whatever it was may not have even been hooked or realized it had eaten something artificial. Lastly, there was no fight at all, but I still couldn't reel it in. It was like a moving snag, but the animal was in control, not me. The whole ordeal lasted about 20 seconds, maybe less.
Any ideas?
