Well the season has finally opened so my wife is upset again with me! Just kidding but it has been nice to finally get out. The Ottawa River opens this week so I should be able to get out there on Saturday for a few hours anyways.
I have managed to hit the Madawaska by Arnprior 3 times now in the short season.
I went out for the opener on the Mad with two friends and participated in the Ottawa Valley Muskie Club Ice Breaker Muskie Tournament. We had two solid hit but nothing to show for it. We spent the day trolling bucktails, cranks, and casting shallow weedy flats, but again to no avail. The winning fish for the day was a nice 47” musky. I think between the 38 people taking part there were about 15 fish caught, which wasn’t too bad for an opener, in my opinion.
The real celebration came while having a beer with everyone after the tournament; there was a draw for over $1,000 worth of musky gear and one of my friends who was fishing with me took the lot! Pretty sweet that one of us won it, and as a thank you he gave me an Okuma rod and reel, so that was awesome of him.
On June 11th I took out another friend and we managed to have 2 follows early in the day while casting. One followed a Bobbie Bait to the boat but would not hit. Later on while I was casting a Jake I had a nice musky follow to the boat and chase the lure for about 2 minutes! She just wanted to play with it and not actually eat it. I think I saw her turn and dart at it about 4 or 5 times before she left for good.
I tested out trolling with a musky bait being dragged behind my new mast planer board system and it seemed to work quite well. It was windy so the board was jumping all around but it held the line tight until this pike grabbed Adam's bait and popped the line out of the clip as was planned. I think I may experiment with the boards more when I have more people in the boat and the wind isn’t blowing too hard.
I have managed to hit the Madawaska by Arnprior 3 times now in the short season.
I went out for the opener on the Mad with two friends and participated in the Ottawa Valley Muskie Club Ice Breaker Muskie Tournament. We had two solid hit but nothing to show for it. We spent the day trolling bucktails, cranks, and casting shallow weedy flats, but again to no avail. The winning fish for the day was a nice 47” musky. I think between the 38 people taking part there were about 15 fish caught, which wasn’t too bad for an opener, in my opinion.
The real celebration came while having a beer with everyone after the tournament; there was a draw for over $1,000 worth of musky gear and one of my friends who was fishing with me took the lot! Pretty sweet that one of us won it, and as a thank you he gave me an Okuma rod and reel, so that was awesome of him.
On June 11th I took out another friend and we managed to have 2 follows early in the day while casting. One followed a Bobbie Bait to the boat but would not hit. Later on while I was casting a Jake I had a nice musky follow to the boat and chase the lure for about 2 minutes! She just wanted to play with it and not actually eat it. I think I saw her turn and dart at it about 4 or 5 times before she left for good.
I tested out trolling with a musky bait being dragged behind my new mast planer board system and it seemed to work quite well. It was windy so the board was jumping all around but it held the line tight until this pike grabbed Adam's bait and popped the line out of the clip as was planned. I think I may experiment with the boards more when I have more people in the boat and the wind isn’t blowing too hard.
That wasn’t the only excitement as just before 3pm while trolling a river rat spinner just off of a shoreline in about 8 feet of water we had a nice 40” musky slam Adam's line. She pulled drag hard, even with it set pretty tight! We got her to the boat, snapped a couple quick pics, and off she swam; the first musky in the new boat
Stay tuned as the Ottawa opens this week so I am sure the fishing websites will get busy.