So we showed up for the white bass run. The story was the white bass ran up out of the lake to spawn up this little creek. The creek was small mostly about waist deep and an easy cast across. Well when we pulled up there was no doubt we were in the right place, it looked like we had drove all the way to the Maumee instead of here in SW Ohio where we actually were. There were cars pulled off everywhere and it was just general mayhem. Just one problem it was the classic case of you should have been here yesterday. A guy when we were rigging up showed us pics on his cell phone of a stringer culled from the two hundred they had caught a few days before. But he had only caught 6 today. Of course. So we began to fish upstream with everyone catching a fish just every now and then though Chris caught seven out of one treetop. Chris, Dan and I came to this pretty little pool a mile or so upstream. I'm on top of this little cliff watching some suckers spawn and Dan catches a quillback out of the hole. I walk up to the next and Chris and I watch as two muskie come swimming right up in the crystal clear water. I cast my grub and when it gets to them it disappears and I set the hook. Into thin air as the muskies leave in a huge swirl of water like someone throwing a brick in the water. Dan is on the other bank on top of the little cliff you see in the photo right next to the tree in the center of the pic. He has an ultralite and six pound test and tiny white bass jig. Which he casts at a muskie as it swims by. Which eats it. He says I got one. I hooked one. The little rod bends into the cork. And Dans on top of the cliff hooked to a muskie on six pound test. Now what do I do he says. Kind of hugging the tree looking down the cliff trying to figure out what to do. There was nothing he could do. The muskie comes off. And swims calmly around the pool. Dan says I'm not sure it even knew it was even on. We stand around a bit watching the clear little creek and somebody says there they are again. And then There's another one! Three muskie in a creek that looks too small for sunfish. Some more fruitless casting and we kind of lose them I wander a few feet downstream and there one is kind of hanging out next to a sycamore. I cast on of Vic's five inch swim grubs in clear with silver past it and bring it close. I see the muskies mouth open and flex and set the hook. The fish surges across the pool. Then leaps. I'm lucky the fish i hooked on the outside of its snout. Lucky because I've got 8lb line and spinning tackle. I was after white bass after all. Lots of craziness followed with me saying oh he's tired now and Dan and Chris making fun of me as the fish took off again. Dan saved my bacon when the muskie ran under a limb. He waded out and pulled up the limb and freed the fish. I'd think it was ready to land only to have it take off again. It ended up being a bit of goat rodeo but finally the fish was landed. Both of us were wore out and it took a bit of cpr but the fish stayed upright with gills working good the whole time. I can see how with their dogged fight to the end how catching a muskie on too light of tackle in the warm water of summer could actually stress one to death. Catching a muskie out of a river or stream has always been a bucket list thing and catching this one out of a tiny creek was simply awesome. I'd actually went earlier today trying to catch a muskie and told a couple guys I ran into that if I didn't catch one long enough I'd evntually luck out and get one, I just wasn't expecting it to be later that same day.
Amazing!
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