Saga of the mad muskie
By Bob Becker

There’s a muskie with a fat lip swimming around in a remote Northwoods lake these days. It’s fat-lipped because a bucktail bait is hanging from its jaw.

The fish, I’m sure, is mean and it’s ornery. Yet, it should consider itself lucky. It could well be a statistic, you see, an entry on the chart of big fish that Joe Weiss keeps in his cabin on the lake. Fish that he and his partners have caught.

I’d called Joe, one of the calls that we routinely make to each other to check on who can go fishing.

“Hey!” he said, “I’m just ready to head up to the cabin for a couple days. Come on up!”

Well, I didn’t really have two days of fishing in mind at the moment.

“let me check my agenda, “I answered. “I may just take up on that offer.”

And after some heavy juggling of my “excessively-heavy workload,” I threw the toothbrush and fishing rods into the pickup, and headed for the back country of Sawyer Country.

Weiss greeted me as I pulled in. He was in a sweat … literally. He’d just finished cutting the grass. And the day was hot and steamy.

“Make yourself at home,” he said, as he led me in the shade of the tall birches and pines that screen it from both the road and the water.

The place reeks of fishing. All the way from the “Gone Fishing” sign that hangs in the hall to the stuffed muskie over the kitchen door.

“That’s my grandfather’s old muskie rod,” he said, pointing to a well-worn pole hanging on the living room wall. “That’s the old Pflueger Supreme reel he used. And that’s his old trout fishing creel.”

And more.

I wasn’t surprised. For to know Joe Weiss is to know fishing. They don’t come more hard-nosed in the sport than he is.

Down at the dock, two boats were tied. And after lunch break, we climbed into the biggest, his musky boat, and headed out. The weather wouldn’t be the best, sunny and calm. We’d both suffer in the heat and humidity.

We’d fish the rocky bars and submerged weed beds. I’d work on the walleyes, tossing jigs tipped with leeches.

Joe would test the muskies, casting bucktails and jerk baits, positioning the boat with his electric trolling motor.

And another side of the guy’s love for fishing. He makes his own bucktails, baits that he markets around the area under the “MONSTER” lure label. Not often can it be said that a bait is manufactured and field-tested by the man who fishes with the product himself.

I suppose it was an hour before the first fish action … my good fortune. I felt the tap as the walleye picked up my jig, tightened the line, and set the hook. And sortly, the chunky 3-pounder was in the boat.

A half-hour later, a second walleye. Smaller, but a keeper. “Well,” I said to Weiss, “I can say that I caught my limit! We’ll have those two for supper.”

And we did, delicious with au gratin potatoes and a can of sweet corn!

I don’t know about Weiss, but I slept well that night! Try the recipe … lots of fresh air, some exercise, a hefty fish-fry supper, and a cabin the Northwoods where the only sound is your own snoring!

The next morning found us back on the water. We’d try the same approach, Joe throwing bucktails for muskies, I pitching jigs for walleyes.

And from the top of a shallow weedy bar the muskie came … like out of nowhere.

I was busy tying on a new jig, just happening to be looking forward toward the bow of the boat where Joe was heaving on the his baits, when the muskie hit.

The water exploded! Right alongside the boat! Right in Weiss’ face! And three feet of line hung limply from the tip of his rod!

“He hit just as I was lifting my bait out of the water!” Joe exclaimed, a look of surprise and half-shock on his face.

And the muskie? It disappeared as fast as it appeared. Back to its haunts amidst the mud and the rocks and weeds. Back to the territory that it claims as its own.

Except for one thing … a bait that dangled from its lip. And it was mad!

And so was the fisherman.

I have a feeling they’ll meet again.