Speaking of muskies … check out this happy angler!
OK, long story short.
Last week I sent a note to guide Matt Miles asking for permission to use a picture with my teaser post on the Orvis muskie seminar.
He said sure. Well, next thing I know I get a message from my long-lost fishing buddy, Kevin Meeks. He and I bummed around together quite a bit about 10 years ago before he moved to Lynchburg. We’re still in touch but probably hadn’t fished together in at least eight years.
Anyway, it turns out Kevin and Matt are buddies.
“We ought to get together and fish,” Kevin wrote.
“That would be great,” I replied.
Well, we didn’t waste time making it happen.
This is my first muskie. I’ve never actively fished for them. Actually, I did one day at Hungry Mother Lake and got skunked. And I’ve never hooked one by accident when smallmouth fishing.
Kevin urged me to have “low expectations.” That’s pretty good advice for muskie fishing. One of their other buddies has been on eight trips in a row this winter without a fish. We got one customer during our long float on the James. This was it. Forty inches and fat. Matt specializes in fly fishing.I did some fly casting but had to bail for conventional tackle thanks to a gimpy elbow. This thing hit a swimbait.
I have heard that catching one of these can ruin a person. I can see this. On the way home I stopped and spent $70 on muskie gear!
More details later.
March 5, 2013 - 8:33 AM
Mark,
I believe you & I met at a VOWA meeting a few years ago,.. (you replaced Bill Cochran, right?) I golf with Kevin @ Ivy Hill (if it’s the same Kevin) but please e-mail me back. I have a Musky hole for you guys!!
Roy
Nice fish MT. And to think, people swim in that same water with a 40 inch fish with a set of coppers like that…Yikes
Nice Muskie!!!
Mark:
Congratulations!!! Wow, what a beautiful specimen. I was not aware that muskies were prevelant in the James. I was more familiar with them being in the New. Do you mind sharing what stretch of the James you fished?
Glen
Roy – No one could “replace” Bill Cochran! But I did follow him at The Roanoke Times. I will send you that email!
Funny about the swimming, Brent. I was swimming in the Cowpasture a couple years ago and swam up on two muskies. They weren’t this big, though. 10 pounders maybe.
Glen, I am more than happy to share. It was below Eagle Rock and above Lynchburg. Ha, ha! Seriously, it doesn’t really matter. There are muskies in the whole upper river above Lynchburg. There are more muskies in the New, however.
Beautiful Musky Mark ! Congratulations!!!
Mark, on second thought, I will be happy to “Show” you that Musky hole,.. I might want to throw a couple of my muskie plugs also!!
Well done, Mark, I knew you had it in ya! You have joined a select club with that fish. More importantly, it wasn’t luck, you were after them. No shame in catching them on conventional tackle, either. Few have the strength, technique, and stamina to successfully catch them on the fly. Get after them often enough and you’ll find them in the same lies, year after year. While that isn’t always enough to ensure success, it certainly can up the odds.
Again, congratulations!
great fish Mark, I hope to catch a musky someday
Thanks, Perch! Kevin threw that huge-a** fly on that heavy shooting head ALL DAY LONG. And threw it well. Better man than I. I am sore today from throwing that swimbait!
Sounds like a fair offer, Roy! You know how to get me. Drop me an email and let’s do it.
Very nice fish mark. Hope to get out and do some muskie fishing soon myself.
Beautiful fish Mark and welcome to the brotherhood! Muskie fishing is an addiction like no other in my opinion. My question is, how did you manage to only drop $70 on muskie plugs? I can’t seem to keep from spending a couple hundred bucks at a time on muskie gear.
Thanks, Greenwave, Drew, Coondog and the others.
Funny, Coondog, on my spending “only” $70. For that I got exactly one, yes, one lure — the one I caught the fish on. As a bonus I realized when I got home that I still had the swimbait Matt let me use! Score! (I plan to give it back. Maybe.)
I also got a spool of heavy fluorocarbon for leaders, some high-dollar swivels and, I’m thinking here, oh, some giant saltwater jig heads (Owner hooks). So, a very, very, very small haul!
As for the addiction, I have had this feeling of inferiority when I think about my dad and brother and their steelhead addiction. I think I found something that competes!
Just curious, Mark. Did your fish clear water? We had a 42″er last spring that jumped three times, twice completely clear of water and the third time all but the tail, and the fish was never farther than twenty feet from the boat. My all time favorite musky fight, bar none, and I can still see that toothy mother hanging in the chilly mist….better than TV! Great picture, but landing that fish was an anticlimax. Now that I’ve moved away, I should send you my musky lures, but someone reminded me that cobia would hit them as well, so I guess you’re outta luck. I could have saved you hundreds.
Mark… Wow. What a nice fish and great picture. Would that be a Tiger Muskie? Did it give you a good fight? I see that the Angler Recognition has an award for a 40 inch Muskie… Congrats. How much do you think it would have weighed? That is just cool… like getting a 12 point buck or 300 pound bear! You should get a replica done… would be mighty impressive beast on the wall.
yeah mark why don’t you tell everybody where you caught your “first” muskie. I can look at the photo and tell you the exact long. & lat..
Perch, the fish didn’t jump. Just a serious of short-but-strong runs. Matt was saying his experience is that they jump more frequently in warmer water. The water was 40ish. Pretty chilly. I was a wreck as it was. If it had jumped I’m not sure what I would have done.
Thanks, Va char. I hadn’t even thought about a citation. I am not a citation guy. Mainly because I rarely catch big fish! I’m sure my wife would LOVE the idea of a replica! Ha, ha!
s.h., I did tell everybody: The James River. I even gave Glen more details: between Lynchburg and Eagle Rock. I don’t tell exact holes for anything. You know that! (I also know you are just messing with me.) As a muskie angler you know that those fish are in every decent muskie hole. To echo something Perch wrote, if someone wants to go put in the time to catch one (or not) good for them! You know the deal, right!
VA char:That’s not a tiger musky, which is a cross between a musky and a northern pike. I caught a musky once that I was certain was a tiger, never saw one like that before or since, big stripes. Not satisfied with my opinion, I went to a musky site on-line and was able to key it using fin structure, etc. Turned out to be a regular musky, just a different looking one. Mark’s, however, looks to me to be a typical musky, and a good one, at that.
Congratulations on your fish Mark!! Actually targeting musky is completely different than catching them while smallmouth fishing, so you should be proud of your catch evenmore. For years, I considered them a trash fish…simply an annoyance. Every spring, my clients and I would catch them at will on the New, on jigs and tubes mostly(sometimes jerks, cranks, spinners, buzz,etc), in March an early-April. We have literally caught hundreds, and big fish too. Early last year I begun targeting them on both the fly and conventional gear. I am not a fly fishing purist by any means nor claim to even be in the ball park with the Alex Scott’s or Mark Agner’s who are the REAL LEGENDS btw, and who I respect greatly. But I have put my time in over the years guiding, know where the muskies lie, and I have fished for them daily since the start of the year before recently shifting back to smallmouth to get ready for our season. All I can tell you is that you have to stay at it long enough to have “The Day.” Once that happens, you will be forever hooked. Those that are serious about it know what I mean. It could be ONE special fish that equals “The Day,” or it could be crazy numbers of “Big Fish.” And the only way to experience “The Day” is to be ON FISH when it happens. We got one of those days recently, ALL DAY LONG……I am fishing for the next, and hope you and anyone else that pursues these fish gets that opportunity b/c it will change you. I read one time that when you fish for musky, you will find yourself searching for something far greater than the fish. I have to concur with that b/c if it were left up to the fish, you’d be severely disappointed………
Thanks for checking in, Britt! You didn’t have to tell me that you’ve lightened up a bit on you muskie attitude — I figured it out from monitoring your website!
Love that video of the fly rod 43-incher. Folks, check it out here: http://thelifeoutdoors.com/in-one-minute-43in-musky-on-the-fly-blog-7/
It can be hard to love muskies when they’re stealing $20 jerkbaits meant for smallmouth. Great sport when you target them. Britt’s put in the time and effort, that’s for sure.