Musky or Bust

Driving through a snowstorm at 2am on October 4th my esteemed fishing partner and I had high hopes for catching Musky on the fly.  Despite many attempts the two of us have not had the best luck Musky fishing.  Before this trip I had only caught one, while I was smallmouth fishing, and it was about the same size as a smallmouth.

  Mr. Ded Fish aka Chub timer had never caught a musky, after years of trying.  We each have had our missed opportunities, we have each brought a friend musky fishing for the first time and watched our so called friends reel in multiple muskies in the same day while getting skunked ourselves.

 This time felt different, we felt we had a solid chance, but after "sleeping" in the car for 3 hours followed by 2 days of camping in wind/rain/snow and no fucking fish our hopes were running a little low.  If I've learned anything from reading about musky fishing (other than apparently I suck at it) it is  you have to keep the faith. 

On our final day we had about 4 miles of river to cover before our take out.  Our plan was to fish every corner of the 4 mile stretch, and strip set everything and anything that moved.  This day was different than the previous two, the sun was out, and not quite as windy.

Mr. ded fish has a well documented problem for losing fishing gear, and while casting I noticed a strange stick floating in the water past the boat, that upon further inspection had a reel attached to it, fortunately we recovered the rod.   I took it as a good luck sign.  

Casting to the mouth of a small creek I felt a bump, strip set and wound up with this guy, not a monster by any means, but my best musky to date.

 About an hour later ded fish got his as we were cruising in the current past a small point.  

 Both fish were landed in the last 2 miles of our float. 

How your fingers look after 3 days of stripping musky flies

The heroes of our trip