I made it out this morning with my beautiful wife to do some wading around on the St. Croix for muskies and smallmouth. The smallmouth were active on topwater early in the morning. I got two real early on muskie baits. The first one slipped out my hand just before the picture, and the second one the lighting is bad. They were both about 15-17 inch and very healthy. My wife landed this little smallie on a shallow running shad rap she was straight retrieving. She couldnt’ keep the drums from that bait either. Hard to believe a fish with no teeth will attack a big shad rap but they do. I was fishing straight retrieve topwater (so my wife could fish it with ease) and we couldn’t get anything to come up (other than the smallmouth.) So I switched to Dancing Raider and the walk the dog action was the ticket. I had two aggresive hits from smaller muskies that missed. One came completely out of the water. And then I got a big girl to follow it all the way to my feet only to turn at the last second. Three casts later, she just crunched my Raider and we connected. After a few cuts and scrapes from the toothy critter, we got this nice picture thanks to my loverly lady!
Not much more attractive than seeing your wife in Gore-Tex waders chuckin muskie baits at 6:00 in the morning.
The muskies seem to be active if you can find the pattern they are looking for on a particular day. With the stable temps and weather the last week, it should only get better. Good luck out there and let em go!
June 25, 2005 at 5:45 pm
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