Not to make this post into an ode’ to Bob, but what the hell he is an OK guy so here it goes.
We were a year or two out high school and Bob had bought himself a boat, the ‘Loomacraft’. He had been putzin around on Forest with his uncle for skis, had one rod, about 6 baits, and the bug for muskies like you wouldn’t believe.
Me being a bass guy at the time, I decided to take him up on an offer of a hot humid Saturday morning in August on Forest Lake tossing for skis. Well I show up with the heaviest gear I own, a 7 foot medium heavy Lightning Rod, that up to this point had only been used to pull greenies through the pads. So me, a 25LB Courtland Blackspot spooled toad tugger, a borrowed pair of Babe Winkleman polarized old fart goggles, and Bowman set out. My bait of choice, not to ruin the motif, was a white Bass Pro Shops buzzbait, and of course… no leader.
Bob hucked, I tossed, Bob hucked, I tossed, over and over again. At one point I believe I commented on how if we were actually bass fishing, we probably would have caught something by now. Despite my jest we continued, and wound up in the middle of the giant reed bed on the north end of First, and when I say middle, I mean we were IN the weed bed. Made me feel kind of at home, so I engaged ninja mode and started winging my non-trebled bass bubbler deep into the pockets of the reed forest, then… it happened. A huge swirl on my bait, it was like it fell into a black hole as my line started sing as it traversed the small opening we had gotten the boat nosed into. Bobby asked, “WHAT DO YOU GOT?”. Between grunts all I could get out was “DUNNO, BUT IT IS BIG!”. The battle, what would prove to be the first taste of muskie addiction, lasted perhaps 45 seconds, as I horsed the fish like a toddler rippin chips with a snoopy pole. Then I saw her, 38″ of barred beauty, the token of my new desire. Bobby came in like a falcon and made a brilliant gill plate grab and hoisted her in. As I calmed my shakey legs for the photo, and stared up at the fish in my hands, it was then that I knew that no other fish would compare.
In true underage style we celebrated the catch with an ice cold Busch Light returnable, basking in the hot mid morning swelter I swore that “it just doesn’t get any better than this”. Bobby gave me the picture from that morning in a frame, which still hangs today among the many fish that came to follow, MY FIRST>}}}}}}})”>