Spent Memorial Day on Lake Wisconsin with my good buddy Kevin Sime (Whiskerkev). Started the morning pulling planer boards. Our first fish of the day was a nice crappie. We weren’t picking up any fish other than the crappie so changed locations. First pass through and we picked up a double. A 27″ walleye and a 24″ walleye.
After a couple more passes, we hooked up with a big fish that immediately took the board in the opposite direction. After about 5 minutes, the fish started making runs sideways behind the boat and we knew it wasn’t a walleye. Our money was on big pike and we were spot on. After about a 10 minute battle, we were able to squeeze a nice 37″ pike into the small walleye net. The fish had a phenomenal girth on it as it was obviously eating more than blue and white flicker shads. The fish was the fattest pike I have seen to this day and easily topped 20 pounds. He weighed more than my scale could handle.
After getting all the boards set back out, we didn’t go another 20 minutes and the same scenario happened. Picked up a fish and the board headed the other direction. The fish came toward the boat surprisingly easy. I got the board off the line and the fish popped to the surface out behind the boat. The red dorsal and tail showed us we had a rather sizable musky on the end of the line. She swam up along the boat and just swam along with us about 30 feet of the side of the boat. We looked at her, she looked at us, and we all formulated our battle plans. From that point on, it was get her near the boat, listen to her rip drag, repeat. After about 6 runs, she was starting to wear down. I could see she had the flicker shad nicely set in the tip of her snout with both treble hooks nicely hooked up. After a failed first attempt at getting her in the net, she made a few more runs. As she came back to the boat again, I could now see that only the tail treble was holding. I knew we had one more shot at getting her in the boat. One more attempt with the net and I was able to get enough of her front half in that she somewhat folded and I could hoist her in. The fish taped out at 48″ and was all sorts of fat and healthy. After a couple pics, we got her revived and on her way. The flicker shad had seen its better days though, as all three hooks on the front treble were mangled, as was one of the rear hooks. We were very fortunate to get that fish in the boat. Kevin did a fantastic job fighting a big fish on 12 lb mono and a planer board rod. A less skilled angler would have screwed the pooch for sure on that one.
The rest of the day yielded only small fish, but it still ranks as one of my most memorable days on Lake Wisconsin. Good company, good weather, and a few great fish can make a day one to remember for a long time.
Hot bait for the day was a Blue and White #7 flicker shad. Black and Gold flicker shad and #7 shad rap in black and gold also caught fish.
I forgot to put the camera back in the boat, so only had my cell phone to take pictures.
