It’s supposed to be the last week of Forage Month but it is going to be pre-empted by the musky fishing season opener which started on Saturday. If I had to limit myself to one outdoor activity I don’t know if I could do it, but if you offered me a million dollars to give everything but one sport up, challenge accepted. I’d pick musky fishing and I’d pass along a bank routing number for you. Talking and writing about musky fishing is all good and well, but actually doing it is way better.

I didn’t grow up in a musky fishing family. I was born and raised in the ridge and valley bluff country a ways south of here and there weren’t any local waters that contained muskies. Back then the only musky fishing exposure was to an occasional article in Field & Stream or Outdoor Life. Grandpa Walter subscribed to both and he gave us the magazines after he had finished reading them. I don’t remember one single Christmas gift from my grandparents, but I do remember reading those magazines with a flashlight under the covers long after lights out. I cherished those magazines. I remember reading one article describing muskies as being similar to northern pike but bigger and harder to catch. I also remember wishing there were muskies nearby.

Well, it took half a lifetime but I eventually found myself on Esox water. I have now been chasing muskies for 27 years. Indeed time does fly when you’re having fun. I have enough bass, walleye, trout and panfish gear to get by but my passion for those species is much lower. Maybe a better way to say it is that those species were stepping stones for me, on my way to becoming a musky fisherman. Now it’s go time. Musky season is here.

Netting an early season musky is a lot harder than catching one later in the season. Early season water temperatures are cooler and the fish just aren’t as active. Oh, I’ve caught them on opening day, just not nearly as many as I would have liked. I guess every angler who ever wet a line could say the exact same thing.

So the question is: Why go musky fishing in the early season when the chances of catching a fish are so small? That’s easy to answer: Because I want to and because I can. It’s been over six months since I have thrown a musky lure and quite simply, I miss it. 

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