Further North

I'm no Michael Jordan, but I've caught three musky bigger than that already this season... ?

It's hard to describe the thrill when a 40"+ fish come out of nowhere and eats your fly. I have seen normally, quiet, relatively reserved anglers erupt with all kinds of exclamations...

Thanks! On a fly too! ...I don't wander into the bass area often...

Couldn't tell. it was in silhouette.

Make a guess, it'll be fine. We were an hour and a half early.

Wire. Really, really heavy wire... ?

I had read (forgot where) that they were doing away with the COVID vaccination card requirement, but I can't recall when. Very soon.

Other than having my COVID card with me (they didn't ask for it) and completing the ArriveCAN app before arrival, no red tape. It was the fastest crossing I've ever experienced: 15 minutes wait going in at about 2:00 PM on a Saturday afternoon, no wait at all coming back into the US.

All the musky we saw were pretty beat up - I suspect spawn was late this year. The one I didn't take pictures of was really beat up.

My first Canadian trip since 2018 is on the books, and despite some interesting conditions, it was a good one. Lake of the Woods is about 6 ft. above it's normal level...that was interesting condition #1. A late, cool, spring was #2. Water temps were barely 60° on Sunday...we saw 70° in a few bays by the following Friday, but things are about two weeks behind normal. We had 20 MPH+ winds on several days...making out preferred method of fly fishing nearly impossible for me on the front of the boat, trying to run the trolling motor at the same time, so I threw a lot of gear. Three muskies made the net: Two at 43", one at 36". Only the 36" was on the fly by my fishing partner. My two were with gear, and the first one was wrapped up in the line, and then in the net...so no time for pictures on that one. My 2nd 43", from Friday AM: My buddy's 36", on the fly: He also managed a 30" walleye on the fly, that was pretty cool: There was also a 34"+ pike that didn't get it's picture taken. Well over 100 15" - 24" pike, and a similar number of smallmouth (15" - 19") and even two largemouth in the 19" range. it was a good trip, despite the challenges.

Shush. Roll with me here. It's a Sky Musky. The fly fishing gag doesn't work with a croc... ?

If it's not obvious, I Photoshoped in the "fly line"...but the float plane did fly right over the "Sky Musky".

We were sitting in the boat one afternoon last week, on an undisclosed Canadian lake, taking a break, and my buddy looks over my shoulder and says, "Look, a sky crocodile!" I turn and look, to see this: ...and I said, "That's not a crocodile, it's a sky musky!" Moments later, what looks like a float plane, on a fly line from above appears. The fight was epic...

I absolutely trust that you know your home waters better than I do. 90-ish miles east of you...I can't find any water that they won't eat whatever I throw at them with wire leaders attached.

Braid has excellent strength along the line...but very little resistance to abrasion from the side. Even 80#, or 100# braid under any tension at all, slices like cheap thread from an esox tooth. I've seen mono and fluoro to 60# get cut as well. Tieable wire does a great job, and is more flexible (retaining more of a lure's action) than any heavy mono or fluoro...and resists abuse much better.

Braid can't take teeth without a leader. Any fluoro strong enough to resist esox teeth will absolutely impact the action of the lure more than the 30# or so wire you'd need to deter esox bite-offs. You need 80# - 100# minimum, IMO. I've seen anything less get sliced off. All my rods except a couple (cheap soft plastics like Senkos and Ned Rigs) are rigged with wire: 30# tieable wire FG knoted directly to the braid (this avoids the upper connection on commercial leaders that stops you from reeling all the way in, and can wreck your tip guide), then a perfection loop with a Mustad Fastach clip (swivel or not, depends what I'm running) for rigs I need to change lures on frequently, on the rest, I tie the wire directly to the hook. Many of the rods rigged like that last more than one season without changing anything.

The only real "musky rod" I have sports the Abu Garcia. It's a good reel and works well. I don't throw big lures much, I've learned that they'll eat smaller stuff just as often if you put it in front of them.

Here's the Rod, and the fly:

Musky don't fight all that much, and we're not using noodley light weight fly rods. This was on a stout 10 wt. (probably closer to an 11 or 12 wt. in "regular" fly rods. "Use enough rod" is a thing with musky. Maybe 5 - 7 minutes from eat to net.

Thanks for clarifying. I use a Perfection Loop almost exclusively as it's easy to tie, strong, and stays straight in line with the line. I use Fastach clips to make changing lures/flies easy and fast, and I don't have to sacrifice a couple inches of bite guard for every change. Without the clip I'd be trying in a new bite guard a couple times a day, minimum. The combination of the loop and the clip (assuming the clip is of appropriate size) gives the lure/fly all the action it has out of the box. That's how I'd do it. My fly leaders are pre-tied and in the side pocket of my sling-pack ready to go on the water. That's a 30-second change. The smallest watercraft you'll find me in is my drift boat; maybe my buddy's raft. If I needed to swap a leader/bite guard, I'd anchor up, make the swap and go back to fishing. That might not work in a kayak. When I read your post, I had the immediate thought that I could rig for loop-to-loop connections and pre-tie the wire bite guards, even on my gear rigs, and have a half dozen ready to go at any time.

I think I know what you mean, but I can have a new piece of tieable wire tied on, with a clip on the end in less than 5 minutes.

A ten-plus mile float on the St. Croix River yesterday coughed up a couple smallmouth and this big girl to an eight inch pink and white single hook Buford. Smallies would have been more active, but cool temps up here have them still in their post-spawn funk. We started about 9:30 AM, at the Noeway Landing, and got off the water about 7:40 PM, did the shuttle and got on the road about 8:30 PM for the two hour drive home. Great weather, good conditions, but the cooler than normal water had us hunting hard for fish that were not in the places they would normally be this time of year. Gear was 8, 10, and 12 wt, fly rods with sinking and intermediate lines.

If you want to land pike and musky wire - or very, very stout fluorocarbon, like 80# or higher - are your only real choices. Tieable wire is the best choice. I fish almost all my subsurface rigs (with the exception of inexpensive stuff like Senkos and Ned Rigs) with wire and still catch hundreds of bass a year. ...you can pick colors other than silver, or even color the leader with a marker to reduce visibility if it really bugs you. I connect the wire directly to braid with an FG knot (or an Alberto Knot for single strand like Knot-2-Kinky, then tie in a Mustad Fastach clip (swivel or not, depends on the lure) at the business end with a perfection loop. If my connection is mono to wire (like my fly rod leaders) it's always an Alberto to the wire. I've had many of these rigs last a full season, or more, and I pretty much can't fish a day without running into toothy critters. I am curious how a crimped leader is better than a leader tied directly into the main line?

Congrats on the PB! If I had to guess, that's a really old male, or an even older female.

Yep. Very odd. Lots of people I know have commented on it.