When a Smallmouth turns into Musky bait..

July 14, 2025Jul 14

Posted this over in the MN fishing reports thread, but figured it deserved it's own post here.

I went up to NW Wisconsin to check some spots out and do an overnight on the river. Nice days, didn't catch much but had the craziest moment of my fishing career on Sunday while floating back downstream to the ramp..

I was coming up on what looked like a decent hole to anchor upstream of and swing a few flies through. I did just that, and in the middle of a retrieve heard a few paddlers behind me. I paused with the fly about halfway back to the kayak, turned around to see 2 canoes upstream and then felt a <thunk> on the line. Seems the pause triggered a little 14-15" smallie to hit. Got him up to the side of the kayak and then *wham* a silver torpedo broadsides it from upstream.

All of the sudden I'm fighting a high 30" to low 40" musky.. on a 7wt glass fly rod with a 12lb fluoro tippet. I really didn't want to break it off, mainly because I didn't want this fish to ingest the fly along with the smallie. But I couldn't budge this fish, he was sitting right beside the kayak probably really confused why this smallmouth was trying to pull him towards the surface.

Suddenly the smallie broke free of those teeth, and I tried to get him up to the surface and in my net. Mr. Ski did not agree with that, and proceeded to launch himself and the smallmouth out of the water while grabbing hold of that poor bass again. After those acrobatics he decided to head downstream and there wasn't much I could do to stop him. That rod was doubled over, and with the drag being set pretty light I had to palm the reel to slow it down. The fish ended up probably 10-15 yards downstream and, again, just sat there. I held on for dear life, and eventually the smallie came free. I reeled in as fast as I could, skipping that bass across the surface with the musky charging behind. This thing was aggressive! I got the smallie in the net, beat up but still alive. Removed the hook, snapped a quick pic and released...

And then I saw a flash of silver. Not sure if that musky left with a full belly, but I switched to my casting rod and hucked a glide bait around for a while with no success. One of the few times I really wish I had my go-pro with me.