Man, I set up the big bait tank, we went and caught a bunch of brim & shiners with fly rods, the weather forecasters were saying the storms wouldn't come in until later tonight.... we set up the boat & headed up to Alum creek lake for some Musky fishing with the boys! As soon as we got out on the water, I ancored on the shallow upwind side of a nice creek channel that comes out into the lake set up the 1st pole with a steel leader/hook rig and a balloon just off the bottom & let it go out to the edge of the channel... then I took another rod, an 8 foot downrigger rod that had a big pushbutton reel on it (for the boys), put just a small 3" brim on a 1/0 hook with no steel leader to try for a Walleye & dropped it down to set it just off the bottom, started blowing up a balloon & a monster Musky slammed it...... I got a good feel of the size of the fish as it ran under the boat, handed the Rod to Chris, worked him up front, took the rod back from him & passed it under the anchor line and felt just how dang big this monster was again..... handed the rod back to Chris... the rod had 30 lb test line but no steel leader & the fish was just stripping line & heading towards shore... it was pulling so hard that Chris just had the rod straight out until the fish had ran about 75 yards out & then turned right & started back towards the deeper channel.... I grabbed a hold of the rod about 2' up from where Chris was holding on for dear life & I started lifting to try and get another feel of the fish as I was applying a little upward pressure on him & snap............ the line broke right at the hook... cut by the Musky's teeth.... it sucked big time because I know it was a seriously big fish...... I went back to rigging rods, all with steel leaders.... got 4 rods out with brim for bait & ballons back into the channel & all of the sudden like the weather started blowing in big time... dang anchor wouldn't hold the boat... then it started pouring rain, thunder, lightning... we got absolutely soaked to the bone as I was reeling rods back in to try and get the heck off the lake... then there was a little break & I pulled the camera out of the gallon ziplock bag & took a few pictures... you can see how soaked I was... and the look on Chris' face after loosing that monster... I think he was ready to fish all night after feeling that fish... we had about 3 dozen brim & shad in the bait tank, including a few great big half pound plus ones that I even brought a 4/0 rod along for.... oh well, next time....

Tags: Musky