My NJ Musky Fishing Adventure began at 4:50am, walked out my back door to an unbelievable howling wind this morning. I thought to myself, “The hell with this,….. I won`t be able to take the `Yak out in this today”……With that I went back to bed……. woke up again a 5:30am and “The hell with it, I`m goin` Musky fishing!” So I loaded up the `Yak in my truck and made my way to the lake. When I got there at 6:15am and stepped out of my truck, the wind immediately blew my hat off as if to say, “Better not try this today dummy!”…… Now this was only my second time trying for Muskies and after a 24-hour YouTube “Musky Fishing” video watching crash-course marathon, I figured I`d have another go at it. Unsure of what I was getting into exactly. I used a 6`6″ rod/reel combo last time and didn`t really know how to do the “Figure 8s” especially in my `Yak. This time around, I opted to go with my 9foot Striper pole and a heavier Shimano reel spooled with 65lb Power PRO, as the 6`6″ pole didn`t seem to cast the Double Cowgirls as far as I wanted too. The question was would I be able to do the “Figure 8s” with a pole of this length in the `Yak, coupled with the crazy-ass wind and not take a bath in the lake today??………. Well ultimately I actually figured out how to do a solid “Figured 8” with this pole as I practiced right before I went out across the lake. But I also figured out how to do something different retrieval-wise……..and I can`t tell you guys on here how to do “Ken Beam`s Big Musky Retrieval Method”,…..ha! ha! (But I will tell you this, at my second stop at about 6:45am, I used this method that I came up with and lost a monster at the `Yak that had to go 45″ or better! Then an hour later I landed the 35 incher that you see here using my “method” again!)
I battled the wind as I paddled back to the dock with my prize Musky in the net. As I took a few pictures with my Musky, one guy couldn`t believe that I was even out on the lake in a kayak today. He said the wind was a nightmare for his 14-ft boat and couldn`t fathom fishing out of a kayak out there today.Then the other guy asked if I fished for these regularly and I explained how this was only my second time ever going after them. He said he couldn`t believe it because he had put in over 100 hours to date and still hadn`t caught his first Musky!
As I walked up to get my truck the third guy responded and said, “Hey that`s pretty much the normal gig…… you have to put in a lot of hours to land a Musky. What you did wasn`t really the “norm” Ken”
Well…..normal or not, it was certainly quite the fight in my `Yak!
Till next time…..