Day 3 of the Esox Hatrick: It wasn't a monster........

[catfishonthelake]

..................but is sure as hell was a musky.

Pretty cool. I had this weird hunch that since the pike and pickerel were such a pain, that this one would come easy. We fished for over 9 hours, but this picture was taken after only 90 minutes. I have to say, that this is the absolute first time I've targeted musky for a day from a boat and I love it. The feeling of knowing that a huge fish could hit at any time totally kept me in the zone and the suspense is incredible. I knew we were going to put in a long day, so I "slept-in" and we were fishing by 7am. We actually had a follow and a miss in the first hour. A bit later, I was walking-the-dog over a submerged grass bed with a Saltwater Spook when I saw something smack at it. Before I could finish the sentence that something hit it, BAMMMM, it hit again. Awesome topwater explosion. Not too much of a fight and not a huge fish, but it counts. My first musky in open water and the first true strain that I've caught that wasn't 12-inches.