On Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:15:53 -0500, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

mdk77 wrote:
I've never fished for Muskies, one of the local lakes I fly fish (for
Bass) also has an exceptional Musky population and some consider it
the best Musky lake in our state. My brother "accidentally" caught
one big one while we were fishing for Crappie (he had an ultra-light
spinning outfit with 4-pound test and no leader). And now I'm
thinking of tying some King-Kong sized Musky flies and giving it a
go.

Is an 8-weight too small for Musky? My (maybe crazy) thinking is that
I might build an 8wt rod that I could use for Bass AND Musky on this
lake. What do you think?

I'm gonna wait until I actually catch a muskie before I
confess to fishing for them. ;-) I came close this spring
but couldn't overcome muscle memory.

When you set the hook on a muskie you have to keep the rod
tip low and set the hook with a violent horizontal sweep of
the rod. If you raise the rod tip, like I've been doing for
40 years, you just slip the fly right out of its bony, toothy
mouth, which is of course exactly what I did.
[...]

If you have the presence of mind, keep the rod tip low and use a line-hand
set. This has the added advantage of keeping the fly in the immediate
neighborhood of the fish, should you miss the initial set...

/daytripper (highly useful when bonefeeshing)