NWC day one (long)

Usually I'm not a person of many words but my NWC trip this year was
pretty eventful so I'll probably write more here than I have written
in the whole time I have been part of this group.

Late last summer we bought a cottage in the Rhinelander area so I got
to spend my vacation week in early August fishing Mohawksin. I found a
couple of patterns and was catching a couple of keepers every morning
so I felt pretty good. The best thing was that they had a Dairy Queen
on the water so my son came out with me every day with the promise that
we would stop for ice cream. He didn't fish much but at least it was
a start. I got a little concerned when I read Steve's reports about
the numbers and size of the fish that he and Gil were catching as I
wasn't on them that good. Thursday after work I made the 2 hour
drive and got to meet up with everyone for supper. There were some new
faces I hadn't seen the previous 2 years and some familiar one's as
well. People were saying the bite had slowed but everyone was excited
and ready to go. They had more boaters than non-boaters so I would be
fishing alone on Friday.

Once on the water Friday I started with the pattern that had worked the
best for me which was running crankbaits through shallow weed beds. I
caught some short smallmouths and pike but couldn't find the fish I
had in practice. Finally late in the morning I got 1 14 inch keeper.
Early afternoon I moved up river to another weed bed and had a good
hit. As I was bringing it in I could see that it was a nice sized
pike. Once it was in the boat I reached down to remove the crankbait
like I had done many times that morning but the fish started thrashing
and I felt a pain in my right index finger. Looking down I saw one of
the trebble hooks in the fish and one in me. The fish kept thrashing
and everytime it did the pain increased. Finally I got my knee on the
pike and stopped it from moving. Grabbing a needle nose I finally got
the hook out the pike's mouth and threw it overboard. Now I had time
to look at my situation. In all the years that I have fished I have
never hooked myself but the hook was buried deep in my finger. I cut
the line and tried to pull it out but it was too painful. So I sat in
the bottom of my boat looking at this crankbait sticking in my hand and
tried to think about what my options were. About that time my cell
phone rang. When I answered it I got a computized message that said
"this is an alert, your house is on fire. Please call the fire
department, your house is on fire." Totally confused I finally heard
my wife's voice yell "just ignore this, they are working on our
temperature monitoring system. We have a system in our cottage to tell
us if the furnace stops so we can do something before the pipes freeze.
Apparently it will also tell us if the cottage is on fire.

Now I could think about my situation again. I decided to wait and talk
to Steve or Gil. Since they are guides I thought that they might have
removed hooks from clients before. I picked up a rod and tried to
cast but it was too painful with the crankbait in my hand. I still had
2 hours to go in the tournament and didn't want to just sit at the
boat landing. I picked up a spinning rod with a tube jig attached and
tried pitching. That didn't hurt too badly so I decided I would find
shorelines with overhanging brush and pitch to them. I did that for
the next hour and it seemed to be OK other than no fish. Finally I
pitched the tube into a fallen tree and had a solid hit. I set the
hook and out shot a nice muskie. I fought it for a while on that
spinning rod which was fun but then started to think about how I was
going to get it into the boat. I couldn't use my right hand and the
only net I had was a small rubberized one for bass. I decided I would
try and get it in the net anyway. After several attempts with the
muskie just flopping out of it, the fish somehow bent just right and
went in. I lifted the net in the boat, dropped the muskie in the live
well and cut the line. I wasn't going to try and handle it with the
lure in my hand. At the landing I asked Steve if he had removed hooks
before and he said "yes, but you won't like it." I just wanted
it out of me at that point as I couldn't imagine spending the rest of
my life with a lure hanging from my hand. Steve cut the treble hook of
the lure and then as I looked the other way and grit my teeth he pulled
it out. It didn't feel good but it wasn't nearly as bad as when
the pike was thrashing around. Steve then took my muskie out of the
livewell and measured it. At 36 inches I had the lead for the non-bass
category.

At the weight-in only 5 fish were brought in with Kevin in the lead
with 2 fish. Mine was the smallest so I was in 4th place after day one
but still in the running as was everyone. My family was there for the
weight-in and missed seeing the muskie as I had already released it but
got to see everyone's bass. My wife came along with me to Al Gens
for the Friday night supper and everyone made her feel welcome. Steve
told us stories about Africa and other adventures that he has been on.
The food was great as always and people talked about the day's
events. At the drawing for Saturday I drew Brandon and we made plans
to meet at the boat landing. On the way home my wife wished me good
luck for the next day but I was a little discouraged about the fishing.
I told her I had tried every pattern and spot out there that I knew
about and with just the one fish I didn't know why it would be
different on Saturday. Another front was passing through and the
weather had been unstable. Being a Christian I went home and prayed
and asked God if he would put fish in the boat for me on Saturday as I
wasn't capable of doing it alone. Little did I know how that would
turn out. I'll type out day 2 tomorrow.

Gary