One Very Short Trip

A short story of the events of this morning.

After taking care of some necessary things this morning, had a little time to kill.  With fall approaching I have been getting the urge to get out and try the creek muskies. In the last couple weeks I had located a few fish in the creek, while catching one little sub 30" class fish. With some weather coming in knew these fish should be active enough that I should at least see a couple.  After checking the radar and reading the weather channels predictions, I estimated I had about 2-1/2 hours before the rains came so I hooked up the boat and off I went.  The ramp is less than 2 miles from me so it usually takes me about 5 minutes from the time I pull the boat out of the garage till I back it into the water. After parking the truck I noticed the clouds were growing darker by the minute,  my 2-1/2 hour window was shrinking very quickly.  Of the 2 fish I had located, one was down the creek and one was up the creek....both about 10 minutes on the trolling motor from the ramp, so I started up.

Recently I had been experimenting with some side by side double bladed spinners, actually one of the fish I had seen previously was on one of these prototypes, so I snapped one on the leader and started casting at some of the many lay down trees that are present in the creek.  About six casts into it I had a fish come in low and slow behind the spinner, hard to tell how big is was with it being so deep and the water here was fairly cloudy......as I went into the eight the fish stayed with the bait but would not commit....just seems content to follow it around and around for probably a dozen figure eights. I tried all my tricks to make her bite...fast, slow, deep, shallow, went from figure eights to big circles but nothing worked all I could get her to do was follow. Finally I just took the bait away from her as the breeze had pushed me away from the spot I had originally raised her.  With the bait now out of the water I hoped she would go back to her spot so I could make another presentation. I could hear the rumbles of thunder in the distance so I knew I didn't have much time before the skies would open up.

I let her rest for about 5 minutes while I searched out and rigged another bait and repositioned my boat for another cast to the spot where she had originally come from. The bait I chose was one of my little Widetail swimbaits in a orange, white and silver color.   First cast back to the spot produced nothing....same for the second cast. I adjusted the boat position so I could hit the tips of the lay down trees and made the cast. As I worked the Widetail with a pull and pause retrieve I paused it right at the tip of the laydown and with a flash of silver she smoked it. Upon setting the hook she came up and jumped I realized she was much bigger than any of the other fish I had seen in this creek this year.  After a few power dives and several jumps I led her to the boat for a few quick pics and a in the water release.  I estimated her length at about 39" but she was very thick and girthy.  While a 39" fish in not a big fish by any stretch..... in this creek it is a very respectable size.   

Here's a few of the quick photos I took while leading her to the boat.

 As soon as I got her unhooked and revived enough to swim off the skies opened up and the rains came......and it came down in buckets.  With the thunder rumbles getting closer I headed back to the ramp.....which was about 30 yards away. I put the boat on the trailer and put it back in the garage.

Total time the boat was out of the garage was right at 35 minutes and I made less than 10 casts. I've done some short trips in my time but this one was probably one of the shortest.

Here's a few pics of the Widetail bait that she pretty much wrecked.

 The tail snapped off during one of her jumps and it sports many cuts and gouges that will need to be mended. These things mend back together pretty easy so with a little effort it will be ready to go again.