Jean's First Muskie

EEEeeeeeee!  I'm excited to post that Jean caught her first muskie the other day! 

Jean is my middle child.  She is about to graduate from high school, move away, and go off to college.  Which for me, Mom, it's rather bittersweet.  I feel confident she is ready to leave the nest and all, yet we won't have the same opportunities to spend as much time together.  Thus, I wanted her to have a really awesome fishing experience before she left.

 

We headed north to Muskie World aka North Webster, Indiana.  Over the past few years, I've been very fortunate to visit Muskie World on numerous occasions.  Usually when I fish here, I stay in the cabin in the middle of the pic below:

  
I like staying there, since it's so close to the boat launch and all.  Jean and I were unsure rather we would be staying the night since the weather forecast called for ongoing thunderstorms.


 

Lucky for us, the weather that day was warm and the storms held off until well into the night.  We took off that evening on Webster Lake, with our guide, Gary.


 

Gary and I were having a discussion of what my expectations were.  I gave him a very serious, straightforward and specific answer of-- I want Jean to catch a muskie.   Nothing like putting the pressure on from the start.  :)

 

Not kidding-- less than 20 minutes of being out on Lake Webster, Jean had a muskie on the line!!! 
Now that's giving a lady what she wants!


 

Muskie are known as the fish of 10,000 casts.  It was quite remarkable that the fish cooperated so well, and I'm certain Gary was relieved to have that monkey off his back!

 

Muskie fight, and this one was no exception.  Jean had an awesome time reeling her in. 

 

Usually, when Jean and I fish together, she likes for me to remove her fish from the hook. She doesn't like touching fish.  She did very well holding this one, though.

I was ecstatic that Jean did great! 

The poor muskie was very nicked up.  We were told they get like that during their spawning rituals.

 

Nonetheless, we felt she was a beauty of a fish.  Muskie are just so grand!

As usual, she was released back into the lake and eagerly swam away.

We were so psyched for the remainder of the evening. 

 

The water was so clear that we kept seeing muskies chase our lures!

The first muskie to chase my lure startled me so much, I screamed and yanked the lure away from the fish.  Which wasn't all bad, except that instead of teasing the fish with a figure 8, I yanked the lure clear out of the water with no muskie on it.

Much of the time fishing seemed to be spent with our hearts racing while doing figure eights with the rod tip in the water over the side of the boat.  We were eagerly watching the huge muskie chase after the lures and trying our best to entice them to bite. 

  
The evening came to an end and we took our completely exhausted and happily content selves to our accommodations for the night.

Gary had a good time guiding us, and he was obviously very knowledgeable about where the muskie were.

This big spider watched Jean and I stagger our tired bodies through the doorway:

Normally, we would both be scared of it.  That night, we were like-- nope-- and walked right over it.  Muskie fishing will do that to a gal.  Ahhhhh, Good Memories!  :)