May 28, 2024 • 25 mins
Welcome to another exciting episode of the Team Rhino Outdoors Musky Fishing Podcast! Typically, we dive deep into muskie gear, but this week, we're switching things up to discuss musky fishing itself. Joining us is Jeff Van Remortel, owner of Musky Academy and WDH Guide Service from Northern Wisconsin.
Jeff shares his firsthand experience from the Northern Wisconsin musky opener. Despite heavy winds, he had a spectacular day, landing six fish using a mix of small jerk baits and gliders. Learn about the patterns and strategies that worked for him and get insights into the upcoming Minnesota Musky Opener.
We also discuss the importance of gear, including the much-anticipated Pit Bull bait, which has already proven to be a game-changer. Jeff emphasizes the versatility of this bait and how it fits seamlessly into any angler's arsenal.
Additionally, Jeff recounts his thrilling experience of catching a musky on the fly, offering tips and insights for those looking to expand their fishing techniques.
If you're looking to up your muskie fishing game, be sure to check out the Musky Academy for detailed reports and real-time information. For all your muskie gear needs, visit TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.
Thank you for tuning in, and we'll be back with another episode next week!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:07):
All right welcome to another episode of team rhino outdoors muskie fishing
podcast typically we're talking muskie gear but this
week we're going to actually talk about muskie fishing i'm sure we're
going to talk about some gear too that helped put some fish in the net for my
guest this week is the owner of muskie academy wdh guide service out of northern
wisconsin jeff vander mortal yes kind of odd right i just had him on backlash
(00:28):
podcast but the thing about backlash podcast is we don't ever go back and like
so we did a preview last week of what northern Northern Wisconsin was going to be like,
made some hypotheses about, is that right?
Is it hypotheses or hypothesize? Anyway. Hypotheses.
There you go. Anyways, so we, you know, we're talking about that and we don't
ever follow up, you know, we just are like, yeah, this is what we think is going to happen.
(00:51):
And now I'm like, well, I have this other podcast, you know,
we don't want back-to-back guests on Backlash. We're looking for new guests.
And this week we want to preview, you know, Minnesota Muskie Opener.
So I'm like, hey, Jeff, why don't you come on this podcast and let's talk about what happened.
So that's what we're up to this week. We're talking about what happened this
past weekend in northern Wisconsin, hopefully prepare you for,
you know, the upcoming weeks, I guess. Patterns probably hold for a little bit.
(01:14):
But if you're looking for any of the gear we talk about in this episode,
make sure you check out teamrhinooutdoors.com.
And, you know, if you're looking, if you like what Jeff brings to the table,
you know, maybe consider him for a guide trip, and that'd be WDH Guide Service.
And also check out the Muskie Academy, muskieacademy.com, I believe.
Right, Jeff, is that where we're looking at with the Muskie Academy? Yeah.
Yep, Mosky with a Y, academy.com, or social media, Instagram,
(01:37):
Facebook, Mosky Academy.
All right, so Jeff, let's dive into it. This podcast is much shorter than the other podcasts.
So we had Northern Wisconsin opener this past weekend.
It's, for anybody that cares, we're typically a little late on this podcast
now. I like to put them out on Monday, but today is Monday.
I figured, damn, let's put it out on Tuesday. How many people are going to be
listening to podcasts on the holiday?
(01:59):
But, you know, Saturday, the season opens, Jeff. Jeff, pretty heavy winds where I was.
And my wife tells me that it was nice, calm and everything back home.
Pretty heavy winds up in the Northwoods.
But that didn't seem like it stopped you. Let's talk a little bit about opening
day. How'd that go for you?
Opening day was spectacular. We had a good time.
(02:19):
Basically from start to about finish, opening day started off the morning.
So basically, I think we talked last week in the podcast.
Basically, my game plan was going to be start off early in the morning,
target some shallow manholes stuff around spawning areas
known spawning bays stuff of that nature really just looking
for some action get the net wet you know get out
the kinks make sure everything works you know just just kind of
(02:42):
get back in the in the groove right you got all season to chase fish
and we had some decent what looked like some decent big fish windows this
weekend so we're going to try to when those opportunities arose switch up
for some bigger fish try for a bigger bite and then when it was kind
of the off periods or the areas where it looked a little tougher kind
like the post-frontal situation saturday morning just kind of
see what we get for action we started off and did really well small jerk
(03:03):
baits were the bulk of the producers um it was
actually quite a mix mix in there but we ended up with six fish
in the morning there up to about almost they
were nothing really big they're all about 28 to 36 all in there nothing nothing
super huge but it was really fun i think we had two other bites that we didn't
get but we were also lucky that the bites we got stuck and they made it to the
(03:24):
net you know some of those days you go two or three fish you might have five
or six bites here we pretty much had six good bites and landed six fish.
And then like i said we had one or two other bites maybe three but
none of them were they were like on and got off of the net or anything like
that they were all just if they bit they bit and they stayed stuck and a couple
that we had that short short shot that got off was kind of whatever you know
but it was really good but the thing was is a really intense window we came
(03:47):
off a moon in the morning and and in small blades would have probably been a
really good option too and uh.
Maybe we had talked about that, but we just didn't have time.
What we were throwing was what we were throwing and we were having action.
So gliders were in the mix as well there, but the jerk baits seemed to be the key.
How was your start to the day? Did you make it out for opening day or I know
you fished a little this weekend.
(04:07):
Yeah, just a little bit, you know, but Jeff, since I hadn't had the boat out,
I got new, we, I literally flew down to Madison. My buddy, Kyle, you know, Kyle, he does.
Yes. Yes. He's with me at all the shows. We put some new electronics on my boat
and I will say, I'm like, yeah, I'm getting older. You know,
I should probably put a 15 on this little boat.
And I got to tell you, a 15 feels like overkill on that little boat.
You know, like if we're talking like little wiener syndrome,
(04:29):
all right. You know, I'm like, you know, it'd be like the guy with the jacked
up truck, right. Or whatever they say. Yeah.
Overcompensating with your screens. Yeah. I kind of feel that way a little bit,
you know, so 15 in the screen, definitely very big, but it's, it's very nice.
And so I, I played around with that stuff a little bit, dial in a few different
settings, you know, working on, on some stuff that way. And it's, so that part was good.
(04:52):
And then obviously, you know, we talk about it. It feels like,
you know, we're, we're overly talking about it, but like the pit bull is, it was new.
All right. And I've had a few people like, how come all the guides have them?
You know, they're not available yet to the public. And the reason the guides
have them is because we, the majority of the testing of this bait hasn't been done yet.
(05:13):
In, you know, we haven't put it in real life situations, you know,
we haven't really put it through its paces.
So we want to make sure that we had it out to a bunch of guides.
We want to put it through its paces.
And so I spent a bunch of time. I had, I don't know, six of them in my boat.
I spent a different time playing around with them, ripping them,
pulling them, you know, pole pausing them, doing the whole thing with them.
And I, I just spent more time doing that. And then I, I want to shoot a couple
(05:37):
of videos for some surface water or surface baits that we We have the new Decon
from Turtle River Tackle.
That's a cool new bait. Definitely like a more metallic sound.
And then we have the Big Mac coming from Livingston Lures.
And I had put out videos for those because people want to hear what they sound
like. So I played around for the most part, Jeff.
And then I finally got to do some fishing, but not as much as I wanted to do.
(06:00):
And that's pretty typical.
My daughter graduated this weekend, so I headed back home early on Sunday morning.
So I got some things accomplished, right? I got to play around with the pit bull.
And I mean, I guess I could say like it did what I anticipated it doing.
I didn't see anything outside the norm from, you know, the prototypes and like
early feedback on it was it got bit quite a few times this weekend.
(06:24):
You know, I had somebody that had it early and they're like,
oh man, your phone's going to blow up this weekend.
And I wouldn't say it like blew up, but there was definitely a lot of fish being caught on it.
I don't know. Is that self-fulfilling prophecy, Jeff? Like you can't catch them
on something that you're not throwing right so but the people we gave them to
obviously had interest and they also had we were one of them oh yeah we we crushed
(06:46):
on it we had to talk about those windows opening day.
Like i said we got like six for eight in the morning went back
grabbed some food went to another lake and headed out
to try to take advantage of that midday moon if anybody
you guys are listening like within the podcast last week we talked about a
little bit but in the muskie academy i put a super full report
in there detailing everything that i expect for the the upcoming weekend i had
(07:07):
said in that report that a midday moon on saturday was going to be probably
the best window of the weekend or you know definitely look like a strong possibility
some big fish and despite the fact
that we had some really good weather come through friday because friday friday is
always tough you know friday comes through and it's really good weather every
fish in the system was going nuts we had you know muskies were chasing
panfish we had you know caught walleyes we caught
(07:28):
crappies we caught bass we caught everything seemed to be on the chew on friday
the weather you know wasn't a surprise based on the weather saturday morning
a little bit more post frontal but the window for the afternoon was looking
really good especially after the day clouds stacked up and i
made an effort to go through all that pit bull because i want to make sure i'd thrown
it like i said with prototyping and testing months ago it looked
really good and i got mine from you and we went
(07:48):
three four five possibly six and we had five five really good hookups on it
and there was like another i think the sixth bite is what trashed it my first
one there was it's completely hamburgered and uh we caught some really nice
fish on it and lost a giant and that was midday on saturday again a tight window right around moon.
(08:09):
Yeah. And if, and during the, it was kind of cool because this weekend,
so we talked about the muskie Academy and the reports, I put up a weekly report
Friday night to kind of help people get ready for the weekend,
you know, put you on third base.
So when you get out there, use your brushes to find best you can to get out
there and catch as many fish as you can in your limited amount of time in the water.
So you're kind of starting, you know, start on third base. And we did,
I did start a group conversation inside of the private group on Facebook there
(08:30):
with all the muskie Academy members.
And there was a lot of people, you know, just kind of saying,
Hey, it's opener, you know, good, good luck today.
And if you guys want to post on here, see what, you know, I'll kind
of keep you guys in the loop if you want to post and see what you're seeing too
that'd be cool and it turned out really good we had a ton
of people posting there a lot of people caught some fish we had fish up to the I
think 46 or 47 was the biggest one posted
but it was kind of the same thing and I had made the post about it
(08:52):
you know the rubber bite heating up and switching over and all of a sudden it was
it seemed like that kind of followed suit with a lot of other
folks too so it's kind of neat to get that whether you know whether it was something they
were doing or whether it was something that was a result of you
know somebody else saying hey the rubber everybody's going right now it was
really neat to see it it all come together there so yeah once
very short though yeah the uh the pit bull produced as expected
and it gets two thumbs up for me it's
(09:14):
gonna crush and it already has well i don't want to make this all about that
bait where we have no sure and in the next month we'll talk about it enough
because we do anticipate releasing these hopefully within about a month i mean
because basically we needed to make sure that it ran right these were the very
first out of the production mold we need to make sure that right And then once
we found out that it ran right,
now we need to put in an order for them, which we only have 10 molds.
(09:37):
So, you know, 10, 10 baits doesn't get us real far.
And so that hopefully between me and Brad, cause it'll be available only through
Team Iron Outdoors or Musk Innovations.
And between me and Brad, we're both trying to get stocked up so that we can
have a official release date.
So we will get an official release date at some point. We just need to see how that plays out.
But, you know, Jeff, you were, you were talking about it. I mean,
(10:00):
we bill it as a bait that you can, that most anglers can throw, right?
Reg dogs. No, I thought, I thought, I thought it pulled perfectly.
I mean, a midsize or even a heavy rubber rod.
I mean, you don't necessarily want to throw it on a 10 foot double extra heavy
or something ridiculous like that.
But I mean, for those nice medium rods or, you know, medium heavier,
I mean, well, not medium heavy power, but like you're.
Extra heavy build extra heavy rating but
(10:22):
it's like your medium rubber rods i should say stuff that you're going to throw
a regular medusa on maybe a mid-sized tube maybe uh
maybe even up to a magnum bulldog boy it just absolutely
flawless i had mine rigged up on a eight foot four
extra heavy extra heavy fast which is the
ripper from kramer's that's the one i designed with
him for a long for a long time ago that's one of my i got the first
(10:43):
couple of them here and i've ordered a couple more since just so i
got enough for customers and everything and it's just perfectly perfectly
balanced for that and i think anybody who's you know
the existing rods that people have it's just god it just fits so nice
on there well it's good that you brought that up jeff because that's
one thing i noticed too is like so i think i think i was using mine
on my sling blade it's like an 86 st croix heavy
(11:04):
action rod i mean i wasn't i wasn't beefing anything up
on this rod and i i mean i i like i
said i don't think you need specialized gear if you're looking to get
out there it's gonna fit really nice it's gonna fit really nice
into everybody's it's gonna feel for really nice into everybody's arsenal
already because a lot of people already rigged to throw a magnum bulldog or
a regular medusa or a you know a mid medusa or
(11:24):
a regular bulldog or you know and every other rubber bait
in between there so i think like i said that way it is nice
that you don't need to go and oh if you're gonna go super magnum rubber change
up and get a gear specifically for that this is gonna work on pretty much every
rod there is within reason i agree so one thing i don't know that maybe you
noticed but it appeared as though there was definitely some life out deeper
(11:46):
than just shallow water.
I mean, when I was playing around with my electronics, I certainly noticed,
I'm assuming large schools of crappie or some sort of big fish out in the deeper water.
So for anglers looking to hit the water here this season, you know,
we talk about a lot, the fish are either shallow, deep or somewhere in between,
but fishing deeper water definitely is not out of the question.
(12:09):
No, this time of year, we talked about it last week too. You know,
everybody was kind of apprehensive, I think, about what to expect for this.
But quite frankly, it reminded me exactly of 2012 when we had that super early
ice out and things were, we were off to the races, big rubber bite right off the bat.
And that was kind of the prediction for this weekend. And it certainly.
I mean, it certainly came true.
You wouldn't be out there catching fish and catching fish that way if that bite didn't exist.
(12:32):
And a number of the folks in the Muskie Academy group in that same report or
well along that same suit,
several other guys and sent me pictures privately and commented into
that conversation just and i'm using that as an example because it's the
only real-time information i have season just opened 72 hours
ago or whatever so not even so it's like we just you
know there's not a lot of information out there right for how everybody did i
(12:52):
mean i've been able to check everybody's news feeds and all that so it's kind of.
That i had a direct line on and was commenting on as well
over the weekend but it's just one of those things where you kind of see how other people are
doing and i'm sure there's people that struggle i'm sure there's people that did well
across the board but the rubber bite was going right off the bat and
into that to that note fish that were deeper our biggest success
came on basically the the the deepest
(13:13):
edge of the weeds and off and the secondary break
off of areas adjacent to spawning base that was
definitely the pattern we found our two biggest bites of the day came
back to back my buddy lost one that was it was
a very big fish i'm not sure if it was i don't know if it was 47 i
don't know if it's 49 i don't know if you know what i mean but it was a really it was
a really big one and a really big for up north it was
(13:34):
a really big one and my next cast i landed
uh 43 so uh it was there was windows
definitely and like i said we had
those six bites on five or six bites on rubber all within about
an hour and a half and i was all big rubber and it's all in
those those areas where you found one you found more was also the thing
i would comment those ranges of where we caught those fish ranges you know anywhere
(13:55):
from 13 to 17 to like 24 to 28 feet on those breaks now some of that stuff is
pretty fast breaking where you're were fishing and then i'm speaking the places
where we found fish where we had the best success of rubber i'm sure there's
some fish caught shallow on rubber too but most of our stuff was on the.
Just off the primary onto the secondary but not quite to
the tertiary break i guess is what i would say so deeper
(14:16):
than normal yes yeah i mean yeah definitely it seemed like
there was lots lots of places to be finding fish
and it you know it appears as though there was
a mix mix of results right i mean you obviously had some you
know good results and there was many others out there that caught muskies this
year i mean it's great to be out you know slinging baits
it's great to see you know people putting fish in the net this early
(14:37):
in the season yes that's fantastic certainly we're off
to the races man it's going to be a great year yeah exactly and and i think
at this point you know you could probably shed some light on it like nothing's
off limits right as far as like you know you know you don't have to worry about
small small baits being the only thing in play you can pro i mean we're probably
talking more like early summer patterns.
(14:58):
Yeah, we talked about again last week, you know, you asked if those deeper clear
lakes were off limits. And I had said, absolutely not. I think those fish should
be right off to the races.
And to that point, we did. We fished everything from shallow stained,
pretty well stocked. Well, not well stocked, but the high natural reproduction
systems where there's good numbers of fish, good amount of molds available.
Which is, you know, when things are tougher, you expect it to be tougher. That's a great choice.
(15:20):
To some of the deepest, toughest water that I fish.
We actually fished a lake that fit that bill for sure. sister uh sisto lake
or the one of the fish we caught that 43 actually i didn't
notice it till after i was like god that's a thick fish you know
just a nice beefy good looking fish for the end of
may you know what i mean and after we'd released that fish i
noticed that there were eggs eggs on the rail from where i'd lifted her over
(15:41):
uh to take the picture and i kind of pulled her over the rail and took the picture
let her go and looking back and we were cleaning things up and get ready for
the next fish i saw that there were eggs kind of dribbled on the side of my
on the bottom of my boat and along my rail so that one still had some eggs in
it that was a pre-spawn i didn't i I did not inspect it close enough to,
you know, didn't really, but it felt like it could have probably had eggs in it, quite frankly.
And it was thick enough that it could have. It didn't look obese or freakish.
(16:03):
It wasn't something where you look at him, you go, oh, Jesus,
you know, what's that thing?
You know, but it was definitely a very, very healthy fish for opening day, certainly.
And there were still some eggs, whether that was pre-spawn fish or a fish that
had recently spawned with just a little dribble going on afterwards.
Could have been either, for sure.
So Jeff, you talk about 2012, like, do you remember how that played out?
Like the rest of the season, was it a, was it an Epic season or was it? Fantastic.
(16:25):
Yeah, it was Epic for sure. A lot of big fish were caught because the big fish
were going right off the bat.
I think back then, you know, I, I don't think there are too many people that
were throwing big rubber or any rubber on opening day in 2012 versus say now,
especially with the information that, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there, whether it be,
you know, a musky Academy or just a podcast or just,
just in general people's knowledge and talking because this
(16:49):
stuff has been talked about so much time and it's already 12 years ago which is
kind of crazy to think honestly but you know there was
a lot more people throwing rubber this weekend especially after a couple of those posts
went up and i think i'd posted when we caught that first one on the pit bull on the
on the on the instagram and facebook story or
whatever too and it seemed like you know right after that there was a
pretty good i had several messages sent saying oh
yeah man the rubber's going and sent me pictures of of rubber getting
(17:11):
bit and it seemed to kind of follow suit right then not that
that was necessarily what set it off just that other the people were having the same
results certainly yeah so but again
that that quick network of things like that i mean i guess quite
frankly if it was 2012 you know or in 2012 i wouldn't have told
my own brother what i was catching them on so it wouldn't have mattered i don't
even have a brother so it's tony rizzo the tony rizzo way right you know that
(17:35):
is that one's for steve yeah we didn't even tell our own brothers where we was
catching yeah exactly that's the one that steve that's exactly what you're thinking
is because i think that's exactly what i was I almost did the voice and I was
just thinking of Jensen.
I'm like, ah, we didn't even tell our own brothers where we was catching them.
I love it. But no, I was, like I said, I think so 2012, you had a quarterback that it turned out.
(17:57):
And like I said, I had one of my best days to this day on, on opening weekend.
I wrote my PB twice that one day, I'm in at six fish and nine, you know, and, uh.
From there on out it just seemed like it was just a great year the big thing
that you see in these years with this where they get to the spawn pretty quickly and we did see
it already this year the fish are just in much better shape their
body their quality their calories are healthier they're thicker they're
(18:19):
not stressed out as you know because when that spawning period gets prolonged it's really
hard on their bodies you just it's not that they doesn't necessarily kill them
or anything just you know if they can get in there get the act done they
don't have to burn up all the reserves and spend a lot of time in there and then
a cold front hits and then they got away and they're still kind of just not eating heavily
they're just thinking about spawning and they're and then finally they get
up there and they can do the deed get it done and then they you know and then finally get
back on the seed but you know now that's you know a week
(18:41):
or two or whatever stretched out that's a lot
harder on the fish than just hey eggs are ready water temps
are good pair up dump the dump dump the deposit
the eggs and you know go grumpy for
a couple days and pout and then start feeding and we're like
i said we're well that we're weeks past the spawn and some of these
systems already which is fantastic and some of the other ones like
(19:02):
i said we're at the tail end and there's certainly a few tail end
fish as there always are with any species hanging on and maybe up shallow or
for example maybe like that 43 caught with some eggs there but it's just those
these years tend to be some of the best especially when it's coupled with a
year where the weed growth is off to a good start uh which it is i would say
(19:22):
our weed growth appears at about.
30 to 50 percent on a lot of the lakes that are you know the more advanced ones
maybe even a touch higher on the far end of the spectrum and then the stuff that is,
you know, your real large, deep, clear, deeper, you know, deep relative to the
amount of surface area type lakes where the light penetration is not as robust
as it would be in something that's more spread out and shallow.
(19:44):
That growth's a little bit behind.
But it's certainly behind the other lakes, but it's certainly ahead of or on
schedule for this time of year.
So when that happens, the only thing that I ever see or foresee for these are
sometimes, I know, you know, we'll touch the hot button, but of the warm water, you know, discussion.
Discussion sometimes in these years if it ends up being a hot summer and
not so much up north up north we're pretty lucky to be
(20:07):
as far north as i am i'm based out of monaco here there's very few
days that we get if any in the summer where it's truly
like wow those these water temps are pretty
hot you know it's we don't get many of those and i'm not saying that you
couldn't go to something like the pike round chain where
it's you know 10 feet deep max depth a lot
of the lake if that or five foot average depth whatever it is and
(20:27):
coffee black water and go there on a
90 degree day and say see look at it's too hot like okay
i get that but like maybe on that day you go to something bigger deeper
and clearer if it's a hot day right i think it's common
sense prevails on that but we're lucky up north to not have that
but i know the guys don't self definitely struggle with it and these
years when you're off to the race it's kind of early you throw in some of
those big degree days there sometimes you do get a bit
(20:50):
of a warming trend that goes a little too far and stays a little too long and
sometimes that can be a bit of an annoyance let's put it that way i
guess but as far as what to expect that's really the
only hiccup that we get in these years is if it ends up being scorched over
summer and then it can throw a little wrench in the gears which the fish don't
necessarily love either right they get a little grumpy too when things get too
far past the norm but no i think it's gonna be an excellent season man i'm really
(21:12):
looking forward to it and we're you know we're off to the races already in my
boat we had i said 10 fish on opening day.
And in in another what do we have eight ten the next two days so they're it's good we're ready,
all right jeff well i appreciate you taking time out
of your schedule if people want to get in touch with you be
a wdh guide service or musky academy
(21:35):
how do they go about doing that oh hey i just i
wanted to talk about the last fish for the day i want we talked about the
fly fishing thing last week oh yeah you were asking
about that yeah yeah so yeah we i did
get one on the fly this weekend i got one on saturday night that's right i did
i you know what that was going to be one of my first questions and i totally
spaced on it yeah i just was about to i was about to sign off too and i was
(21:58):
like oh wait i gotta tell them yeah so you got it done on the fly and how was
how was that dude it was super cool.
So we went out we had a great day like i said we put nine fish in the boat we
had a really good day we bounced around got back I had I tried I practiced at
the end of the day I should say I practiced my fly rod during the day a little bit made probably about,
(22:21):
I don't know, maybe 20 casts or so. I just kind of got a feel for it.
I have fly fish before, not a ton or anything, but it was a great,
the rod was very well built and the reel balanced perfectly on it.
Everything made perfect sense.
I tried with the five foot leader to start. I found out quickly that I needed the three foot leader.
Nick Gellerstadt from Musky Fool had tied me up a couple of leaders along with the fly he made me.
(22:42):
I can't remember the name of the fly he made me, but it's the one I use. It's black.
It's got like some spun hair on the front of it there.
It does a little bit of a it's a little bit of a glider if you can call it
that but like the fly it's got a little hump to it when you pop it it kind of a
little back and forth motion a little walk the dog and a little up
and down it's a really neat little really looks awesome in the water but anyway
yeah so it was really cool i had the bail the rig was good it felt good
(23:04):
i was like i think i can do this and then we at the end of the
day hit a spot on the river that kind of first dark there
and so yeah i'm basically standing there on the edge of
the river making casts with a fly rod off and letting her in into the
current and maybe it wasn't too long cast maybe 20 25 foot casting
out and then running through and stripping it through the seam there
and i was just thinking to myself how cool it would be if one eight you
(23:24):
know i've got to stand there and basically the pitch black and uh
like well this is like it was kind of ballsy but it was open
enough that i could make the cast and do the thing and just i
was thinking that i was coming into the figure eight gave a little double tap
was right at my feet and it's only probably 10 inches of water right where that
was double tap there i could kind of see the wake from the from the fly and
i let it sit for a second or two and i gave another little double tap moved
(23:46):
it about a foot and let it sit i was just about to lift it up out of the water
and it came up and just there was like a four foot.
Boil around and an open mouth and i just got him you
know just set the hook and my buddy went and grabbed the net and the rest is
history we got him in but that was it was so cool it and that thing did it ram
me right out into the middle of the river and then i had to bounce down to get
(24:07):
to a little bit more open area to fight it it was basically really reminiscent
of some steelhead fishing stuff you know walking getting around trees hopping
down the rocks and getting to a,
little bit more open spot there because i was fishing i was fishing from shore at that time and,
and we got it in without incident it was up right in the corner of the mouth
and man first muskie in the flying i'll take a little luck over skill any day
but it was it was everything i hoped it would be in more it was really really
(24:29):
an awesome way to catch a fish of that caliber.
And now we'll see if i can do it again so pretty excited about
that excellent well jeff now can you tell people where they can find you yeah
man appreciate that story yeah no it was it was an awesome weekend so yeah i
appreciate having you back on you guys can find me at muskie academy or at my
(24:49):
guide services wdh guide service the best way is check out the social media pages
if you guys are looking to up your game this season i i implore
you to come check out the muskie academy i report i tell
people exactly what i'm doing exactly what i think is going to work exactly
the success we've had on that weekly basis to get
folks where they need to be for the weekend and there's also you know
you're looking at you know pushing 30 hours of of continuous video
(25:11):
content that you can go and watch that's broken down by the time of season
the type of lake the type of bait what you to expect on
good days bad days there's literally a huge
huge huge amount of information there and it's all really well organized to
help you dial in for what you're looking at for that time of year in any given
circumstance and then the real-time reports are right there too so if you want
to up your game come join us come check it out we'll put more muskies in your
(25:34):
boat and if you're looking for gear for your next musky fishing fishing adventure,
make sure you check out TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.
That's all I got. Jeff, thanks again. I appreciate our listeners as well.
Thank you for tuning in for another episode this week, and we will be back with
a new episode again next week.
Music.
Music.
(00:07):
All right welcome to another episode of team rhino outdoors muskie fishing
podcast typically we're talking muskie gear but this
week we're going to actually talk about muskie fishing i'm sure we're
going to talk about some gear too that helped put some fish in the net for my
guest this week is the owner of muskie academy wdh guide service out of northern
wisconsin jeff vander mortal yes kind of odd right i just had him on backlash
(00:28):
podcast but the thing about backlash podcast is we don't ever go back and like
so we did a preview last week of what northern Northern Wisconsin was going to be like,
made some hypotheses about, is that right?
Is it hypotheses or hypothesize? Anyway. Hypotheses.
There you go. Anyways, so we, you know, we're talking about that and we don't
ever follow up, you know, we just are like, yeah, this is what we think is going to happen.
(00:51):
And now I'm like, well, I have this other podcast, you know,
we don't want back-to-back guests on Backlash. We're looking for new guests.
And this week we want to preview, you know, Minnesota Muskie Opener.
So I'm like, hey, Jeff, why don't you come on this podcast and let's talk about what happened.
So that's what we're up to this week. We're talking about what happened this
past weekend in northern Wisconsin, hopefully prepare you for,
you know, the upcoming weeks, I guess. Patterns probably hold for a little bit.
(01:14):
But if you're looking for any of the gear we talk about in this episode,
make sure you check out teamrhinooutdoors.com.
And, you know, if you're looking, if you like what Jeff brings to the table,
you know, maybe consider him for a guide trip, and that'd be WDH Guide Service.
And also check out the Muskie Academy, muskieacademy.com, I believe.
Right, Jeff, is that where we're looking at with the Muskie Academy? Yeah.
Yep, Mosky with a Y, academy.com, or social media, Instagram,
(01:37):
Facebook, Mosky Academy.
All right, so Jeff, let's dive into it. This podcast is much shorter than the other podcasts.
So we had Northern Wisconsin opener this past weekend.
It's, for anybody that cares, we're typically a little late on this podcast
now. I like to put them out on Monday, but today is Monday.
I figured, damn, let's put it out on Tuesday. How many people are going to be
listening to podcasts on the holiday?
(01:59):
But, you know, Saturday, the season opens, Jeff. Jeff, pretty heavy winds where I was.
And my wife tells me that it was nice, calm and everything back home.
Pretty heavy winds up in the Northwoods.
But that didn't seem like it stopped you. Let's talk a little bit about opening
day. How'd that go for you?
Opening day was spectacular. We had a good time.
(02:19):
Basically from start to about finish, opening day started off the morning.
So basically, I think we talked last week in the podcast.
Basically, my game plan was going to be start off early in the morning,
target some shallow manholes stuff around spawning areas
known spawning bays stuff of that nature really just looking
for some action get the net wet you know get out
the kinks make sure everything works you know just just kind of
(02:42):
get back in the in the groove right you got all season to chase fish
and we had some decent what looked like some decent big fish windows this
weekend so we're going to try to when those opportunities arose switch up
for some bigger fish try for a bigger bite and then when it was kind
of the off periods or the areas where it looked a little tougher kind
like the post-frontal situation saturday morning just kind of
see what we get for action we started off and did really well small jerk
(03:03):
baits were the bulk of the producers um it was
actually quite a mix mix in there but we ended up with six fish
in the morning there up to about almost they
were nothing really big they're all about 28 to 36 all in there nothing nothing
super huge but it was really fun i think we had two other bites that we didn't
get but we were also lucky that the bites we got stuck and they made it to the
(03:24):
net you know some of those days you go two or three fish you might have five
or six bites here we pretty much had six good bites and landed six fish.
And then like i said we had one or two other bites maybe three but
none of them were they were like on and got off of the net or anything like
that they were all just if they bit they bit and they stayed stuck and a couple
that we had that short short shot that got off was kind of whatever you know
but it was really good but the thing was is a really intense window we came
(03:47):
off a moon in the morning and and in small blades would have probably been a
really good option too and uh.
Maybe we had talked about that, but we just didn't have time.
What we were throwing was what we were throwing and we were having action.
So gliders were in the mix as well there, but the jerk baits seemed to be the key.
How was your start to the day? Did you make it out for opening day or I know
you fished a little this weekend.
(04:07):
Yeah, just a little bit, you know, but Jeff, since I hadn't had the boat out,
I got new, we, I literally flew down to Madison. My buddy, Kyle, you know, Kyle, he does.
Yes. Yes. He's with me at all the shows. We put some new electronics on my boat
and I will say, I'm like, yeah, I'm getting older. You know,
I should probably put a 15 on this little boat.
And I got to tell you, a 15 feels like overkill on that little boat.
You know, like if we're talking like little wiener syndrome,
(04:29):
all right. You know, I'm like, you know, it'd be like the guy with the jacked
up truck, right. Or whatever they say. Yeah.
Overcompensating with your screens. Yeah. I kind of feel that way a little bit,
you know, so 15 in the screen, definitely very big, but it's, it's very nice.
And so I, I played around with that stuff a little bit, dial in a few different
settings, you know, working on, on some stuff that way. And it's, so that part was good.
(04:52):
And then obviously, you know, we talk about it. It feels like,
you know, we're, we're overly talking about it, but like the pit bull is, it was new.
All right. And I've had a few people like, how come all the guides have them?
You know, they're not available yet to the public. And the reason the guides
have them is because we, the majority of the testing of this bait hasn't been done yet.
(05:13):
In, you know, we haven't put it in real life situations, you know,
we haven't really put it through its paces.
So we want to make sure that we had it out to a bunch of guides.
We want to put it through its paces.
And so I spent a bunch of time. I had, I don't know, six of them in my boat.
I spent a different time playing around with them, ripping them,
pulling them, you know, pole pausing them, doing the whole thing with them.
And I, I just spent more time doing that. And then I, I want to shoot a couple
(05:37):
of videos for some surface water or surface baits that we We have the new Decon
from Turtle River Tackle.
That's a cool new bait. Definitely like a more metallic sound.
And then we have the Big Mac coming from Livingston Lures.
And I had put out videos for those because people want to hear what they sound
like. So I played around for the most part, Jeff.
And then I finally got to do some fishing, but not as much as I wanted to do.
(06:00):
And that's pretty typical.
My daughter graduated this weekend, so I headed back home early on Sunday morning.
So I got some things accomplished, right? I got to play around with the pit bull.
And I mean, I guess I could say like it did what I anticipated it doing.
I didn't see anything outside the norm from, you know, the prototypes and like
early feedback on it was it got bit quite a few times this weekend.
(06:24):
You know, I had somebody that had it early and they're like,
oh man, your phone's going to blow up this weekend.
And I wouldn't say it like blew up, but there was definitely a lot of fish being caught on it.
I don't know. Is that self-fulfilling prophecy, Jeff? Like you can't catch them
on something that you're not throwing right so but the people we gave them to
obviously had interest and they also had we were one of them oh yeah we we crushed
(06:46):
on it we had to talk about those windows opening day.
Like i said we got like six for eight in the morning went back
grabbed some food went to another lake and headed out
to try to take advantage of that midday moon if anybody
you guys are listening like within the podcast last week we talked about a
little bit but in the muskie academy i put a super full report
in there detailing everything that i expect for the the upcoming weekend i had
(07:07):
said in that report that a midday moon on saturday was going to be probably
the best window of the weekend or you know definitely look like a strong possibility
some big fish and despite the fact
that we had some really good weather come through friday because friday friday is
always tough you know friday comes through and it's really good weather every
fish in the system was going nuts we had you know muskies were chasing
panfish we had you know caught walleyes we caught
(07:28):
crappies we caught bass we caught everything seemed to be on the chew on friday
the weather you know wasn't a surprise based on the weather saturday morning
a little bit more post frontal but the window for the afternoon was looking
really good especially after the day clouds stacked up and i
made an effort to go through all that pit bull because i want to make sure i'd thrown
it like i said with prototyping and testing months ago it looked
really good and i got mine from you and we went
(07:48):
three four five possibly six and we had five five really good hookups on it
and there was like another i think the sixth bite is what trashed it my first
one there was it's completely hamburgered and uh we caught some really nice
fish on it and lost a giant and that was midday on saturday again a tight window right around moon.
(08:09):
Yeah. And if, and during the, it was kind of cool because this weekend,
so we talked about the muskie Academy and the reports, I put up a weekly report
Friday night to kind of help people get ready for the weekend,
you know, put you on third base.
So when you get out there, use your brushes to find best you can to get out
there and catch as many fish as you can in your limited amount of time in the water.
So you're kind of starting, you know, start on third base. And we did,
I did start a group conversation inside of the private group on Facebook there
(08:30):
with all the muskie Academy members.
And there was a lot of people, you know, just kind of saying,
Hey, it's opener, you know, good, good luck today.
And if you guys want to post on here, see what, you know, I'll kind
of keep you guys in the loop if you want to post and see what you're seeing too
that'd be cool and it turned out really good we had a ton
of people posting there a lot of people caught some fish we had fish up to the I
think 46 or 47 was the biggest one posted
but it was kind of the same thing and I had made the post about it
(08:52):
you know the rubber bite heating up and switching over and all of a sudden it was
it seemed like that kind of followed suit with a lot of other
folks too so it's kind of neat to get that whether you know whether it was something they
were doing or whether it was something that was a result of you
know somebody else saying hey the rubber everybody's going right now it was
really neat to see it it all come together there so yeah once
very short though yeah the uh the pit bull produced as expected
and it gets two thumbs up for me it's
(09:14):
gonna crush and it already has well i don't want to make this all about that
bait where we have no sure and in the next month we'll talk about it enough
because we do anticipate releasing these hopefully within about a month i mean
because basically we needed to make sure that it ran right these were the very
first out of the production mold we need to make sure that right And then once
we found out that it ran right,
now we need to put in an order for them, which we only have 10 molds.
(09:37):
So, you know, 10, 10 baits doesn't get us real far.
And so that hopefully between me and Brad, cause it'll be available only through
Team Iron Outdoors or Musk Innovations.
And between me and Brad, we're both trying to get stocked up so that we can
have a official release date.
So we will get an official release date at some point. We just need to see how that plays out.
But, you know, Jeff, you were, you were talking about it. I mean,
(10:00):
we bill it as a bait that you can, that most anglers can throw, right?
Reg dogs. No, I thought, I thought, I thought it pulled perfectly.
I mean, a midsize or even a heavy rubber rod.
I mean, you don't necessarily want to throw it on a 10 foot double extra heavy
or something ridiculous like that.
But I mean, for those nice medium rods or, you know, medium heavier,
I mean, well, not medium heavy power, but like you're.
Extra heavy build extra heavy rating but
(10:22):
it's like your medium rubber rods i should say stuff that you're going to throw
a regular medusa on maybe a mid-sized tube maybe uh
maybe even up to a magnum bulldog boy it just absolutely
flawless i had mine rigged up on a eight foot four
extra heavy extra heavy fast which is the
ripper from kramer's that's the one i designed with
him for a long for a long time ago that's one of my i got the first
(10:43):
couple of them here and i've ordered a couple more since just so i
got enough for customers and everything and it's just perfectly perfectly
balanced for that and i think anybody who's you know
the existing rods that people have it's just god it just fits so nice
on there well it's good that you brought that up jeff because that's
one thing i noticed too is like so i think i think i was using mine
on my sling blade it's like an 86 st croix heavy
(11:04):
action rod i mean i wasn't i wasn't beefing anything up
on this rod and i i mean i i like i
said i don't think you need specialized gear if you're looking to get
out there it's gonna fit really nice it's gonna fit really nice
into everybody's it's gonna feel for really nice into everybody's arsenal
already because a lot of people already rigged to throw a magnum bulldog or
a regular medusa or a you know a mid medusa or
(11:24):
a regular bulldog or you know and every other rubber bait
in between there so i think like i said that way it is nice
that you don't need to go and oh if you're gonna go super magnum rubber change
up and get a gear specifically for that this is gonna work on pretty much every
rod there is within reason i agree so one thing i don't know that maybe you
noticed but it appeared as though there was definitely some life out deeper
(11:46):
than just shallow water.
I mean, when I was playing around with my electronics, I certainly noticed,
I'm assuming large schools of crappie or some sort of big fish out in the deeper water.
So for anglers looking to hit the water here this season, you know,
we talk about a lot, the fish are either shallow, deep or somewhere in between,
but fishing deeper water definitely is not out of the question.
(12:09):
No, this time of year, we talked about it last week too. You know,
everybody was kind of apprehensive, I think, about what to expect for this.
But quite frankly, it reminded me exactly of 2012 when we had that super early
ice out and things were, we were off to the races, big rubber bite right off the bat.
And that was kind of the prediction for this weekend. And it certainly.
I mean, it certainly came true.
You wouldn't be out there catching fish and catching fish that way if that bite didn't exist.
(12:32):
And a number of the folks in the Muskie Academy group in that same report or
well along that same suit,
several other guys and sent me pictures privately and commented into
that conversation just and i'm using that as an example because it's the
only real-time information i have season just opened 72 hours
ago or whatever so not even so it's like we just you
know there's not a lot of information out there right for how everybody did i
(12:52):
mean i've been able to check everybody's news feeds and all that so it's kind of.
That i had a direct line on and was commenting on as well
over the weekend but it's just one of those things where you kind of see how other people are
doing and i'm sure there's people that struggle i'm sure there's people that did well
across the board but the rubber bite was going right off the bat and
into that to that note fish that were deeper our biggest success
came on basically the the the deepest
(13:13):
edge of the weeds and off and the secondary break
off of areas adjacent to spawning base that was
definitely the pattern we found our two biggest bites of the day came
back to back my buddy lost one that was it was
a very big fish i'm not sure if it was i don't know if it was 47 i
don't know if it's 49 i don't know if you know what i mean but it was a really it was
a really big one and a really big for up north it was
(13:34):
a really big one and my next cast i landed
uh 43 so uh it was there was windows
definitely and like i said we had
those six bites on five or six bites on rubber all within about
an hour and a half and i was all big rubber and it's all in
those those areas where you found one you found more was also the thing
i would comment those ranges of where we caught those fish ranges you know anywhere
(13:55):
from 13 to 17 to like 24 to 28 feet on those breaks now some of that stuff is
pretty fast breaking where you're were fishing and then i'm speaking the places
where we found fish where we had the best success of rubber i'm sure there's
some fish caught shallow on rubber too but most of our stuff was on the.
Just off the primary onto the secondary but not quite to
the tertiary break i guess is what i would say so deeper
(14:16):
than normal yes yeah i mean yeah definitely it seemed like
there was lots lots of places to be finding fish
and it you know it appears as though there was
a mix mix of results right i mean you obviously had some you
know good results and there was many others out there that caught muskies this
year i mean it's great to be out you know slinging baits
it's great to see you know people putting fish in the net this early
(14:37):
in the season yes that's fantastic certainly we're off
to the races man it's going to be a great year yeah exactly and and i think
at this point you know you could probably shed some light on it like nothing's
off limits right as far as like you know you know you don't have to worry about
small small baits being the only thing in play you can pro i mean we're probably
talking more like early summer patterns.
(14:58):
Yeah, we talked about again last week, you know, you asked if those deeper clear
lakes were off limits. And I had said, absolutely not. I think those fish should
be right off to the races.
And to that point, we did. We fished everything from shallow stained,
pretty well stocked. Well, not well stocked, but the high natural reproduction
systems where there's good numbers of fish, good amount of molds available.
Which is, you know, when things are tougher, you expect it to be tougher. That's a great choice.
(15:20):
To some of the deepest, toughest water that I fish.
We actually fished a lake that fit that bill for sure. sister uh sisto lake
or the one of the fish we caught that 43 actually i didn't
notice it till after i was like god that's a thick fish you know
just a nice beefy good looking fish for the end of
may you know what i mean and after we'd released that fish i
noticed that there were eggs eggs on the rail from where i'd lifted her over
(15:41):
uh to take the picture and i kind of pulled her over the rail and took the picture
let her go and looking back and we were cleaning things up and get ready for
the next fish i saw that there were eggs kind of dribbled on the side of my
on the bottom of my boat and along my rail so that one still had some eggs in
it that was a pre-spawn i didn't i I did not inspect it close enough to,
you know, didn't really, but it felt like it could have probably had eggs in it, quite frankly.
And it was thick enough that it could have. It didn't look obese or freakish.
(16:03):
It wasn't something where you look at him, you go, oh, Jesus,
you know, what's that thing?
You know, but it was definitely a very, very healthy fish for opening day, certainly.
And there were still some eggs, whether that was pre-spawn fish or a fish that
had recently spawned with just a little dribble going on afterwards.
Could have been either, for sure.
So Jeff, you talk about 2012, like, do you remember how that played out?
Like the rest of the season, was it a, was it an Epic season or was it? Fantastic.
(16:25):
Yeah, it was Epic for sure. A lot of big fish were caught because the big fish
were going right off the bat.
I think back then, you know, I, I don't think there are too many people that
were throwing big rubber or any rubber on opening day in 2012 versus say now,
especially with the information that, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there, whether it be,
you know, a musky Academy or just a podcast or just,
just in general people's knowledge and talking because this
(16:49):
stuff has been talked about so much time and it's already 12 years ago which is
kind of crazy to think honestly but you know there was
a lot more people throwing rubber this weekend especially after a couple of those posts
went up and i think i'd posted when we caught that first one on the pit bull on the
on the on the instagram and facebook story or
whatever too and it seemed like you know right after that there was a
pretty good i had several messages sent saying oh
yeah man the rubber's going and sent me pictures of of rubber getting
(17:11):
bit and it seemed to kind of follow suit right then not that
that was necessarily what set it off just that other the people were having the same
results certainly yeah so but again
that that quick network of things like that i mean i guess quite
frankly if it was 2012 you know or in 2012 i wouldn't have told
my own brother what i was catching them on so it wouldn't have mattered i don't
even have a brother so it's tony rizzo the tony rizzo way right you know that
(17:35):
is that one's for steve yeah we didn't even tell our own brothers where we was
catching yeah exactly that's the one that steve that's exactly what you're thinking
is because i think that's exactly what i was I almost did the voice and I was
just thinking of Jensen.
I'm like, ah, we didn't even tell our own brothers where we was catching them.
I love it. But no, I was, like I said, I think so 2012, you had a quarterback that it turned out.
(17:57):
And like I said, I had one of my best days to this day on, on opening weekend.
I wrote my PB twice that one day, I'm in at six fish and nine, you know, and, uh.
From there on out it just seemed like it was just a great year the big thing
that you see in these years with this where they get to the spawn pretty quickly and we did see
it already this year the fish are just in much better shape their
body their quality their calories are healthier they're thicker they're
(18:19):
not stressed out as you know because when that spawning period gets prolonged it's really
hard on their bodies you just it's not that they doesn't necessarily kill them
or anything just you know if they can get in there get the act done they
don't have to burn up all the reserves and spend a lot of time in there and then
a cold front hits and then they got away and they're still kind of just not eating heavily
they're just thinking about spawning and they're and then finally they get
up there and they can do the deed get it done and then they you know and then finally get
back on the seed but you know now that's you know a week
(18:41):
or two or whatever stretched out that's a lot
harder on the fish than just hey eggs are ready water temps
are good pair up dump the dump dump the deposit
the eggs and you know go grumpy for
a couple days and pout and then start feeding and we're like
i said we're well that we're weeks past the spawn and some of these
systems already which is fantastic and some of the other ones like
(19:02):
i said we're at the tail end and there's certainly a few tail end
fish as there always are with any species hanging on and maybe up shallow or
for example maybe like that 43 caught with some eggs there but it's just those
these years tend to be some of the best especially when it's coupled with a
year where the weed growth is off to a good start uh which it is i would say
(19:22):
our weed growth appears at about.
30 to 50 percent on a lot of the lakes that are you know the more advanced ones
maybe even a touch higher on the far end of the spectrum and then the stuff that is,
you know, your real large, deep, clear, deeper, you know, deep relative to the
amount of surface area type lakes where the light penetration is not as robust
as it would be in something that's more spread out and shallow.
(19:44):
That growth's a little bit behind.
But it's certainly behind the other lakes, but it's certainly ahead of or on
schedule for this time of year.
So when that happens, the only thing that I ever see or foresee for these are
sometimes, I know, you know, we'll touch the hot button, but of the warm water, you know, discussion.
Discussion sometimes in these years if it ends up being a hot summer and
not so much up north up north we're pretty lucky to be
(20:07):
as far north as i am i'm based out of monaco here there's very few
days that we get if any in the summer where it's truly
like wow those these water temps are pretty
hot you know it's we don't get many of those and i'm not saying that you
couldn't go to something like the pike round chain where
it's you know 10 feet deep max depth a lot
of the lake if that or five foot average depth whatever it is and
(20:27):
coffee black water and go there on a
90 degree day and say see look at it's too hot like okay
i get that but like maybe on that day you go to something bigger deeper
and clearer if it's a hot day right i think it's common
sense prevails on that but we're lucky up north to not have that
but i know the guys don't self definitely struggle with it and these
years when you're off to the race it's kind of early you throw in some of
those big degree days there sometimes you do get a bit
(20:50):
of a warming trend that goes a little too far and stays a little too long and
sometimes that can be a bit of an annoyance let's put it that way i
guess but as far as what to expect that's really the
only hiccup that we get in these years is if it ends up being scorched over
summer and then it can throw a little wrench in the gears which the fish don't
necessarily love either right they get a little grumpy too when things get too
far past the norm but no i think it's gonna be an excellent season man i'm really
(21:12):
looking forward to it and we're you know we're off to the races already in my
boat we had i said 10 fish on opening day.
And in in another what do we have eight ten the next two days so they're it's good we're ready,
all right jeff well i appreciate you taking time out
of your schedule if people want to get in touch with you be
a wdh guide service or musky academy
(21:35):
how do they go about doing that oh hey i just i
wanted to talk about the last fish for the day i want we talked about the
fly fishing thing last week oh yeah you were asking
about that yeah yeah so yeah we i did
get one on the fly this weekend i got one on saturday night that's right i did
i you know what that was going to be one of my first questions and i totally
spaced on it yeah i just was about to i was about to sign off too and i was
(21:58):
like oh wait i gotta tell them yeah so you got it done on the fly and how was
how was that dude it was super cool.
So we went out we had a great day like i said we put nine fish in the boat we
had a really good day we bounced around got back I had I tried I practiced at
the end of the day I should say I practiced my fly rod during the day a little bit made probably about,
(22:21):
I don't know, maybe 20 casts or so. I just kind of got a feel for it.
I have fly fish before, not a ton or anything, but it was a great,
the rod was very well built and the reel balanced perfectly on it.
Everything made perfect sense.
I tried with the five foot leader to start. I found out quickly that I needed the three foot leader.
Nick Gellerstadt from Musky Fool had tied me up a couple of leaders along with the fly he made me.
(22:42):
I can't remember the name of the fly he made me, but it's the one I use. It's black.
It's got like some spun hair on the front of it there.
It does a little bit of a it's a little bit of a glider if you can call it
that but like the fly it's got a little hump to it when you pop it it kind of a
little back and forth motion a little walk the dog and a little up
and down it's a really neat little really looks awesome in the water but anyway
yeah so it was really cool i had the bail the rig was good it felt good
(23:04):
i was like i think i can do this and then we at the end of the
day hit a spot on the river that kind of first dark there
and so yeah i'm basically standing there on the edge of
the river making casts with a fly rod off and letting her in into the
current and maybe it wasn't too long cast maybe 20 25 foot casting
out and then running through and stripping it through the seam there
and i was just thinking to myself how cool it would be if one eight you
(23:24):
know i've got to stand there and basically the pitch black and uh
like well this is like it was kind of ballsy but it was open
enough that i could make the cast and do the thing and just i
was thinking that i was coming into the figure eight gave a little double tap
was right at my feet and it's only probably 10 inches of water right where that
was double tap there i could kind of see the wake from the from the fly and
i let it sit for a second or two and i gave another little double tap moved
(23:46):
it about a foot and let it sit i was just about to lift it up out of the water
and it came up and just there was like a four foot.
Boil around and an open mouth and i just got him you
know just set the hook and my buddy went and grabbed the net and the rest is
history we got him in but that was it was so cool it and that thing did it ram
me right out into the middle of the river and then i had to bounce down to get
(24:07):
to a little bit more open area to fight it it was basically really reminiscent
of some steelhead fishing stuff you know walking getting around trees hopping
down the rocks and getting to a,
little bit more open spot there because i was fishing i was fishing from shore at that time and,
and we got it in without incident it was up right in the corner of the mouth
and man first muskie in the flying i'll take a little luck over skill any day
but it was it was everything i hoped it would be in more it was really really
(24:29):
an awesome way to catch a fish of that caliber.
And now we'll see if i can do it again so pretty excited about
that excellent well jeff now can you tell people where they can find you yeah
man appreciate that story yeah no it was it was an awesome weekend so yeah i
appreciate having you back on you guys can find me at muskie academy or at my
(24:49):
guide services wdh guide service the best way is check out the social media pages
if you guys are looking to up your game this season i i implore
you to come check out the muskie academy i report i tell
people exactly what i'm doing exactly what i think is going to work exactly
the success we've had on that weekly basis to get
folks where they need to be for the weekend and there's also you know
you're looking at you know pushing 30 hours of of continuous video
(25:11):
content that you can go and watch that's broken down by the time of season
the type of lake the type of bait what you to expect on
good days bad days there's literally a huge
huge huge amount of information there and it's all really well organized to
help you dial in for what you're looking at for that time of year in any given
circumstance and then the real-time reports are right there too so if you want
to up your game come join us come check it out we'll put more muskies in your
(25:34):
boat and if you're looking for gear for your next musky fishing fishing adventure,
make sure you check out TeamRhinoOutdoors.com.
That's all I got. Jeff, thanks again. I appreciate our listeners as well.
Thank you for tuning in for another episode this week, and we will be back with
a new episode again next week.
Music.
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