Trip produces good times, but no muskies

LONGVILLE, MINN. - In the end, fishing is about seasons, and each season is segmented, one part from another. June, July and August are summer months. But to a fisherman, no two are the same. Days are longer or shorter, cooler or warmer, and fish respond to the differences. You really need to be on top of this information before you launch a boat or wade into a stream. The cadence of things is important.

I wanted to catch a muskie. My sons and I and various in-laws and outlaws were north of Brainerd last week fishing bass beneath blue skies, sometimes on top-water, other times flipping jigs under docks. Few ways exist to have more fun than this, and none are legal.

Still, it was August, and muskies were on my mind.

I have an old Montgomery Ward johnboat, and I opted to deploy it in search of a big fish. The boat is 14 feet long. On the stern hangs a 7 1/2-horsepower Johnson Sea Horse. The engine was manufactured in 1957 by America's finest and is identical to one my dad carried in the trunk of his Dodge years ago.

I invited a brother-in-law, Bob Netko of Salem, Ore., to tag along for muskies.

Bob took the news in stride about fishing from a johnboat, and we loaded into it three heavy rods and a suitcase-size box of baits. Also we added a baling can and a large sponge. We were an hour north of Crosslake before I realized I had forgotten a net, a sure sign, I figured, we would catch something, and probably something big.

"The absence of a net is a minor oversight that won't deter us," I said. "I have a fish glove and, if necessary, a pair of hook cutters."

I found the public launch site on Baby Lake, without benefit of a GPS or other electronic gizmo. Off-loading the boat beneath a nearly cloudless sky, we were enveloped immediately by an evening that was still and warm. I pulled on the old Johnson a half-dozen times, and amid the sweet aroma of combusted gasoline, it sputtered to life. I opened the throttle and the flat-bottom craft struggled for purchase.

The plan was to fish Baby until nearly sunset. Then we would wend along a very shallow waterway to adjacent Mann Lake, which has no public boat launch, squeezing beneath a narrow bridge as we made passage from one lake to the next.

The bridge, I knew from past trips, would be so low to the water that we might have to lie supine in the boat to avoid being pressed against its undercarriage.

"The last time I did this, bats flew from beneath he bridge into my face," I said.

• • •

Long shadows lay along the shoreline of Mann Lake when we emerged from the bridge underpass.

The water beneath the bridge was so shallow, Bob and I narrowly avoided having to step from the boat to push the craft from one lake to the other.

Two anglers casting heavy baits from a johnboat in the dark was not a good idea, I figured. So we would troll at speeds varying between 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 miles an hour, mostly over water 40 to 60 feet deep, a plan that had worked after dark previously.

Many muskie diehards, of course, would sooner take a jerk bait to the head than troll for these fish.

Fair enough.

But casting was not on the menu on this night, and anyway, there's something to be said for occasionally playing your fishing cards the way ol' Buck Perry played them, Perry being the original spoonplugger who believed in trolling often and trolling fast.

And holding tight to your rod, awaiting vicious strikes.

From the lure box, I selected a red and white Rapala similar in length to a child's forearm. Bob chose a Bagley of about the same dimension.

Intermittently along the shoreline, the yellowed windows of cabins large and small held fast against the dark.

Around us, the lake's mirrorlike surface reflected the gibbous moon that hung in the black sky like a spotlight.

On we trolled. And talked.

Bob mentioned how Oregon, where he has lived for many years, is pleasant enough.

But the fishing there doesn't compare to Minnesota's.

"We don't have the water Minnesota has," he said. "When I tell my friends back home about nights like this spent fishing on a lake, they will hardly believe it."

As Bob spoke, I wondered just how we would boat a fish without a net.

In the old days, muskie fishermen didn't worry about nets. They carried rods, reels, line and lures.

And pistols.

When a big muskie was alongside a boat, it was dispatched with a single shot, sometimes two if the fish was particularly troublesome.

The old Johnson occasionally missed a beat but pulled our baits smoothly and rapidly through the depths.

My lure ran about 20 feet down, Bob's a little less.

A few other boats were on the lake at sunset. But they angled toward shore as darkness fully engulfed the lake. Some carried muskie anglers who had spent the evening casting to weedlines and along breaks.

They boated no fish.

• • •

Eleven p.m. was fast approaching when we made a final pass, then another, before feeling our way through the darkness to the bridge underpass and beyond.

I had no spotlight to show the way, retro fishing as we were. But I foresaw no problem. I had been on these lakes before, as had Bob, and anyway, the moon was bright enough to tie flies by.

We caught no fish and had no strikes.

En route to the bridge, I strayed off course to starboard about 10 degrees and ran the boat softly aground. Stepping into the water from the stern, I guided us into the passageway and pushed the boat ahead before hopping aboard again.

In the shallows of Baby Lake, we picked our way among pencil reeds onto the larger body of water. Then we motored toward a farther bay, at the end of which was the landing.

A few cabins remained lit, but otherwise all was dark.

Now we were fully alone on the lake.

Up and down the shoreline, we fumbled for half an hour before acknowledging in amazement the landing wasn't where it was supposed to be.

"Maybe we should find a cabin with lights on and ask," I said. "Otherwise we could be here all night."

"OK."

Up the lake lay a cabin about 100 yards from shore. From a distance through a window, I could see the faint glow of a TV screen.

A kind man came to the door when I knocked. He had some years on him.

"The landing's in the next bay over," he said, adding: "Were you muskie fishing?"

"Yes," I said. I shook my head. "Nothing."

"All right, then," the man said, and returned to his cabin and TV.

We pushed off from his dock, and on this late August night, a good late-summer fishing night, we found the landing in the next bay over.

Dennis Anderson • danderson@startribune.com