I’d committed to writing this article and aſter reading about the monsters
being caught off the coast of California I knew I couldn’t just spend a day filling a pail with panfry sunfish if it was going to be a good story. Te biggest, meanest fish I’d be able to find in my neck of the woods—the fish closest to Vic’s thresher shark—is the muskellunge. If you’re a serious muskie hunter you just call them ‘skies, as in, “Hey,
wanna go on a three-day whitewater kayak fishing trip in November down a class III–IV river hunting for ‘skies?” It was the perfect combination of all things you’d never consider doing. So much so that every man I baited with the idea was immediately hooked, and every wife of those men thought we were nuts. Good kayaking friends who had never mentioned fishing before came
out of their gear closets with Old Pal tackle boxes, dusty bamboo rods and reels spewing nests of 20-year-old line. And real fishermen, guys who would rather motor not paddle, like my dad who doesn’t kayak and can’t swim, also wanted to go on the trip.
• • • Big lure, big fish. M
ost pictures of kayak fishing are much like the picture of Vic Van Wie—with a shining sun and a guy in surf shorts with flip-flopped
feet dangling over the kayak in clear blue saltwater. Tis wasn’t the kayak fishing I knew. Te fishermen looked more worried about heat stroke than hypothermia; they were wearing sun hats, not tuques (woolly Canadian hats usually reserved for pond hockey and ice fishing). Kayak fishing above the 46th parallel in November was going to be
different. I’d never heard of anyone running class IV whitewater and fishing the sections between the rapids in fishing kayaks. Nor had anyone I knew considered doing a multi-day camping trip with sit-on-tops. But that’s what we had to do to fish the Petawawa River in Algonquin Provincial Park, a Canadian classic canoe tripping route and a famous muskie hunting ground. Besides, I’ve come to realize things that wives think are crazy usually make for a good fishing story.
• • •
I’ve come to realize things that wives think are crazy usually make for a good fishing story
Midnight snack. T
he fall is the time to hunt muskie. As the lakes and rivers around the Great Lakes cool, the muskies’ internal alarm goes off and they move
from their deep summer hangouts to shallow waters to chow down on whatever they can find to store reserves for the long, cold winter. As the water cools and the leaves change color during the latter part of September and early October, muskie lurk in one to two feet of water amid the lily pads and rushes, alongside logs and stumps. Research indicates that 35 to 50 degrees is the optimum water temperature (for feeding muskie, not sit- on-top kayak fishermen). Dangling your toes over the edge of your kayak looks very appealing in
photographs but doing so in muskie territory is not only chilly, but can be risky. Muskie grow up to 70 pounds and five feet long and sometimes eat mice, ducklings and muskrats; they’ve been known to order take-out that’s up to 45 percent of their own length and sometimes die trying—muskie have been found dead with their last meal lodged down their throats. Dan Droessler was dangling a leg over his canoe in Iowa County,
30 … KAYAK ANGLER summer/fall 2008
ILLUSTRATION: LORENZO DEL BIANCO
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