I didn’t want to hijack the “most memorable fish ever caught tread”…

Last weekend I caught my first yellow pike on my fly rod…8 wt, steel tippit, with a fly named “Drunk and Disorderly Deceiver”. As I was landing the fish, a muskie grabbed it…I battled both for about 20 minutes before he gave up my yellow pike. The yellow pike was 22 inches long and tasted great!

Once I gathered myself after the muskie encounter, I got back in my canoe and floated around a bend and hooked and landed a 40 inch muskie…my first muskie on the fly rod!

I was showing my friend the muskie video I took and he told me that a fish attacked a kid while he was swimming a couple days earlier just upstream from the section of river I fish! I’ll be thinking twice next time I want to cool off in the river!

I did another float yesterday afternoon and hooked another muskie on my fly rod! This one was 45 inches and took about 30 minute to land. Like the other muskie, the fish was released back into the river.

Two other “firsts” I’m trying to accomplish is catching a bowfin and a carp on my fly rod! Lots of carp behind my camp on the St. Lawrence but hard to catch with the fly rod.

Good luck fishing!

Dino

Great story and pics, you're hammering them!

I have to ask, your calling that walleye a yellow pike right?

Love the pic of the muskie with the walleye in it's mouth, amazing that it held on to it that long!

I like the pic of the smallmouth too, those things are a blast to catch, never caught one on fly gear though.

Those cuts don't look like what I thought a fish bite would look. Did they determine what kind of fish?
What fly did the carp eat?

I use "walleye" and "yellow pike" interchangeably ...my grandfather would always say yellow pike…guess it stuck with me. He would tell me stories of the blue pike that were fished to extinction (although I think there is a debate as to whether or not the yellow pike and blue pike are actually different species).

The carp I have been catching have been caught on a hair rig (using corn boiled in strawberry Jell-O as bait). No luck landing one with the fly rod…yet! I use various bead-head nymphs or small woolly buggers when fly fishing for them…ideally I would sight fish for them.

I believe the fish that fed on the kid swimming was a muskie. You can see the “dog-tooth” puncture marks near his wrist, and what appears to be some rips in the flesh on his forearm…which probably occurred when he tried pulling his arm out of the fish’s mouth. Pretty crazy!! I’m waiting to see Jeremy Wade!

It's always interesting to me to hear the local names for different species. Just don't get Boco started on this! He and I just had a discussion on the yellow and blue pike (walleye).

Modern genetic testing showed no difference in what was thought to be two separate species, they are both walleye. So your grandfather was right, the blue pike/walleye did go extinct in a way.

That's crazy about the kid getting bit.

That does look like a muskie bite on his arm to me and it had to of been a BIG muskie judging by the spacing of the tooth marks. Great photos too ...especially of the muskie grabbing the Walleye.

Dino,

I usually stay at the Cascade Inn with my father at least once every summer and fish down through to Chamberlin Corners. I have yet to catch any of the Muskie that my father talks about from when he fished the river with his father in the 50s. I keep trying every year though. He tells stories of seeing them swimming in the river when he was on his fathers shoulders when they crossed the river to the island by the college. That was long before the foot bridges. I keep toying with the idea of bringing the fly rod and your post may have made up my mind this year.

I'll be sure to be on the lookout when I decide to cool off in the River.

Good luck to you.

ADK

I catch carp regularly on flyrod using small flies or ants, works great when ol bugle mouth is slurping on top of water.