5-27-04 - Launching the driftboat at Silver Lake.

Frank is all too eager to show off just some of his warmwater flies.

You can tell FAT is lookin' forward to some fishin!

Sunrise over Silver Lake.

Frank goes for the absolute best vantage point, opting to cast from the bow's stripping basket.

Targeting muskies means a 9 or 10 wt. with heavy flies!

We "motor" across Silver Lake to try the southern shore.

Man why doesn't this lake have TROUT? This caddis hatch would've been insane had any fish been feeding on them!

Frank's haulin' line all morning...next cast could be THE cast.

For most of the morning this was the only water traffic we had to contend with.

Mr. Brown is back at it, still tryin' for the big fish.

A reel's-eye-view of Frank laying out another cast.

5-27-04 - 2 Guides and a NEWB head out for MUSKIES!

Waters Fished: Silver Lake
Fish Caught: 0
Outing Date: 5-27-04
Weather: Clear early, front moved through around 7:45 AM
Air Temp: 60's
Water Temp: didn't take it
Water Level: HIGH
Water Color: stained, visibility a good 2-3 feet
Fish Species: Musky, Northern Pike & Largemouth Bass
Pattern Fished: Flying Bunny and others...
Pattern Color: We tried all sorts of stuff!
Fishing Quality: Slow

Whoo hoo..MUSKY on the fly baby! It's not to often I do this...well, actually....it's my first attempt. Rich Brown dropped me an email asking if I'd like to join him and Frank Nardomarino before work to try for these toothy critters. Rich regularly guides for Musky on-the-fly, Frank also happens to be a hardcore bass-on-the-fly guy who doesn't mind targeting Pike and Musky. So the odds were good that I'd get to at least see some action as both are arguably more experienced when it comes to warmwater gamefish on the fly.

Crashed at FAT's as always so I wouldn't miss the 4:00 AM wakeup call....BTW don't ever take a shower at FAT's. It goes from scalding............to scalding. Instead of a normal control I guess there's some delayed water pressure thing that controls the hot water! I'd turn it and 30 seconds later the flow would drop or raise, but the temperature stayed pretty much the same. What a wicked trick to play on MP at 4:30 AM...that shower took like 1/2 an hour...stick my arm in just enough to get it went, then back out..you get the picture. 4:45 AM Rich is yellin' through the door "Let's go HIPPIE!"

I was awake and my skin was lobster red....time to go fishin! We flew down to Silver Lake where Frank was already waiting for us. A quick launch of Fat's Hyde Driftboat and we were ready to pound the water!

We started heading west up the shoreline, trying to stay on the weedline and eventually heading up to a rocky flat....nothing panned out in the first hour.

Well, there was this one time when Rich was not paying attention to his line, just dangling in the water, when a BIG BOIL happened right where his lure was...he saw it and before he could do ANYTHING about it, whatever it was had already left.

So by 6:30 or so we opted to motor across the lake and try the opposite shore. Caddis were coming off everywhere in the shallows, but not so much as a bluegill was rising.

It was while working the south shore that we had some hope. I was casting and stripping, casting and stripping, casting and stripping (you see a pattern here) and as I brought my fly in close, I saw a dark shadow, almost more of a phantom, behind my fly. It just as quickly disappeared, leaving me to muse out loud "What the HELL was that?!"

"Follow" Rich and Frank both replied. I'm not so sure, but visibility was only a couple feet, could've been. Well next cast, it happened again. I go "this can't be another follow", I still think my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Rich however, had at least one confirmed follow. He describes it as a "log" following your fly. I can't say I saw any logs swimming around, just a dark spot in the water behind my fly. No fishy outline, just a dark shadow that would be there, and then not.

Well you can tell that this is going to be a day of photos; we motor back across the lake around 8:00 and opt to try the north shore again....this time I'm back at the oars, and with the help of the drift/wind sock I'm free to take tons of pictures, including the swan that was hanging around.

8:30 AM and it's time to pack up already....Frank pulls the driftsock and I slowly row in. Rich calls last cast...makes it, nothing happens, I guess that wasn't last cast.

As we're coming back into the launch through a channel, both Frank and Rich work the edges of the cattails. At this point Rich has some topwater bunny sculpin thing on, and as he twitches it in a nice Largemouth hits it...and gets off. We all muse that boating one fish "would've been nice" but hey, the water in the lake is up a good foot, clarity is down, we're still feelign the effects of last weekend's rain (and more is on the way).

They say Musky are the fish of 1000 casts...or is it 10,000. Well, I'm not sure any of us made it up to the 1000 cast mark this morning...let's hope the casts we put in count up in an aggregate running total! At least, with all the casting going on, I got some cool pics of people casting!

Till next time....

  MP