I knew very little about Lake Namekogan, in fact, I first took a glance at a map on the Wednesday before the Championship, and that was of an old topo on the DNR website, but couldn’t really make out too many details considering I was looking at this map on my phone. I noticed two things immediately, it was big, like 2800 acre big, and there were spots everywhere, like everywhere. Islands, near-island weed edges, near-island weed edges closely associated with deep water, near-island weed edges closely associated with deep water that closely accompanied mid-lake humps and shallow running under water plateaus. But wait, that was only one of three pages to look at. There was more of the same on the map of the upper-lake as well, more mid-lake structure with islands and weed bars all over the place. And then, I noticed all the back-water options, two completely separate small lakes and several back bays with one specific bay that should be considered a different lake as well.
I live in Manitowish Waters, on Spider Lake. I have access to 11 different lakes, all with polarizing characteristics, I barely have to drive anywhere, I take my boat every morning to work, to restaurants, and sometimes when I need to, I take my boat to the grocery store. I live on the water. But more importantly, I look for muskies everyday, and my friends do the same.
My best day on the water had come the previous Saturday when a buddy took me to a small-water system where he had seen a super-tank around post-spawn time. He figured it was late enough in the fall already to cast for her. Within minutes we had a good 42ish work us on three different casts, flaring its gills, just behind on the figure eight for a good number of turns. Moved to the next spot, boom, a beaut 46.5 in the net. Moved to the next spot, boom, another fish. Had action from a couple more fish but mainly tried for that big girl my buddy saw earlier this year. I got blanked all week trying main lake structure on the chain, all spots that should produce some action, but not even a follow.
It’s now Thursday night, me and my brother are getting gear together to head over to Namekogan in the morning and I reveal to him the lure I have been saving all year for this tournament. He simply replies, “nice”. I didn’t even use it in the qualifier. Well, I used the same lure, just in a second-rate color pattern, and happened to have a fast double with it day one of that qualifier.
We find ourselves on the windblown shores of Lake Namekogan the day before the championship, trying to mark spots, getting intimate with underwater structure, GPS-ing weed edges, all while trying to decipher everything on a computer printout of the lake, clenching it closely to prevent it from blowing out of the boat. We drove around for about 3 hours and I knew Matty wanted to cast a little bit, but we still had to check out all the shallower back bays and with one back-water system in mind. We checked some back bays off the main lake and they looked good, perfect weed edges that could easily be fished slowly and effectively, but they were still too closely associated with the main lake; with the wind howling into them pushing baitfish up on the weed-edge, but yet I still wasn’t super confident.
We head into the back-water smaller lake system that should have its own name all-together. This system of water was completely locked off from the main lake save for a short narrow channel, and it had two basins. It was a relief seeking shelter from the 30 mpg gusts and the first basin looked promising and we marked two spots that we would fish during the tourney. But then as we eased into the second basin I noticed we were moseying through extremely shallow water to get there… the back basin was a totally different system all together, simply stagnant back water of good acreage, and as I crept up to the weed edge, I notice it’s a solid wall of weeds that breaks into immediate muck bottom. The weed edge was at 7.5 feet with the center of the basin reaching a max depth of 13. I turn to Matty, and see his anxiousness dissolve, and say ‘let’s cast this’. So we start chucking blades in hopes of moving a muskie; just one single muskie is all I needed to see for this spot to work. I move swiftly on the trolling motor and noticed excellent inside-out edges I can’t even keep up with, one second I’m on 5 ft weeds, the next, I’m in 9 ft muck. Sweet! –tons of pockets and inside-out turns.
There happened to be another tournament boat in there with similar ideas, I noticed one guy was working a bobby or a suick extremely fast. I split equal time watching them, looking at the graph, and checking my own bucktail for follows; but mainly watching them. I mentioned to Matty that it looked like they had their net out, and through the binocs, Matty confirmed it appeared they had just landed a 40 inch caliber fish.
What? It all made sense! If there are a bunch of muskies back here, they will be feeding at some point during the day, just like the weekend before when we got into a bunch of fish in a similar back-water system; and plus, they will be easy to locate and catch because it’s all shallow water with no wind. They won’t have a pouty attitude from the weather as much as their main-lake brethren, and perhaps most importantly, they have nowhere to go, they can’t seek deep water. Boom, we have our spot!
Ease-out time was set for 0630 and we were promptly in line as number 21, a lucky number some might say. The sun still hadn’t come up and the ease-out was slow and congested as 0630 hit. I drove through the judges and we received our two individualized fish tickets for the day. By the time we shut all the boat’s compartments and got our gear back in place for the drive up to our spot, it was already nearing 0640 before I punched the Mariner to full throttle. It was already breezy out, but the temperature was nice, and we made it to the south side of the pocket we were gonna work with a final 100 yard coast, somewhat trying to sneak in there, and somewhat not knowing exactly when I wanted to put on the breaks. Boom we start casting. The ease in to the spot ended up being perfect, enough time to get everything ready for casting, but not too short so as to waste our first casts.
Its calm back there, and dawn is enough upon us to see exactly what I was casting at – a perfect inside turn on a wall of thick weeds that barely broke the surface with one or two inch-long emerging weed-tips that were visible to cast at and marked the absolute outside turn. First cast, weeds. Second cast, still weeds. Third cast, too deep. Man this looks good! Fourth cast, good. Fifth cast, let it sink a bit… FISH!!!! The muskie was in the net in about 6 seconds and Matty gave me a look of disbelief, I relayed a couple eye-brow raises back to him sending a message that we should be able to get another one. It was a 40.5 at 0650.
After registering the fish, sharpening my hooks, and waiting 15 minutes until we could officially cast again, I circled back and was in position for the same casts I had just made, only started back slightly further so I could make every cast possible at the same spot I had just caught the first fish. I literally did the same exact thing on the second pass through, the boat is not moving, just picking apart the inside weed-edge; and BOOM, FISH!!! It was probably my seventh cast. We had a 39.25 incher in the bag at 0715.
We are done! Seriously? It’s not even physically possible to have a faster double than that. I look across the bay and the team that had caught the one pre-fishing the day before had a fish in the bag too. Wow, that one measured 40.25 inches. That back water bay was loaded with active 40-inchers. I had no idea what to think. Was there going to be a ton of fish caught today? Dang, I was nervous and I loved the fact that we doubled, but just not happy with the size of the double. I knew we were in good position but we needed a big fish on day two, at least.
We had all day to monkey around with gear and watch college football. After day one, there were 21 fish caught, and four teams had doubled, including us; with our double being the weakest. I thought that is was odd that the three boats that saw us double-up that morning didn’t catch a fish all day, and the fourth boat, the team that caught their’s immediately after we got our two, just upped out and left that entire area. No feeling aside, I thought that was the dumbest move I’ve ever seen in a tournament. How do you not keep fishing that area? Oh well. I guess I did know one thing after day one; there had to be tons more fish back in there and none of them got seriously fished for.
Day two ease out was a little swifter, but it was 15 degrees colder, my hands numbed up, in fact, my whole body was numbed up. I was nervous and not feeling good. Even though we got out of ease out a couple minutes quicker I took a wrong turn around a main lake island and honestly got lost for about 30 seconds. But, here we go, same approach to the spot; slow. I started a few casts down from where I had started the day before, absolutely picking apart this inside edge, barely moving the boat forward. As I approach the exact location from the day before, I almost wanted to throw up I was so anxious. As I’m dissecting this spot while using little flip-casts and working deep into the strike zone, I can’t stop shaking. One cast there, one cast out a little, one cast in a little, one cast in between those casts, with the boat virtually stationary. One cast even in between my last two casts, and…. FISH!!! A tank of a mid-forties inch fish comes out of the water and thrashes its head, mouth wide open. I bulldog her into the net so quickly I simply couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Fish #3, 45.5 inches at 650, the same time my first fish from the day before got clocked. Did that just happen? I knew we needed a fish like that on day two, but so early? Again? I didn’t even want to think about our chances for victory or anything, I couldn’t stand up. As we are waiting the final couple minutes before we could cast again I move out deeper and get back into position to hit the spot, I’m watching a different team try to fish that spot and thought to myself, wow, they have no idea how to catch fish; simply way too fast and too random of casts. It’s time to cast now and I lazily grab the hook sharpener, lazily sharpen my hooks, just sitting there… with my mind blown away.
So I do the same exact thing I did for the previous three fish, but this time, nothing. I circle the weed promontory and tell Matty to pick apart the back side as I notice ahead about a cast length that there is another inside turn on the weeds, but this one came out a little further and to my surprise I found myself on top of the tip, and as I’m getting ready to work the back side of that I tell Matty to keep pounding the pocket because I missed a little portion of it. Just then I’m about ready to go into my figure eight when in a matter of about one second, I noticed a swirl, I noticed tension on my rod-tip, I set the hook. Boom… FISH!!! A fatty 43 incher that didn’t want to go into the net immediately. The time was 0720, and we just doubled again. What? Seriously? It was so easy, it was so fast; I needed someone to pinch me. We barley fished. Matt looked and me and said, “What took so long that time, I was getting nervous”.
I can safely say I made fewer than 35 casts for the whole tournament, and it turned out we never even needed that last fish because no other team boated three fish for the tournament. We broke records for biggest quadruple, most inches, fastest double, second fasted double, biggest double, and cashed a check for 20 grand. Honestly, I’m more curious as to how many fish I would have ended up catching if I could’ve kept fishing. I think there are fish to be caught all over the place; but on that weekend, during the championship, I just had the upmost confidence in my lure, the upmost confidence in that spot, and upmost confidence in my ability. I’m not the type to brag, but simply grateful that everything came together at the right time.
