Giant Bugle-mouthed Salmon Caught

It was one of those special early autumn days when a person needs to go to water. A light breeze out of the south-west, not prohibitive to an angler, a gentle nuisance maybe, kissed across Little Green Lake. An algae bloom had taken the lake with a vengeance so the water visibility was no more than a foot, and likely not that. While the air was fresh, the algae still alive and prolific, was still enjoying its own day in the sun. The cloudiness of water kept the game fish, as near as we could tell, tucked away in the depth waiting out the  miserable .turbidity.

The fish simply could not see our lures no matter how well they were presented. Jeff thought by making a great din of surface noise, he might attract a fat bass but while his lure rocketed through the soup like a torpedo from a U Boat, not a single fish of prey took a moments notice. Dennis chucked a an array of plastics, including the always popular Wonder Worm, but in a moment of honestness admitted he only had one strike that I suspect, in my always suspicious way, was a submerged log put there to encourage naive fisherman. It was a sad day.

In an act of desperation, I decided to put on a rather large spoon, a bait that a self-proclaimed sophisticated fly-fisherman like me commonly views in disdain. It was attached to my bait caster with the 25 pound test line in an anticipation of catching the one musky in the large, but pea-soupy, but still pleasant lake. Knowing Big Green Lake has Lake Trout, I pondered with my always active imagination, wondering if just maybe there were Lakers here. I casually chucked the quarter pound glimmering chunk of metal outward in all directions but soon became distraught as Ann payed me no attention----- I was fishless and thought inept.

All that could be done was to head to the dock some half mile off, all the while trolling my flashy deep-diving spoon. I leisurely fiddle-farted around taking in the bird life and marveling at the aesthetic vistas, but also day dreaming of the glory days catching Dolly Vardens in the deep arctic.

Then it happened! A strike of unimaginable proportions, a strike not unlike a Blue Marlin, a strike that instantly placed me, the gallant fisherman, into the realm of The Old Man and the Sea.  Mostly Ann would have said, "Ya, old man for sure, but the sea?" The rod was nearly ripped from my hands as the monstrous fish ran the line almost to the point of smoking the reel. I held as Ann claimed I had just hooked one of those logs. "No, no," I screamed. "This is a fish, Look at it driving the line, It thrashing and diving. This thing is for real". "It is a Snapping turtle she said. "No, no. This thing is a fish. Has to be a Musky or a huge Northern. What else would take a big obnoxious spoon?" I was beside myself and wanted so badly to see the mighty white whale, I was searching for an appropriate metaphor, grabbing another harpoon, yelling at the crew. "Hold fast you louts!" My first mate only grabbed the camera thinking she wanted to see the log I was about to boat. Finally, n a brief moment of comprehension she too realized this was the big one. "He's running under the boat. Cast the line over. Your pole is going to break. Give him line." she barked from the fore deck.

The fight was on. I looked for sharks not wanting to suffer the fate of the Old Man in the Cuban sea. I didn't want to just be left with the bloodied head of a prize. Finally, Ann was totally convinced as a huge froth of water erupted 15 feet off. The swirl moved the water like the outlet of the Wisconsin River power plant  dam. Then the tail broke the surface, the six inch across tail, the red colored tail of a Musky. This was the real deal, the prize, a massive fish, a once-in-a-life time monster. It ran the the reel numerous times some times pulling 150 feet of line. It could almost not be stopped for the shear power of the beast. On surfacing the next time I could see the fish was foul hooked in the tail of all places. That is when it rolled over and there it was the full view, the massive full view of the single biggest fish I have ever caught. The scales where the size of a fifty cents piece and the fish was a rich golden color.

I was a giant Bugle-Mouthed Salmon the like of which I have never seen. a near record breaker. In a moment I got out the never-before-used net and as I brought the fish alone side after the 20 minute fight it was netted. It had a mouth big enough to swallow a baseball and glistened in the evening sun radiating the vicious monster it was. As the other fishermen approached in disbelief (I had told them it was a forty pound Musky) I slowly hoisted the brute aloft wanting to gloat for I knew they were indeed fishless.  Ann snapped a few shots of me all full of myself. Seeing the fish was not half eaten by sharks, would not show well mounted, and certainly from my own experience, not taste well---even if Antony Bordaine would have tried.  it was returned to the sea.

In an after thought, Ann made note of a film she had seen called the Sent of a Women, then made comment on how I was now covered with the sent of a Carp. It appeared this was not going to play well for any of my future plans for romance. Ya, did I care? 30-40 pounds of Salmon and now I was a real man.