By Chris Erwin
Have you been waiting for the water to cool down? If you have, your wait is over!
My son Scott and I headed out for Cave Run Lake this past weekend. It took us most of Saturday to figure out what the fish were doing, but by Saturday evening we had a pattern that was working.
The bass were stretching our line with some regularly; however, it was the musky that would give us our biggest thrills of the weekend.
Everyone has their own method for finding fish, and I’m no exception. I started using three basic lures. Crankbaits, spinnerbaits and topwater baits, while these baits are only a starting point, I felt good about my odds of finding fish.
Scott and I started out looking for bass in areas where we knew shad would be, along with laydown trees. It took us a little time to refine the locations, but before long we were catching bass. As we would hit these places, we would take special care in casting the long laydown trees. We knew that if the musky had returned to the shallows, one could be lurking in the heavy cover provided by these trees.
Saturday evening, as we passed a big pine tree lying just inside a small pocket, I made a cast to the base of the tree about halfway down the tree. I seen a flash, and my bait pulled straight down doubling my rod down toward the water. I set the hook, and the water exploded. I yelled to Scott, “Musky on”!! He scrambled to get the net as the fish took to the air clearing her entire body. I could tell this was a small musky, but a real fighter. Another pass under the boat and in the net she went.
The fish was 34 inches. It took a minute to remove my hooks, but the musky was in good shape. As I went to release her, she buckled and blew out of my hands then swam off with no help needed.
The next day, it would be Scott’s turn. We were fishing the same pattern, with one exception. We tied on larger deep diving crankbaits. By this time, we had caught and released some 34 bass and we were shifting gears to try to get another musky to take our offering.
Scott made a cast to a pile of trees that had slid from the bank into a deep hole of water. He cranked the bait three or four turns of the reel, and the fish stopped his bait cold. He leaned back and set the hook hard. The musky blew out of the cover and shot across the water like it was launched from a cannon. No jumping for this fish. We could tell he was a lot larger than the fish I caught the day before.
Scott walked the fish all the way around the boat not reeling, just hanging on and trying to lead him to the boat.
I stood ready with the net. As the fish came to the top he buckled and headed down once again, but this time he came up right by the boat. I slipped the net under him and started to lift him in. To my surprise the fish jumped straight up and over the net. Scott looked at me like, “What’s that”!? I could tell he was getting concerned that the hooks were going to pull out. The second pass the fish slid into the net, and I lifted her in the boat.
A quick measure (he was 38 inches) and couple pictures, back in the water he went. This fish did take a few minutes to recover, but he swam off on his own.
Chris Erwin is the publisher and editor of Kentucky Angling News, an online magazine available at: www.KentuckyAngling.com/news.
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